Line #37 Literature/TheVoyageOfAlice


1	''The Voyage of Alice'' (Russian: Путешествие Алисы) is a 1974 children's sci-fi novella by Creator/KirBulychev. It is one of his most recognizable works about Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture, the FountainOfMemes [[Animation/TheMysteryOfTheThirdPlanet adaptation]] certainly helping things. It is also the first one to feature many prominent characters and locations.
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3	Professor Seleznyov goes on an expedition to collect new animals for his zoo, taking Alice with him. They get accidentally caught in a mysterious conspiracy involving the heroic team of the Three Captains (only one of which is now confirmed to be alive) and the govorun, a talking bird that used to belong to the Second Captain.
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5	!! The book contains examples of:
6	* AllNaturalGemPolish: The diamond turtle's shell is made of cut and polished gemstones. [[spoiler:It may, of course, have something to do with the fact this specimen is a robot, but, according to Professor Seleznyov, diamond turtles really are like this]].
7	* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The inhabitants of Sheshineru are green-skinned humanoids.
8	* AnimatedAdaptation: Was turned into ''Animation/TheMysteryOfTheThirdPlanet'' in 1981.
9	* AscendedExtra: Poloskov and Zelyony, having briefly appeared in ''The Girl To Whom Nothing Will Happen'', become the fleshed-out characters everyone would love from this book onward.
10	* BizarreAlienBiology: Tons of examples among sentient and non-sentient life forms.
11	** Gromozeka has clawed tentacles, three legs, eight eyes, a trunk, and three hearts (one of the hearts, and he can't tell which one, is badly affected by valerian).
12	** The bushes from Aldebaran's eighth planet sing whenever a sandstorm is coming and are able to move in search for water.
13	** Govoruns are two-beaked birds who can survive in space and fly between planets.
14	* BoringReturnJourney: The voyage from Moon to Medusa takes almost the entire novella. The voyage back takes several small paragraphs.
15	* BreakoutVillain: This novella introduces Rat and Jolly U, who would go on to be the BigBadDuumvirate for many more books to come. It clearly wasn't planned initially by the author, since by the end of the book [[spoiler:Rat is captured and awaiting justice and Jolly U is ''dead'']].
16	* CharacterNarrator: Professor Seleznyov narrates the story (with a single exception, a chapter in third person describing events Seleznyov doesn't witness and only learns about afterwards).
17	* CharacterizationMarchesOn: The space pirates are different even compared to their next appearance in ''Literature/OneHundredYearsAhead''.
18	** With the attempted ''genocide'' of two planets (Bluk and Shelezyaka), they are a lot crueler in the novella than in any of their later appearances.
19	** Their behavior implies that Jolly U is the smarter leader and mastermind and Rat the dumber second-in-command. In the following books, it quickly changed in favor of the traditional FatAndSkinny dynamic.
20	** Jolly U easily spouts philately trivia. That's the only time in the franchise he shows any expertise at anything beyond piracy.
21	* ConfrontingYourImposter: [[spoiler:Rat in Verkhovtsev's guise]] is literally unmasked by none other than [[spoiler:Verkhovtsev himself]].
22	* CoolStarship: The Second Captain's ''Blue Seagull'' has amazingly strong engines and is made of diamond alloy, whatever that is, that renders her invincible to any potential intruders. She is also very beautiful, painted in blue and silver colors.
23	* DeliberatelyCuteChild: Alice when she visits Arcturus Minor. The scouts on the station miss little children so much she decides to oblige them and behaves way more childishly than usually.
24	* TheEeyore: Zelyony. His catchphrases are "This won't end well" and "I warned you".
25	* EvilDetectingDog: The govorun and the indicator don't trust [[spoiler:the diamond turtle]] in the slightest.
26	* FantasticDrug: The time travel pills of Sheshineru.
27	* FantasticFlora: The Third Planet is full of it. There are mirror flowers ([[spoiler:or rather, filming flowers]]), gossiping flowers, fighting flowers, flowers growing in the air, and dozens of others.
28	* TheFellowshipHasEnded: Four years before the plot begins, the three captains go their separate ways.
29	* FrameUp: It turns out [[spoiler:Dr. Verkhovtsev]] is entirely innocent.
30	* FriendToAllLivingThings: Alice gets on wonderfully with all the animals in the collection, from the govorun to the robotic beasts from Shelezyaka.
31	* GenocideSurvivor: The villains attempt to kill a particular bird by exterminating its entire species. The bird they are after seems to be the only survivor.
32	* HeroicSuicide: [[spoiler:The Second Captain]], barely holding on after [[spoiler:four years of imprisonment]], decides that, if help doesn't come in time, he'll blow up himself and his ship to ensure [[spoiler:the pirates never get the fuel formula]].
33	* JustFollowingOrders: Jolly U tries to assure everyone he was just an UnwittingPawn in Rat's hands. Nobody believes it.
34	* KickTheDog: Jolly U trips up the indicator when the latter tries to help the govorun.
35	* LateArrivalSpoiler: There is a reason why this book is recommended as one of the first to be read in the ''Alice'' cycle. If you have read the later books, such as ''Literature/OneHundredYearsAhead'' or ''Literature/AMillionAdventures'', [[spoiler:it will hardly take you long to figure out why Dr. Verkhovtsev takes turns being NotHimself]].
36	* MarriedToTheJob: Played with concerning Vsevolod and Ella's marriage. Vsevolod is working on changing the orbit of Venus while Ella is chasing exotic animals through the galaxy. In the end, they resolve it as he goes on a new voyage into the outer space and she says she'll accompany him because she doesn't want to be separated from him for a long time again.
37	* MechanicalAnimals: Robots from Shelezyaka build robotic animals to make their planet look more natural. They give several of these to Alice and her father, and it's mentioned that the animals take a liking to Alice (her father sees her cuddling a mechanical cat).
38	* PlanetaryRelocation: Project Venus, a venture to move Venus farther from the Sun and make it habitable. In the ending, one of the characters mentions that the project is almost completed, but it's never brought up again in the other books of the franchise, so it remains unknown whether it really was a success and what the exact results were.
39	* RewatchBonus: When Seleznyov meets Dr. Verkhovtsev on Bluk, he notes, among other things, that the latter seems to be even thinner than he remembers him. [[spoiler:You realize the significance of it when you know it's not the same Dr. Verkhovtsev from the Three Captains' Museum]].
40	* RuleOfThree:
41	** There are three heroic captains.
42	** The Medusa System has three planets, of which the third is the most interesting one.
43	* SpannerInTheWorks: The president of Fiks goes to visit Dr. Verkhovtsev right when [[spoiler:Rat in Verkhovtsev’s disguise attacks a Fiksian ship]]. This is the only reason Dr. Verkhovtsev isn’t [[spoiler:accused of space piracy]].
44	* SustainedMisunderstanding: Due to a mix of PoorCommunicationKills, coincidences and a frameup plot, [[spoiler:Dr. Verkhovtsev and the ''Pegasus'' crew]] suspect each other of being in a criminal conspiracy.
45	* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The villains need to silence one govorun bird. Their solution? To kill each and every govorun on Bluk they can find, and then to try to destroy the planet's atmosphere. The latter is not just monstrous but useless, since govoruns are able to survive without air. Not to mention that the bird they actually target escapes the massacre.
46	* WackyWaysideTribe: Entire planets of them. Aldebaran's eighth planet, the Empty Planet and Sheshineru have nothing to do with the main plot whatsoever (except being first brought up by Dr. Verkhovtsev). To a lesser extent, Arcturus Minor – the scouts from its base do provide a clue related to the Three Captains, but it's not crucial. There is a reason all of this got AdaptedOut from the movie.

Context Literature / TheVoyageOfAlice