Aelita

By Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Alexei (Author) Tolstoi

Book Overview

Alexei Tolstoy's Aelita was written in the 1920s and imagines the first breakneck human flight to Mars. The action starts in the Soviet Union after the Russian Civil War. The old engineer Los and his companion Gusev, a Red Army soldier and true Bolshevik firebrand, fly to Mars in a rickety, egg-shaped craft. There they encounter an ancient civilisation, which actually originated on the long-lost continent of Atlantis on Earth.

While Los is attracted to the privileged and progressive upper class of Mars and begins a passionate romance with Aelita, the daughter of the totalitarian ruler, Gusev tries incessantly to spread Communist ideas among the poorer inhabitants. Eventually, a violent revolution breaks out.

Partly inspired by Theosophist Helena Blavatsky's esoteric doctrine of ancient root races, this novel is both a rip-roaring adventure tale and a philosophical treatise on death, loss and the prospect of immortality. According to the latter, the true world is a movement of the mind, which merely manifests itself in the visible world through human beings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8367583302
• ISBN13: 9788367583305
• Release Date: January 2023
• Publisher: Legend Books Sp. Z O.O.
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Sci-fi Russian style

This is the son of the famous Leo Tolstoy (War & Peace, Anna Karenina etc.) making his own bid for fame with what is claimed to be the first Russian sci-fi novel. This makes it a bit of a collector's item in itself, though the story is good, well written and illustrated, though the style may be a little alien (forgive the pun) to those not familiar with Russian prose.