Andromeda A Space-age Tale (Hardcover, Ivan Yefremov)

Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale is a science fiction novel by the Soviet writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov, written in 1955–1956 and published in 1957. It was translated into English as Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by George Hanna. The novel predicted some future inventions (borazon, space probe, powered exoskeleton, and ion thruster). It was made into a film in 1967, The Andromeda Nebula. In the novel, several civilizations across our galaxy, including Earth, are united in the Great Circle, whose members exchange and relay scientific and cultural information. Notably, faster-than-light travel or communication does not exist in the time portrayed in the book, and one of the minor plot lines examines a failed attempt to overcome this limitation. The radio transmissions around the Great Circle are pictured as requiring a tremendous amount of energy and are thus infrequent.