The Bull's Hour is a social science fiction novel written by Soviet author and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov in 1968. Six months after its publication in book form in 1970 Soviet authorities attempted to remove it from libraries and bookshops after realizing that it contained a sharp criticism of the current state of affairs in the USSR disguised as a critique of "Capitalism" and Chinese-style communism of that time. It was published again in the 1980s "perestrojka" and thereafter. This novel is considered a sequel to the 1957 novel Andromeda, taking place in the same universe some century or more later. Even though the cast of characters is entirely different, an occasional reference is made to the events and characters of the previous volume. For example, the main character in The Bull's Hour is a female historian who on one occasion remembers most of the notable Andromeda characters as historical figures.
Plot summary
The plot is of the "story within a story" format. The actual story is told as an answer to a question asked at school at a lesson about the patterns of the development of societies. The story goes as follows. After the story of Tormance was told, it was clarified that the contact with the Earth people had eventually helped to overcome the crisis; some 130 years after the Earth received a message from Tormancians, and a starship from one of the Earth colonies was about to be sent to Tormance.
Main concepts
Inferno, the Nature and Nature's way of death and suffering at the basis of life and development. Main measure of societal infernality is how much efforts are the individuals forced to spend "for nothing", without contributing to their well-being. The main achievement of Humanity in the novel is that it overcame the Inferno through arduous journey finally achieving "free and rational life for everyone".
Ahriman's arrow, the apparent selection and forces in the infernal societies directed against their best and brightest and most good-willing.
Communist moneyless Earth society, self-organizing through interactions of free highly morally developed responsible individuals, with collective child-rearing, direct planet-wide voting and discussions on every issue, and High Councils coordinating people's efforts each in its area of expertise.
Protective societal systems, targeted at preventing the lowly infernal parts of human psyche to resurface and break the finely tuned societal order of Communist Earth.
The Great Ring of Civilizations communicating with each other by sending radio signals through space each to its closest neighbor, enduring the delays as determined by the laws of physics, exchanging ideas and information about each other's culture, history and values. The sending of the signal is described as taking an enormous amount of energy, on planetary scale, in order to reach even the closest neighboring civilization in the Ring.
The cardinal law of the Great Ring whereas any interference in a state's internal affairs is forbidden unless that civilization is impeding free access to the full, unaltered, non-filtered and non-distorted information for all and any of its subjects – in which case such a state is said to have no right to exist and the interference by the Great Ring is demanded to free its people and ensure their Right to Know and Right to Think:
It is hinted that a devastating world war has occurred between the eras of Disjoint World and World Reunion, nearly wiping out the Humanity. And prior to it there was a period of great ecological degradation and pollution resulting in widespread diseases, genetic and otherwise, increase in cancer rates and planet-wide epidemics.
The novel was first published in 1968 in the Soviet popular science magazineTekhnika Molodezhi. The second publication was in 1969, in magazine Molodaya Gvardiya. Book editions:
After breakup of the USSR, there were more publications of the book. The novel was translated to Hungarian, Czech, French, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Polish languages
