About this audiobook
The engineer Los builds a craft capable of carrying him to Mars, and Gusev joins the expedition. Their journey leads to a society whose unfamiliar circumstances reveal recognisable struggles over power and collective life. Los's encounter with Aelita gives the exploration a personal significance that cannot be separated from the political tensions around them.
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy combines the excitement of interplanetary travel with contrasting responses to a new world. The companions' differing temperaments influence what they notice and what they wish to do. Curiosity, affection and the impulse to act become intertwined, making observation an increasingly difficult position to maintain.
The novel explores longing, responsibility and the distance between imagining another world and participating in its conflicts. Its Mars belongs to speculative fiction, inviting readers to follow an adventurous narrative while considering which hopes and assumptions travellers carry with them even when they seem to have left familiar life far behind.
