One Hundred and Two Parsecs from the Sun

A brilliant example of Soviet science fiction from the 1960s. On a ship flying at a speed a thousand times faster than light, the cosmonauts reminisce to the crackle of a film projector. Oncoming aliens, though capable of breathing fluorine, are quite human-like—yet after a brief friendly meeting, they don’t even leave a mobile number…

As for content, today the play is hardly likely to interest even younger schoolchildren, but the kind-hearted illusions about social progress, interplanetary brotherhood as performed by inspired Yuri Puzharyov, Vitaly Solomin, Roman Tkachuk, will surely warm the uncrisp hearts of fifty-somethings.

It’s a bit awkward to list Irina Malets as an author, leaving Ivan Efremov in the “supporting role.”