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The Heart of the Serpent

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Translator
  
Roza Prokofieva

Series
  
The Great Circle

Originally published
  
1958

Genre
  
Science Fiction

Followed by
  
3.9/5
Goodreads

Language
  
Publication date
  
1958

Author
  
Ivan Efremov

Country
  
Soviet Union

The Heart of the Serpent t0gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcT8ZSWbM3W0IGieCQ

Original title
  
Cor SerpentisСердце Змеи

Publisher
  
Foreign Languages (1st edition)Collier Books (1st U.S. edition)

Preceded by
  
Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale

Similar
  
Ivan Efremov books, Science Fiction books

"The Heart of the Serpent" (originally in Latin: Cor Serpentis, Russian: Сердце Змеи) is a 1958 science fiction short story by the Soviet writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov.

The crew of a spaceship encounters an alien ship in deep space. Speculation ensues about whether the other crew might be hostile. Comparisons are made to American SF writer Murray Leinster's story "First Contact", in which an elaborate protocol is developed to prevent the aliens from following the Terrans home and destroying them, or vice versa. The premise of Leinster's story is debunked, in part by pointing out that in order for a planet's civilization to become space-faring, they would need to be at peace among themselves and presumably have organized themselves into a planet-wide classless communist society, a point Yefremov had made earlier in his novel Andromeda. Thus the aliens must necessarily be peaceful.

This story takes place within the rubric of Yefremov's Great Circle, a confederation of galactic civilizations that can communicate at faster-than-light speeds, and which also appears in the Andromeda Nebula.

Influences

The Hungarian space rock band Solaris has a track named after the story on their album 1990.

References

The Heart of the Serpent Wikipedia


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