The Bull's Hour


The Hour of the Bull 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 Hour of the Bull 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 in school at a lesson about the patterns of the development of societies. The story goes as follows.
After the story of Tormance has been told in the classroom it was clarified by the teacher that the contact with the Earth people had eventually indeed helped the people of Tormance to achieve Freedom. Now, some 130 years after the events, the Earth had just received a message from the Tormancians, and a starship from one of Earth colonies was being prepared 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:

Eras of human history

Spanning approximately three thousand years from the 20th century to the present time of the novel, these are:
  • The Era of Disjoint World
  • The Era of World Reunion
  • The Era of Common Labor
  • The Era of the Great Ring
  • The Era of Meeting Hands
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.

Main characters

Starship ''Dark Flame'' crew

  • Fay Rodis, expedition commander, historian
  • Grif Rift, annihilation drive engineer, starship commander
  • Vir Norin, astronavigator-I
  • Menta Cor, astronavigator-II
  • Div Simbel, pilot-engineer
  • Gan Atal, armour belt defence engineer
  • Nei Holly, biological defence engineer
  • Sol Sain, computational devices engineer
  • Olla Dez, communication and photography officer
  • Evisa Tanet, medical officer, StarFleet Doctor
  • Tivisa Henako, biologist
  • Chedi Daan, sociologist, linguist
  • Tor Lik, astrophysicist, planetologist

Planet Tormance characters

  • Choyo Chagas, Chairman of the Big Four, the ruler of the Planet
  • Gen Shi, Zet Ug, Ka Loof, his deputies, other members of the Big Four
  • Yantreh Yahhahh, his wife
  • Er Vo-Bia, his girlfriend
  • Honte'ello Tollo Fraelle, his communications officer
  • Yan Gao-Yuar, commander of "the lilac"
  • Su An-Te, Tormance girl
  • Kzer Boo-Yam, "leader of the KJI"

Publications and translations

The novel was first published in 1968 in the Soviet popular science magazine Tekhnika Molodezhi. The second publication was in 1969, in magazine Molodaya Gvardiya.
Book editions:
  • 1970, publisher "Molodaya Gvardiya", 200000 copies
  • 1988, publisher "MPI", 135000 copies
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