Андрей Демидов - Natotevaal. War Chronicle

• Название: Natotevaal. War Chronicle
• Автор: Андрей Демидов
• Жанр: Научная Фантастика

This novel, written over ten years ago, not only did not lose its sharpness and relevance, but, on the contrary, is intended to be a significant milestone for all intelligent readers. For all those who are still interested in secrets of space and the dual and contradictory role of scientific progress in modern society, and feelings of the characters who undergo the hardest tests of courage, devotion to duty and humanity. Moreover, the novel "Chronicle of Natotevaal" has the potential to become a cult product for fans of science fiction – it is imbued with romance of heroism, great sense of humor and it is literally impossible to break away from reading it. But, nevertheless, the novel is anything but entertaining light reading: the author raises complex issues of science, politics, philosophy and moral before his heroes and the readers. In the tradition of the best works of fiction of the 20th century, Andrey Demidov reveals the unknown in his novel, something that might either happen tomorrow or will never happen at all. The author clearly highlights the difficulty of the way to complex, unknown future – it is a long and difficult path, with mistakes and defeats on the way; and the victory will not be easy, but endured, with a promise of new ways and new challenges. To many of the questions posed by Andrey Demidov in the novel "Chronicle of Natotevaal" humanity does not yet have sufficiently complete and convincing answers. Humanity will search for these answers as long as it exists; it is obliged to, if we want to go forward, not blindly. Searching through fiction in particular, and the book you now hold in your hands will become a reliable, but demanding assistant, and possibly – your spiritual guide to a modern, distorted world. Because “imagination – is just a part, although a significant one of what usually denotes reality. Ultimately, it is unknown to which of the two genres – reality or fiction our world belongs”.

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Finally, we could also mention the ability of fiction to act as an emphasized workaround, as a form of Aesop's language, which allows to disguise ideological and political journalistic statements for works of art avoiding censure, if such products in fact, do not belong to the fiction itself in a quite indirect way.

The discursive aspect of fiction is primarily associated with the means of its realization and perception.

The main question is what conditions and assumptions are necessary for the existence of fiction as purely fantastical, not accepted as a brazen lie, that is, or an attempt to mislead or a story about reality.

After all, fiction is also expressed with initially limited means (ordinary language – minimally modified, or built up); the fact that these means are certainly excessive (realities, concepts, constructs, concepts…); on the one hand, fiction works are unlike purely formal search experiments of avant-garde and modernism, and on the other hand, from the popular science literature, support the delicate balance of subtle contrasts of the usual and unusual, explicable and wonderful, traditional and new, natural and artificial…

For example, the metaphorical transfer is often used inversely, if the standard step is to compare technical progress with natural or magical, the device of reverse provides a unique effect.

Thus fiction forms, constantly reproduces and maintains a special horizon of expectation in the space of the absence of the true/false opposition, in other words, creates new evidence with the help of the self-extracting code and its reader, who has a taste for such a recoding and other similar intellectual procedures.

The subject-indicating focus of language means is transformed by the means of fiction discourse in the functioning process into subject-projecting, the goal of which is to reveal the unprecedented.

Thus, science fiction acts as discursively embodied means of literature and/or visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpture, movie…) as something given, represented, described, but nonexistent, but real and materialized at the same time – unlike, abstract art for instance.

The peculiarity of the fictional in this sense is mostly defined by separation from the rest and self-restraint, by the act of mental balancing in testing the different types of discourse.

The most widely open and extremely pointed (though, again, not to a radical break) fiction discourse becomes the generative source for filling the gaps in lacunae, detected in the accepted discourse or the worldview.

Fiction is attractive due to its invincible variety; it opens new conceptual space and carries away to an amazing, wonderful, mysterious, unknown, unusual, supernatural and going beyond the limits.

Like a mental experiment in physics (Maxwell's demon, Schr;dinger's cat, Einstein’s elevator) fantasy provokes construction of unexpected concepts in other sciences, including a collection of imaginary constructs that have numerous applications – the imaginary logic of Vasilyev, the unspeakable communities and imaginary social institutions.

But this goes far beyond science, of course, – Tolkien's epic "The Lord of the Rings" for example, could easily be interpreted as a full-fledged version of a modern esoteric doctrine.

At the attempts to locate science fiction into a tight conceptual grid it often happens that all the definitions fade and moreover blur the stereotypical schemes of perception and thought.

Science fiction fans are well aware of the harm which "science-fiction mass consumption products" do to this genre.

Heroes there are substituted with schemes (even super-schemes), supermen with crystal-clear and empty soul.

With stagy ease these "heroes" use their abilities in time and space, unlimited even by common sense.

Cinematography did not go far beyond from the publishers in this sense, making new "supermen" and new "star massacres" rich with dynamics which are made at a really fantastic technical level.

Therefore, the appearance of such work as a novel by Andrey Demidov "The Natotevaal Recruits" should become a significant, and even iconic event not only in the paradigm of fiction, but of the literary process in general.

Why are we talking about literature in general in this case?

Because literature is always a non-fictional (and sometimes distorted) reflection of the present.

But can we say that works of fiction genre reflect the future?

No, we cannot.

The present is refracted and repeated in a special form in them.

The future – is just a prism through which science fiction writer considers his time, his contemporaries. However, this prism still allows the readers to see features of future in the present.

That is why we can confidently say that fiction helps a person in a world, that is changing with tremendous speed, especially nowadays, when the rate of change has dramatically increased, and all these changes can be both beneficial as well as threatening to the mankind.

Fiction, that describes possible changes, prepares a person for a real change and helps either to adjust to it or to change oneself.

But are these changes of human nature really needed and are they possible?

We live in a world, predicted by science fiction writers decades ago.

Andrey Demidov’s protagonists live in a world, the suppositions of which we are making today, the premises of which we can see even now.

It is a world in which the most formidable predictions of science fiction writers and futurists have come true.

A world, in which nuclear weapons have been brought into play, killing millions of people and a world, where the survivors envy the dead.

This is a world where Christian and Muslim civilizations meet in a deadly combat, a world in which tolerance and liberalism have been completely refuted.

This is the world where the danger of physical, intellectual and moral degradation of the mankind as a whole – is an obvious fact, the everyday reality of life.

Essentially, it is a world without a future.

Andrey Demidov’s heroes do not even get a chance to think about the future.

They have other problems to deal with.

Their past is war, their present is war, and their future – mysterious, enigmatic and unknown – will most likely result in war.

War – is the occupation of the novel's characters.

They are fighting for their race, their land, their families, but by chance they will have to take part in battles of a totally different level.

In childhood, joyfully shooting the space fleet of "the evil empire" on cheap game consoles, the novel's characters naively believed that monstrous plans of "Star Wars" would be carried out somewhere far away from Earth and certainly never dreamed of being at the forefront of these space wars, but soon… In a while they are going to find themselves taking part in a totally different war:

“Getting out from a pile of floppy disks and coils of a collapsed rack of the archive, Whitehouse was anxiously listening to the established silence.

The emitter of «Das Rhein» was quiet.

Mackliff was pottering about nearby, "Yes, it has been a long time I was hit in the face like that…"– he said, letting trickles of blood pour into the weightlessness down his smashed nose.

The speaker of internal communication rustled again:

– ‘Das Rhein’ calls up ‘Independence’, ‘Das Rhein’ calls up ‘Independence’.

Raumwaffe Colonel Manfred von Conrad speaking…As a result of penetration of a cumulative rocket, depressurization of all compartments has occurred. I beg permission to move to your Shuttle.

Whitehouse approached the microphone as quickly as it was possible:

– Yes, hurry up. We will open the lower gateway.

German astronauts appeared in ten painfully long minutes.

Covers of cadmium suits were torn apart; glass of pressure helmets was smoke-stained, identification badges looked faded.

Their eyes were empty, staring at one point. Their faces looked like the astronauts have just returned from the underworld. There were four of them, Colonel von Conrad, Navigator Eichberger and board gunner Hoffman, who was laid next to the fourth, Matthias Leiseheld, whose body was inside a funeral package with a small black-and-red-and-yellow flag pinned to the chest.

He was killed when one of the missiles hit the emitter tower.

– Well, what do we do now? – Eichberger asked gloomily.

– Allah Akbar. That's what. – Von Conrad looked up at his Navigator with his dull eyes, reddened from capillary bleeding, and brushed the edge of his hand across his throat.

A game of this self-confident giant with legless midgets went on for several minutes, after which the remaining Stergs were turned into rubble with a few exact salvos.

– Now, that’s what I call real war! – Von Conrad broke the deathly silence and clapped his hands. – Bravo, Swertz.”

Soon the soldiers from Earth will become space soldiers, the recruits of Natotevaal, and the victory or the defeat of the space race, for which they have decided to fight, will depend only from them.

This is where the author gets a chance to study human psychology and behavior in new, seemingly improbable situations.

Heroes will act in a new reality for them, which is hard to perceive, even in terms of technology – even though the author smartly describes all the technical details, they are not presented as a contrived conglomeration of terms, although composed in the form of a document:

“Digital Coded Telegram NO5

To:

Commander of the "Independence VH-O" group,

Captain-Commander

yagd Audun Tskugol.

Regarding the raider "Krovur":

During the battle for Terhoma in the Blue Plume area, sector A55S00; sub-sector 354 the following features of the raider "Krovur" were detected;

– The raider is a plate-shaped aircraft with two modes: cruiser and combat.

-in cruiser mode its body is solid, has a radius of 4.7 Krs and an average thickness of 1.01 Kr.

-in combat mode, a remote cabin separates from the central part of the body, leaving a 2.1 Kr radius void and the raider turns into a toroidal body.

At the time of the fight its cabin, which is a standalone warship moves away at a safe distance.

About ten objects get separated from the main body simultaneously; they most likely perform the repeater functions of the cabin because a variety of interference and communication blocks are commonly used in combat.

-Repeaters, due to their small size are survivable against the enemy; they line up in a chain which connects both parts of "Krovur".

-experts believe that the ‘swarming fly’ maneuvers are only possible due to a radically new type of engine, different from the megrasine ones.

"Krovur" probably has gravitational driving force, which is two or more artificial groups, asynchronously rotating inside the computer by thickening the rim, which is no more than a looped-through accelerator channel.

This allows "Krovur" to change the direction of the flight instantly, along and across its body, which is almost unattainable for our "cigar-shaped" vessels.”

However, the scientific and technical achievements, no matter how incredible they are, do not cancel or devalue human emotions and qualities – the duty of friendship, loyalty, personal courage and honor – these feelings are eternal and timeless. The strength of these feelings will be time-proved, and it will depend only on the hero whether these tests will end up with victory of the spirit or shame.

Therefore, when we read the list of the fallen Natotevaal recruits, we see an eternal granite plate in front of our eyes with names of the heroes of the Second World War, and this feeling is intensified with a Russian name of one of the characters:

"Here rest:

Jean Batiste Dunois,

George Fujieka,

Wolf Lauer Hoffman,

Otto Franz Eichberger,

Mathias Leiseheld.

And the soldiers of Natotevaal:

Richard Aydem,

Alexander Vladimirovich Dybal.

God bless their souls,

And the souls of all the commandos from Earth,

Who have fallen in Natotevaal.”

A detailed analysis of various aspects of science fiction as a phenomenon of literature and philosophy, that precedes the story about the novel of A.Demidov was not accidental.

This novel, written over ten years ago, not only did not lose its sharpness and relevance, but, on the contrary, is intended to be a significant milestone for all intelligent readers.

For all those who are still interested in secrets of space and the dual and contradictory role of scientific progress in modern society, and feelings of the characters who undergo the hardest tests of courage, devotion to duty and humanity.

Moreover, the novel "Chronicle of Natotevaal" has the potential to become a cult product for fans of science fiction – it is imbued with romance of heroism, great sense of humor and it is literally impossible to break away from reading it.

But, nevertheless, the novel is anything but entertaining light reading: the author raises complex issues of science, politics, philosophy and moral before his heroes and the readers.

In the tradition of the best works of fiction of the 20th century, Andrey Demidov reveals the unknown in his novel, something that might either happen tomorrow or will never happen at all.

The author clearly highlights the difficulty of the way to complex, unknown future – it is a long and difficult path, with mistakes and defeats on the way; and the victory will not be easy, but endured, with a promise of new ways and new challenges.

To many of the questions posed by Andrey Demidov in the novel "Chronicle of Natotevaal" humanity does not yet have sufficiently complete and convincing answers.

Humanity will search for these answers as long as it exists; it is obliged to, if we want to go forward, not blindly.

Searching through fiction in particular, and the book you now hold in your hands will become a reliable, but demanding assistant, and possibly – your spiritual guide to a modern, distorted world.

Because “imagination – is just a part, although a significant one of what usually denotes reality. Ultimately, it is unknown to which of the two genres – reality or fiction our world belongs”.