The Garin Death Ray

The Garin Death Ray

Cover of the 1955 English revised edition
Author	Aleksey Tolstoy
Original title	Гиперболоид инженера Гарина
Translator	Bernard Guilbert Guerney (1st edition) George Hanna (revised ed.)
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian
Genre	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Methuen (1st edition) Foreign Language (revised edition)
Publication date	1927
Published in English	1936 (1st edition) and 1955 (revised edition)

The Garin Death Ray also known as The Death Box and The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (Russian: Гиперболоид инженера Гарина) is a science fiction novel by the noted Russian author Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy written in 1926–1927. Vladimir Nabokov considered it Tolstoy's finest fictional work.

The "hyperboloid" in its title is not a geometrical surface but a "death ray"-laser-like device (thought up by the author many decades before lasers were invented) that the protagonist, engineer Garin, used to fight his enemies and try to become a world dictator. The idea of a "death ray" (popularized in The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, among others) was commonplace in science fiction of the time, but Tolstoy's version is unique for its level of technical details. "Hyperboloids" of different power capability differ in their effect. The device uses two hyperbolic mirrors to concentrate light rays in a parallel beam. Larger "hyperboloids" can destroy military ships on the horizon, and those of less power can only injure people and cut electric cables on walls of rooms.

Charles H. Townes, the inventor of laser, said that his invention had been inspired by this novel.

The film adaptations of the novel were released in the Soviet Union in 1965 (The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin) and 1973 (Failure of Engineer Garin).

The Soviet rock band Kino was originally known as "Garin i giperboloidy" (Garin and the hyperboloids).

Estonian band Vennaskond has a song "Insener Garini hüperboloid" (1993) (the hyperboloid of engineer Garin in Estonian).