About the book: 2024 / Continuation of adventures in Abyssinia. The hero has to leave the diplomatic service and enter military service with Negus Menelik II. There will be a little war and progress (moderate): planes and tanks will not appear in Abyssinia for another forty years, but secular schools, an Amharic-Russian dictionary and a railway will appear. And what do you want from progressivism even in Russia, and not in Abyssinia, which is three hundred years behind it: that yesterday’s peasant, who learned to hold a file, will cut an airplane with it, he will file it for you... Everything must start with education, which in the Russian Empire, both in Abyssinia and in the country of the winner of the Unified State Examination. Therefore, the path of the newcomer-progressor is long and dull, the locals with shouts of “hurray” accept everything that the newcomer says, no one intrigues against him, everyone immediately gets down to business and, using primitive technology, builds airplanes, submarines, and missiles. All this is not here.