Characters / Alice, Girl from the Future

Alice and her relatives

Алиса Селезнёва.

Алиса Селезнёва (Alisa/Alice Seleznyova)

• Action Girl: She is athletic and lithe and has quick reactions, and her adventures involve many high-speed chases, some fights, and even piloting a military plane.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: She keeps her golden blond hair only in The Mystery of the Third Planet. In Guest from the Future and The Rusty Lieutenant's Island, her hair is dark, and Alice's Birthday makes her a Fiery Redhead.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Though she is often sarcastic, Alice's Birthday makes her outright rude. Especially noticeable is her dismissive behavior towards a Canon Foreigner kid who offers to help her: in the books, Alice is always nice to younger children.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: She is always quite nice, but Guest from the Future makes her practically an angel on Earth, removing even the small quarrels she has with other characters.
• Badass Adorable: She looks a sweet, cute child, but don't you mess with her or her friends.
• Boyish Short Hair: Wears her hair short in the books, as well as in most of the adaptations.
• Child Prodigy: Downplayed; she is believed to be a supergirl in the 20th century, but in her own time all kids are extremely smart and she stands out less than, say, Arkasha or Masha Belaya. She is more famous for her adventures.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: If she hears somebody's in trouble, she won't rest until she helps out.
• Daddy's Girl: She spends much more time with her father than with her mother and plans to follow in his footsteps.
• Famed In-Story: In the later books, she is well-known around the galaxy.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: When she goes to another time (most often it's the 20th century or the legend era).
• Friend to All Living Things: Easily makes friends with every sentient being and every animal, and sometimes understands animal psychology better than her father, a cosmobiology professor. She plans on doing research on animal mind later in her life.
• Forgets to Eat: If her father and the family robot didn't keep watch, she would be forgetting her breakfast in her zeal for research and/or adventure.
• Genki Girl: In the early books, such as The Voyage of Alice. Later on, she calms down and becomes the Blue Oni to Pasha Geraskin's Red Oni.
• Girliness Upgrade: She is much more gentle and feminine in Guest from the Future than in the books. For example, she first appears wearing a dress, while in the books she is only mentioned as wearing dresses and skirts when in disguise (for example, posing as a princess in A Million Adventures).
• Honorary Princess: She's awarded the title of Princess on the planet 5-4.
• Kid Hero: An embodiment of the trope. So much that Kir Bulychev didn't want to age her up.
• Little Miss Badass: She is quite skilled in surviving all sorts of adventures, and she is never older than thirteen throughout the series.
• Pet Baby Wild Animal: Her favorite pet is Brontya, a brontosaurus from Cosmozo whom she befriends when she is around five and he is a newborn (she figures out what rations he will like). She visits him regularly and is very sad when he is sent to Scotland, to a different establishment called Paleozo specifically for the formerly extinct fauna. She still visits him there, even though she can't do it as often as before.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: A mild and benevolent version. She occasionally uses the fact she's the director's daughter to get close to some of Cosmozo's closely-guarded animals, and she once uses her connections at the Institute of Time to arrange a tour to the Pleistocene for herself and her friends.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Less so than Geraskin, but still. For example, she uses a time machine without permission to save a planet from the space plague.
• Space Clothes: Often depicted wearing them in the adaptations and illustrations. Less so in the actual books.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: In Dangerous Fairytales, she disguises herself as Aladdin.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She is mostly tomboyish but doesn't look down on feminine stuff, it's just that it's not high on her priorities.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: In Twilightsons the Vampire, she has apparently forgotten the precautions one needs to take if one's enemy is a shapeshifter, even though chronologically (judging by the fact that Brontya is relocated from Cosmozo to Paleozo) the story is clearly set at least after One Hundred Years Ahead where Alice's Properly Paranoid attitude helped her survive the pirates’ plots.
• Vague Age: Thanks to the author forgetting it, and also to messing with time (once she accidentally became two weeks younger, and then another time six months younger). Chronologically, at her first appearance she's around three (in the first short story collection featuring her), and in the last books she is around twelve or thirteen.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Especially in the early books. Her later (and more dangerous) adventures taught her to soften that principle a little.

Профессор Игорь Селезнёв (Professor Igor Seleznyov)

Alice's father, one of the first cosmozoologists on Earth.

• Absent-Minded Professor: Sometimes he might not notice important plot points because he's entirely absorbed in some breakthrough in biology.
• Character Narrator: He narrates several of the franchise's early stories (most notably, The Voyage of Alice).
• Informed Ability: He is supposed to be a brilliant cosmobiologist, but when he appears, he often makes huge mistakes or is unable to solve some biological problem, leaving Alice to deal with it. Most glaringly, he doesn't realize that the diamond turtle is a robot and that Shusha and the golden bear cub are sapient (at least the golden bear cub is a master of disguise, but Shusha doesn't even feign nonsapience).
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: If you consider that the medicine of the future can heal everything, his glasses are an example.

Кира Селезнёва (Kira Seleznyova)

Alice's mother, an architect.

• A Day in the Limelight: The one time she is a major character occurs in Alice and the Enchanted King. Even then, it's mostly to provide Alice with a case of Parents in Distress.
• Missing Mom: She works abroad (meaning on different planets) and very rarely appears in person.

Бабушка Лукреция (Granny Lucretia)

Alice's great-aunt, a stage magician.

• Deadpan Snarker: Whenever you want to poke fun at that harmless fussing old lady, she'll poke fun at you instead.
• In-Series Nickname: Called the Simferopol Granny by her relatives.
• Genre Savvy: Not only does she cheerfully and knowingly subvert the Granny Classic trope, but she is also aware she is in a sci-fi/adventure book series. In The War with Lilliputians, when she and Puccini-2 rescue Alice from the desert rabbits, she explains that they did it at the last moment because that’s how it’s done in an adventure novel.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Some of her tricks, like traveling through space without any sort of vessel, are quite inexplicable.
• Never Mess with Granny: She's an expert in fencing, acrobatics, magic tricks, chemistry, technology, and veterinary medicine.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With her friend/colleague/enemy/a mix of all three, a magician with the stage name Puccini-2. At some points, a bystander can easily think the two are engaged in mortal combat.

Friends of Alice

Громозека (Gromozeka)

An archaeologist from the planet Chumaroz, a close friend of the Seleznyov family. A huge creature with three legs, multiple eyes and arms, and a short trunk.

• Adaptational Attractiveness: While not exactly pretty in the adaptations, there isn't one that kept his original, borderline Eldritch Abomination form. In particular, he always has two eyes rather than several rows of many small ones, has two legs instead of three and a large nose instead of a trunk.
• Amusing Alien: Provides comic relief in every book he appears in.
• Gentle Giant: He's one of the largest and nicest characters of the series.
• Rescue Introduction: He met Professor Seleznyov when the latter saved his life in the jungles of the planet Euridice.
• Starfish Aliens: Oh so much. Lots of tentacles, three hearts, enormous size... he's just different in every way you can think of.

Рррр (Rrrr)

An archaeologist from the planet Brastak who befriends Alice in Alice's Birthday. Looks like a one-eyed tailless kitten.

• Adaptational Jerkass: In Alice's Birthday, he is often condescending and sarcastic towards Alice, quite different from his timid and polite self in the books. Somewhat justified, since in the film, their acquaintance starts on an unpleasant note with Alice first mistaking him for an actual kitten, and then accidentally spraying him with foul-smelling vaccine.
• Badass Bookworm: Being an archeologist, he participated in a dangerous mission in the past to save the extinct inhabitants of a planet, and lately, participated in the rebellion of his folk against space invaders. But again, he doesn't like it much.
• Cat Folk: Kitten folk, to be precise. The brastaks look exactly like the kittens of Earth, except with no tail and one large eye.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: In a literal sense. On Brastak, eye color reflects a person's character, and blue and grey mean the best. Rrrr's eye is blue.

Павел "Пашка" Гераскин (Pavel "Pashka" Geraskin)

Alice's classmate and best friend who also works with her on the research station.

• Be Careful What You Wish For: In A Million Adventures, he wants to go to a medieval world and does happen to acquire a passage into one. He barely escapes execution for being too honorable for the local feudals' morals. Subverted, as he is delighted with the entire journey and it does nothing to cool his adventurous nature.
• Born in the Wrong Century: He regrets that he's born in such a civilized era and not in the golden age of knighthood.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He has many amazing ideas, but rarely enough patience to think them through and analyze the possible consequences. Cue, for example, the mosquito/goose hybrid (see below).
• Cloudcuckoolander: Much like Don Quixote, he adamantly believes himself to be the hero of a medieval romance.
• Didn't Think This Through: Only too frequently. For example, in A Million Adventures, he decides to make mosquitoes migratory so that they would leave for the polar regions in summer. His solution is to make a mosquito/goose hybrid. He doesn't, however, foresee that the thing will also be the size of a goose...
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Even Alice, quite the idealist and rule-breaker, seemed rational and careful compared to him.
• Ship Tease: There are hints of it between him and Alice. For example, in The War with Liliputians, Alice gets jealous when Zauri admits she likes Pashka, and Zauri teasingly says that Alice likes him herself.

Аркадий "Аркаша" Сапожков (Arkadiy "Arkasha" Sapozhkov)

Alice's classmate and good friend, also works on the research station. The most bookish one of the company.

• Absent-Minded Professor: Absorbed in his research, he tends to get pretty forgetful.
• Friend to All Living Things: He is insanely protective of nature, on Earth or any other planet.
• Hypocritical Humor: One day, he decides it's barbarous to pick mushrooms because they feel the pain, and tries to talk his friends out of it. His friends reply that they'll stop picking mushrooms on the day he stops eating bread (because wheat is sensitive too, right?) and wolfing down tomatoes and pineapples.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He has a brother called Boris, eight years younger than him, who shares his interest in science. Sounds familiar?

Ирия Гай (Iria Gai)

A beautiful Action Girl from the planet Vester, now living in Poland with her husband and daughter.

• Action Mom: She's an expert in martial arts and shooting. Also she's a doting wife and mother and Team Mom if necessary.
• Extra Digits: Has six toes on both feet, a sign of her Vesterian origins..
• Happily Married: With Tadeusz Sokol.
• Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: Iria Gai is a daughter of an inventor who wanted a son as an assistant. He wanted to name him Iriy.
• Wanted a Son Instead: Raised as a boy because her father wanted one.

Гай-до (Gai-do)

Iria's little sentient spaceship. Considers himself her brother (his name means "The Brother of Gai").

• Cool Uncle: Towards Iria's little daughter, whom he adores. Not officially related, since he is a spaceship, but he thinks of her as his niece.
• Insufferable Genius: He is really skilled in many fields, but believes himself a super-expert who never makes mistakes.

Робот Поля (Polya the Robot)

The housekeeper robot that belongs to the Seleznyov family.

• Continuity Snarl: In some of the early books, he is called Grisha.

Enemies of Alice

Космические пираты Крыс и Весельчак У (Space pirates Krys (Rat) and Jolly U)

• Arch-Enemy: They might not be Alice's most dangerous enemies overall, but they certainly are the most famous ones.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In The Planet For Tyrants Rat states that he can't kill Alice, because if he does, "about whom would Kir Bulychev write his books?"
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: One of the books has the two in mid-20th century. Rat works as an "universal actor double" due to his shape-shifting powers. He even contemplated quitting the life of crime and starting an honest actor career in the past.
• Enemy Mine: Used to be enemies before the police busted most of their operations. Their current alliance is built on nothing but convenience, and they state openly they'll betray each other without hesitation.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Increasingly in the later books.
  • In The War with Lilliputians, both show disdain toward Panchenga's criminal family (slave trade is just the beginning of the list of the latter's crimes).
  • In The Planet for Tyrants, Rat says they aren't mad enough to actually set the tyrants free. The tyrants go furious, but the pirates have guns.
• Fat and Skinny: Jolly U is enormously obese. Rat is rather skinny (and he isn't a human at all). Rat is also usually the mastermind in their operations (in the retellings for younger readers, it gets flanderized to the point that Jolly U is a Dumb Muscle idiot who can hardly add two and two together).
• Friendly Enemy: Increasingly in the later books, where they are both retired from actual piracy and become "pensioners" (as they put it) on the Pirate Planet. They consider their long conflict with Alice as some point of pride, and even help her on some occasions. But they're still pretty ready to do mischief in the galaxy, albeit generally less cruel than before.
• Insectoid Aliens: Rat's true form. Four limbs, two insect wings, and a stinger tail.
• Joker Immunity: They are too fixed in the plot as Alice's old enemies to get killed off. It's practically spelled out in The Dinosaurs' Kids, where Alice saves Jolly U's life (without him realizing it) and later concludes she will never cease to fight them.
• Last of His Kind: Rat is from a race that all but destroyed itself in constant warfare with each other. Subverted later when his mother appears or gets mentioned in several books, and some other members of his race are still rumored to have survived, hiding from each other in underground shelters.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Rat’s default human form is that of a short, thin man with a plain and easily forgettable face. The "forgettable" part, of course, is the key point.
• Terms of Endangerment: They sometimes use pet names when addressing Alice. It leans towards actual Affectionate Nickname in later books.
• Space Pirates: Probably the Trope Codifier in Russian media.
• Villain Decay: In the first books they shown as rather ruthless, cold-blooded murderers, perfectly willing to use torture and destroying the population of entire planets just to protect their secrets. The second appearance states them to be just as bad, but they get relatively little opportunity to demonstrate. These villainous traits quickly got downplayed in later books, turning them mostly into ineffectual sympathetic villains. And in even later books they are portrayed as Friendly Enemy, albeit still with some old habits.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: Rat. Well, in some stories. Others have him simply using disguise. And others attribute the shape-shifting powers to special drugs, so basically anyone could shapeshift using them.
• Starfish Language: All consonants.

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See also the lists of non-recurring characters for separate books:

• The Voyage of Alice
• The City Without Memory