The protagonist, Dmitry Alekseyevich Malyanov (Дмитрий Алексеевич Малянов) is an astrophysicist who, while officially on vacation, continues to work on his thesis, "The Interaction of Stars with Diffused Galactic Matter".

The same idea occurs to his friends and acquaintances, who find themselves in a similar impasse—some powerful, mysterious, and very selective force impedes their work in fields ranging from biology to mathematical linguistics.

As the novel concludes, the other scientists, including Malyanov, have decided to abandon their research due to the pressure, and Vecherovsky remains alone to battle the universe and continue their work.

The Finnish film Miljardi vuotta ennen maailmanloppua ("One Billion Years Before the End of the World") was directed by Tapio Suominen in 1986 based on the novel.

... Now, thinking about what happened to me during this time, I often recall the story by A. and B. Strugatsky "A Billion Years Before the End of the World"The character of Vecherovsky is loosely based on the well-known mathematician Yuri Manin.