Stanislaw Lem Books

Fans of Lem's methodical and unique philosophical insights into psychology and humanity will not be disappointed by this novel. In that sense, along with the usual complex and precise, yet eloquent prose (I have the greatest respect for the translators of Lem's novels - that must be an art in itself), this is classic Lem. Throughout his catalog of fiction Lem seemingly wrote in two voices. One voice is exemplified in the Tichy novels where slapstick, as well as, more subtle, highbrow humor is blended seamlessly with the philosophical ponderings. The second voice is a drier one substituting exhaustive detailing and complex technical conceptual development in place of the levity. This book represents the latter. This iconoclastic novel stands the classic whodunit on its head in a way few writers would even dare. Lem uses the storyline as a device to explore a theme common to his work, but never as fully developed as it is here. He points to a common shortcoming of man's psychology; namely, that we tend to overestimate the influence of willful design in our lives, while failing to fully grasp the importance of random chance. Not Lem's best work and certainly not a novel for everyone, but still well worthy of 5 stars.

This is one of the best books I've read. It's a superb science fiction mystery that pulls you along and you never know where it's going.

I came across an excellent book From Lowbrow to Nobrow by Peter Swirski who I discovered later has written a whole bunch of books and articles on Lem. Chapter 6 in From Lowbrow to Nobrow is about Lem and Chain of Chance and I suppose I was lucky to read Swirski's chapter first because it really opened my eyes to this incredible book. I went to read Chain and Chance right after finishing the chapter about it and it was as good and amazing as I though it would be. I see that some readers have problems understanding what the book is about, if you read From Lowbrow to Nobrow you will find a way into Lem's book what will make you come back for more of Lem and Swirski. I'm hooked.

If you have never read a book by Lem, you shouldn't start here. The best thing about Stanislaw Lem's stories is that he will bring up some of the most absurd angles of how our lives can be altered by technology. His best writing contains science fiction, philosophy, interesting asides and ethics wrapped up in a fun story. This book doesn't have any of that. Pick up His Master's Voice or Fiasco instead.

Though this lacks the jaunty tone of many of Lem's short stories or fictional essays, it still shares his disturbing habit of assualting your cerebrum in new and rather inventive ways. This book is sometimes as bizarre at is mundane, and this paradox is ultimately essential to the plot. But this book is enjoyed by a Lem fan, and I'm not sure that a reader unfamiliar with him will wait out the denoument...

The title of this assembly of stories is the translator's clever triple pun: an allusion to Othello, "mortal engines" are manmade, impermanent, and sometimes deadly machines--robots, to be exact. Included are all the tales from Lem's "Fables for Robots" and three other stories ("The Sanatorium of Dr. Vliperdius," "The Hunt," and "The Mask") that double the size of the book.

The fables are like--well, fables. That is, the prose style resembles Aesop or Andersen ("Once there lived..."); the narrative recounts long-ago events; and each tale presents a message--or, at least, a lesson for us humans disguised as a moral for them robots. These eleven shorts recall Borges (or even Poe) at his most playful, but read in sequence they tend to become a tad formulaic (several robots are sent on a mission; each fails, but the last one succeeds). And if you're a lover of science jokes, these stories will be your playground; Lem packs references to chemistry, physics, geology, computer science, and electronics--often in the same sentence: "self-motes came from distant lands, like the two Automatts, vector-victors in a hundred battles, or like Prostheseus, constructionist par excellence, who never went anywhere without two spark absorbers, one black, the other silver; and there was Arbitron Cosmoski, all built of protocrystals and svelte as a spire...."

If, like me, you prefer a little more story and a little less pun, you'll find that the gems of the book are the three bonus tracks. The last two, in particular, are among the best I've ever read by Lem, and have nothing in common with the fables other than the automaton theme. "The Hunt" is a rollicking adventure story featuring Lem's famous alter ego, Pirx the Pilot, on a mission to destroy a homicidal robot. "The Mask" may well be the best Lem story I've read: the haunting stream-of-consciousness of a robot who, like an otherworldly Tristram Shandy, narrates its own birth, consciousness, self-realization, metamorphosis, rebellion, and--above all--its futile pursuit of love. The opening pages have a deceptively languid pace, until the robot sheds its "mask" (in a surprisingly squeamish scene) and, during the ensuing chase, reveals its lethal assignment. These last stories are worth the price of the whole book.

This is surely one of the greatest collections of 'linked short-stories' ever written -- it matches Calvino's COSMICOMICS and Borges' LABYRINTHS. Lem is a total genius. A writer of playful little fables that are also philosophically profound (and logically consistent). This book is a brilliant companion to Lem's THE CYBERIAD, with which it shares many themes and ideas. Lem has a beautiful style: he can make engineering terms sound poetic. His rigorously modern metaphors are as original as those of J.G. Ballard, but more varied and lyrical. For Lem, the Periodic Table is an unwritten poem. This book is the final and true ode, and each line is a fantastic, fabulous, incredible story. I give this book 200,000,000 stars. And that's only because I'm not feeling so generous today. It probably deserves A GOOGOLPLEX (1 to the power of 100 raised to the power of 1 to the power of 100) of stars. At least.

The first dozen stories in this book are brief, amusing, and very clever. Most of them start in the traditions of fairy tales, with bold knights, beautiful princesses, powerful kings, and deadly dragons. As in traditional fairy tales, some describe great quests, while others narrate hubris and downfall. The difference is that every story is peopled (if you'll pardon the term) by robots. It creates a grand setting for Lem's adventures and warmly humorous inversion of all the old storytelling.

The final two stories, though, are the real gems of this collection. They are longer, they feature humans as well as robots, and are serious, even somber in tone. One is told by a human, part of the party that has to hunt down a dangerous robot across the stark surface of the moon. The teller finds the rogue in the end and fells it, but something in that last moment turns it from victory into completion of a much more ambiguous kind. The final story, "The Mask," is a sensitive look into a man-made mind. It conveys real complexity in the robot's sense of its own life. One of the story's many readings is a warning that, even if the feelings are carried in metal cases, they're as real to the minds feeling them as ours are to us. Creating a mind that can feel such feelings imposes a responsibility on the creator - a responsibility not met in this chilling story.

This is Lem at his best, and his best is very good. The happy satire of the first stories is some of Lem's most amusing. The conjecture in the last story is some of his darkest. The set as a whole shows Lem's range as a writer, even within the constraints that unify this wonderful collection.

//wiredweird

Stanislaw Lem is one of my favorite writers and this book is a lot of fun to read, but it isn't the best Lem book (not all of his books can be 5 star masterpieces). Read Cyberiad first (if you like short, interesting and funny tales) since this book seems a little like left-overs in comparison.

Buy this book! And any book of Stanislaw Lem's you can get your hands on as well. He speaks of the human condition in his own unique way. His landscapes are vast, and his characters are more human than we know. Beautiful!!!!!!

The symbolism and philosophical insight in this book is astounding. The setting is Poland, following the Nazi invasion, but it seems that by starting a new job in an insane asylum, the protagonist escapes the outside world and his "lost motherland" only to join an alien landscape where deranged and yet fascinating people live. You can almost see that even in his first book Lem was already thinking science fiction by reading some of the case histories of the patients. The story almost carries you to another world and until the last chapter you seem to forget the reality of the precarious situation that mental patients faced during Nazi occupation. While I truly enjoyed the story and the dialogues between Stefan and Sekulowski, this book lacks a coherent plot, and suffers from focus in inconsequential details, such as the appearance of a graveyard in the winter and the rays of sunlight shining through the window of a room.

I loved this book. Lem's partially auto-biographical Transfiguration is set in a WWII era insane asylum in Poland. He tells a compelling story of a time and place when you had to look hard to tell the difference between the doctors and the patients.

Though some of it is a little fluffy, over all i found this book to be intresting and spellbinding.

This is one of his earliest, and it kinda let me down. A guy working in an insane asylum. Kinda haunting at times, not terribly interesting though. It sounds as if Sekulowski is supposed to be saying some really neat stuff, but it all sounds like a bunch of fluff to me. Not the greatest, but it's Lem.

If you have never read a Lem story before, then I highly recommend this novel as a starting point. In this book of short stories, Lem is at at his artful best. Startlingly simple and surprisingly shrewd, the stories expound upon many of the ageless questions which humanity as a whole have attempted to deal with since the beginning of consciousness i.e. genesis of man, existence of spirit/soul, man's primal instinct to destruct etc. In short, this collection of stories serve as a delicious sample of the smorgasboard of creative delights that Lem is known for. His acerbic wit, intellectual prowess, and devastatingly entertaining drollness are all apparent within this collection. A great read written in true Lem "virtuoso" form. Indeed, if one were so inclined, this is the place to start looking for answers to the 'meaning of life'. And even if you do not find the 'ultimate' answer within the pages of this novella/collection of works, at least you can be sure of being entertained!

A sequel to The Star Diaries, we visit once again with Ijon Tichy in more amusing (mis?)adventures.Is it as good as the prequel? Unfortunately, no--but it comes mighty close.And where else could you find answers to questions such as: Just who created the universe and why'd they foul it up so miserably? Why haven't they gotten all the bugs out of this time travel business? How come clones are so touchy? What does Doctor Diagoras have in those vats anyway? And, perhaps the Eternal Question we've all asked ouselves at one time or another: How do we know we're all not just brains kept in a box by a mad scientist who's feeding us sensory data of what we believe to be the real world? Hmmm. The words themselves are a sheer pleasure to read.(I'm determined to work "entelechy" sometime into a conversation.) There are puns and other word-plays of the kind only Lem does so easily. Even if you've never read a work by Lem, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one.

For the love of all that is decent, I don't know why "Further Reminiscences" hasn't been combined with "The Star Diaries" to make one handy volume. First of all, thdestinction is essentially artificial - "Further Reminiscences" contains two journeys which were dropped, for one reason or another, from the American edition of the Diaries, a selection of Earthside "reminiscences", a short called "Doctor Diagoras", and the fantastic "Let Us Save the Universe", all of which were present in the original Polish edition. Even the books' sizes favor an omnibus re-issue (250 and 150 pages, respectively).

The two "new" journies found in this book are the eighteenth and the twenty-eighth. The 18th is essentially a shorter, more readable version of the 20th (found in the parent volume), and the classic, oft-reprinted 28th deals with personal freedoms (the Phools and the Master Machine that was created to mediate their conflicts - and thus decides to refabricate them in stone to stop their chaotic quarrels).

The five "further reminiscences" are essentially humorless essays, each dealing with a specific philosophical idea. In each, Tichy comes into contact with some sort of scientific visionary (be it Corcoran, Decantor, Zazul, or Molteris), and, after ascertaining that they aren't insane, listens to their wild stories: Corcoran constructs mechanical brains whose lives and fate are mere recordings in a large steel drum; Decantor wants to immortalize the soul by encasing it in crystal; Zazul tells the gruesome story of his attempt to clone himself; Molteris produces a functional time machine, and, without examining the possible consequences, tests it on himself. It is apparent that these were written at the same time as the journeys, since the 20th has a direct reference to Molteris. "Doctor Diagoras" is not a certified "reminiscence", although it is essentially identical in spirit, the topic of debate being artificial intelligence (the fifth reminiscence is very similar to the 11th journey, only in reverse and with more legal issues).

The volume closes with "Let Us Save the Universe", which is a detailed petition to conserve intergalactic flora and fauna, with several quite hilarious examples of how we foul up the planets, and how some species manage to retaliate.

In a nutshell? A worthwhile read - far from a worthwhile purchase.

"Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy," by Stanislaw Lem, has been translated into English by Joel Stern and Maria Swiecicka-Ziemianek. The main text is preceded by a publisher's note, which declares that contents of this book (my review refers to the Harvest edition published by Harcourt, Brace & Co.) appeared in the 1971 Polish edition of the book entitled "The Star Diaries," but not in the British and American editions with the same title. Thus this book could be seen as the second volume of Lem's original Polish "Star Diaries." Despite all this, I believe that this book works fine as a stand-alone literary work, so go ahead and ignore the publisher's note if you like.

The book is divided up into several sections, each of which could stand alone as a short story. Each piece is told in the first person by space traveler Ijon Tichy. He discusses his voyages beyond the Solar System and his encounters with an assortment of eccentric scientists on Earth.

"Memoirs" is a delightful, pungent blend of science fiction, philosophy, satire, and horror. Witty and haunting, funny and frightening, it's spiced by clever wordplay.

Lem deals with such topics as artificial intelligence, time travel, environmental exploitation, the nature of the human soul, and the origins of the universe. He describes many whimsical extraterrestrial species, such as the foul-tailed fetido and bottombiter chair ants. Overall, this wacky, surreal book shows Lem to be a soul brother to Edgar Allan Poe, Dr. Seuss, and Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm kind of new to the story of Solaris, seeing the film with george clooney, that i really liked and then later seeing the drawn out russion film. Although i know most of the story centers around Rheya and Kelvin, the sci fi side of me wanted to know more about the planet of Solaris. The book does just that, i loved reading along with Kelvin, the main character, how he peruses the library on the space station regarding the first explorations and what they had found. Solaris after all had first been discovered and visited 100 years ago resulting in volumes and volumes of books and film. Also, the book goes into great length to describe the structures that are miles high that Solaris constantly makes and destroys and how some exploration teams had been the victim of staying too long in studying these structures. This background i feel is essential to understand solaris crowning achievement of makeing a human "clone" from memories. I have heard that the hollywood movie of Solaris had much more footage that was cut by listening to the director's commmentary. If this footage contained more background of the planet it would more closely follow the book which really makes it a more complete story. Solaris is great sci fi discovery of an amazing and unique planet, as unique as the description of Arakis (DUNE) with its sandy sees and rock islands. Still, not all is explained in Solaris. Perhaps the unknown left unknown is the best type of story in the end, we keep trying to think of what Solaris is all about, just as the explorers in the story will continue to do.

A novel about really different aliens, and the struggles that the human psyche has in dealing with such concepts.

A psychologist is dispatched to a station on an alien world to see what is going on, and finds murder and a host of mental problems when he arrives.

Having seen the film that starred George Clooney and was based upon this book, and having found it wanting, I decided to go to the source. I am glad that I did, as it is certainly better as a book than it is as a film. It is also far more profound than the film, which concentrated on the love story.

This book is much more than that, covering many themes. It is, first and foremost, about contact with an alien entity and communication of a type beyond our comprehension. Is it friend or foe? Who can say, as the source of the communication makes its pitch based upon an individual's memories, some good, and some bad? What it is communicating remains unfathomable. Still, the book provides much food for thought.

This book was given to me as a Gift (not the German kind ha ha) almost 30 years ago. I had never gotten around to reading it until just recently, when I found it buried amongst some other books.

The book, published in 1963, consists of a number of radio and television plays (Hörspiele und Fernsehspiele). My copy states that it has been translated from Polish into German by Klaus Stämmler, Charlotte Eckert, Jutta Janke and I. Zimmerman-Göllheim.

The radio play that gives the book its title ("Mondnacht"), is about two men who have been living in a station on the moon. This is a great story about human nature and survival. I was also amazed by the fact that Lem's news of the future included terrorism! In fact, this theme comes up several times in the book.

The second play is "Der Forschungsreise des Professors Tarantoga" ("The research trip of Professor Tarantoga"). He has invented a space travel machine that is simply a box on a table. He and his assistant, Chybek, visit other locations in the galaxy and encounter life forms in various stages of development.

One highly developed life form tells him: "He, Sie, wissen Sie, mit wem Sie sprechen? Vor knapp achtzehntausend Jahren seid ihr erst aus euren Höhlen gekrochen, und schon gelüstet es euch nach kosmischen Kontakten? Zwischen uns und euch liegt ein Unterschied von vierzig Millionen Jahren. Verstehen Sie? Entwickelt euch erst mal weitere neununddreißig Millionen Jahre, dann können wir miteinander reden."

At another location, nuclear war has destroyed everyone on the planet except for two robots, one of whom is so lonely that he is writing beautiful poetry (excerpt below):

"Kein Schuß wird fallen an meinem Grab,
Keines Freundes Träne, so linde...
Der Schnee wird grau, das Laub fällt ab,
Und nur der Tau perlt weinend herab
Auf mein zerbrochnes Gewinde."

In play number 3, "Der seltsame Gast des Professors Tarantoga" ("The Unusual Guest of Professor Tarantoga"), the professor receives a visitor from the future. The man has been locked in a mental institution because nobody believes him.

In Play 4, "Professor Tarantogas Sprechstunde" ("Professor Tarantoga's Consulting Hour"), the professor listens to inventors and their propositions.

Play number 6, "Der treue Roboter" ("The Loyal Robot"), is a creepy story about a robot gone amok, although it has its funny moments too.

This is the first book I have read by Stanislaw Lem. Despite its age, it is quite entertaining! As I stated above, it is in German, but if you can read German it is great reading. It would also be a good choice for a German literature class.

I thought that I would write something here because there was no description whatsoever about this book.