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The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1974. Seabury Press. Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel. 149 pages. Front cover art: Paul Klee. 'Old Man Figuring', Etching, printed in brown black. Jacket design by Ted Menten. 0816492220.

DESCRIPTION - The Eighth World Futurological Congress, held in Costa Rica, stands under anything but a lucky star, To be sure, the one hundred and six stories of the Costa Rica Hilton are stocked with provisions to answer a convention guest’s every desire and the restaurant is even better than average — a factor particularly appreciated by the world-renowned cosmonaut Ion Tichy. On the other hand, the events behind the scene in and around the hotel constitute what can only be called a scandal, The streets are swarming with revolutionaries in the throes of battle with members of the military junta, and chemical warfare is the order of the day. Swept into the fray, the visiting futurologists ultimately escape through the sewer sys- tem, pumped to the gills with the latest ‘benignimizers,’ The severely injured Tichy is rescued, treated, and finally vitrified — refrigerated in liquid nitrogen — only to awaken in the year 2039, in the era of total psychemization. Lem’s description of the future, which culminates in an apocalyptic vision, is marked above all by his exquisite gift for language — which is perfectly preserved by Michael Kandels superb translation, His vocabulary for the future includes more than 100 new expressions—linguistically sound derivations that are as beautifully plausible as they are funny. At the same time, Lem offers his satirical vision of a linguistically oriented futurology.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1970. Walker & Company. Translated from the Polish by Joanna Kilmartin and Steven Cox. 216 pages. Jacket illustration by Jack Gaughan. 0802755267.

DESCRIPTION - When Kris Kelvin left Earth for Station Solaris, he was prepared for the hazards of space travel - solitude, hardship, exhaustion, perhaps death - but not for the cruel miracle of landing at his destination to find himself as he really is: to confront a presence and emotions long forgotten and suppressed, and no longer feared. An invisible, elusive spirit had taken possession of those stationed at Solaris - one that knew them better than they did themselves and held them prisoners of their own nightmares. One traveler takes his own life, another goes mad, a third disappears before the phenomenon of the 'Psi-creature' is explained. The 'ocean covering Solaris seems to be a gigantic fluid brain, prodigiously powerful and several million years beyond our own civilization, To the explorers on Solaris, it becomes a mysterious, alien force, threatening to their emotional endurance and challenging to their intellectual capacities. From the perspective of Solaris, emerges a new view of the nature of man: a creature who soars off into the cosmos in quest of other worlds and greedy for scientific knowledge, without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, without discovering what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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Eden by Stanislaw Lem. San Diego. 1989. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151275807. Translated from the Polish. 262 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews. Jacket illustration by John Alfred Dorn III.  

DESCRIPTION - A spellbinding horror story set in an alien landscape. A crew of six crash-land on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. They set forth into a strange world that grows ever stranger. The sun is not completely circular. The desert ground is soft, spongy, it exudes acrid vapors. Thickets of plants are shaped like hanging spiders; trees, violet and blue, breathe noisily; flower petals lift into the air like a flock of startled pigeons. The men come to a wall that moves in rhythmic waves; they enter an automated factory where mysterious objects are created, destroyed, and created again in a meaningless cycle. They meet an inhabitant of Eden, a large, humped, pearl-colored, naked torso from which protrudes another, smaller torso with a child's head and two small arms—a ‘doubler,’ they call him. One doubler leads to another, to whole communities, to a world of flying saucers and genetic engineering. And everywhere, death. Swollen bodies in ditches and in wells, a beehive structure filled with clusters of glass eggs—a skeleton within each egg.  This is Lem at his outerspace and innerspace best: thought-provoking, ironic, lyrical. Eden—a great new adventure for Lem followers.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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Highcastle: A Remembrance by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1995. Harcourt Brace. 0151402183. Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel. 146 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Steven Cooley.

DESCRIPTION - An affecting childhood memoir by ‘a science fiction writer worthy of the Nobel Prize' - The New York Times. Stanislaw Lem's Highcastle is at once a remembrance and a meditation. Even as Lem gives an account of his childhood in Lvov in the years between the two world wars, he ponders the nature of memory, innocence, and the imagination on his recollections of growing up the son of a bourgeois doctor at Number 4 Brajerska Street are stunningly evocative re-creating with acuity a boy's perception of the world around him: his gossipy French tutor; the magical window of Zalewski's Confectionery; his father's anatomy book and carefully hidden French pornography; a trip to Klaften's Toy Shop; an aborted visit to a tattooed lady at the Eastern Fair; the trams, organ grinders, and halvah stands of Lvov. Full of humor and pathos, by turns mordant and nostalgic, Highcastle is a compelling portrait of the artist as young man by one of the great science fiction writers of our time.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1982. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151588562. Translated from the Polish by Joel Stern and Maria Swiecicka-Ziemianek. Illustrated with drawings by the author. 153 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Robert Dale.  

DESCRIPTION - The adventures and encounters of Ijon Tichy, tourist of the universe and protagonist of the previously published Star Diaries, are Stanislaw Lem's satirical response to conventional science fiction. Tichy, the space traveler of future centuries, reveals that ‘out there’ isn’t so very different from ‘down here,’ since people are, after all, people everywhere. Thus, he is not amazed when he meets up with a galactic society presided over by the Plenum Moronicum, which appoints as ruler a ruthless Machine; the inhabitants, docilely cooperating in their own destruction, go by the name of he is not voyaging in space, Tichy is a magnet for eccentric unrecognized inventors of splenetic genius, whose spooky experiments are revealed to him with megalomaniacal pride. One has invented no less an object than the soul; another, on the island of Crete, has gone the full length of cybernetic evolution, with particularly gruesome results. In one episode, washing machines go through astounding transformations and absorb the functions of an army of human beings, laying the foundations for a new civilization, one that is totally electrified. Lem’s riotous imagination, with its impressive technical, sociological, and philosophical underpinnings, finds a singularly appropriate mouthpiece in Ijon Tichy, explorer and would-be Saviour of the Universe.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1973. Seabury Press. 0816491232. Translated from the German Edition by Wendayne Ackerman. 183 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Richard Powers. Photo by Boleslaw Lutoslawski.

DESCRIPTION - In the grand tradition of science fiction narrative represented by the best of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Stanislaw Lem describes the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of another ship whose communications with Earth have abruptly ceased. On Regis III, Navigator Rohan and the crew of the Invincible encounter the classic quandary: what course of action can man take once he has reached the limits of his knowledge? The question of the inexplicable, the bizarre, the problem that lies just beyond analytical reach are woven into a science-fiction plot that sustains excitement to the last. "Anybody who likes a tight, increasingly tense plot-line rising to a scene of dramatic violence will be satisfied. Anybody who likes a mystery will find it here  - and its solution." Ursula K. Le Guin

And in a more recent translation:

The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem. Cambridge. 2022. MIT Press. 9780262538473. Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston. Foreword by N. Katherine Hayles. 219 pages. paperback. Cover art: Przemek Debowski.

  
DESCRIPTION - A space cruiser, in search of its sister ship, encounters beings descended from self-replicating machines. In the grand tradition of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Stanisław Lem’s The Invincible tells the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of a sister spaceship whose communication with Earth has abruptly ceased. Landing on the planet Regis III, navigator Rohan and his crew discover a form of life that has apparently evolved from autonomous, self-replicating machines—perhaps the survivors of a “robot war.” Rohan and his men are forced to confront the classic quandary: what course of action can humanity take once it has reached the limits of its knowledge? In The Invincible, Lem has his characters confront the inexplicable and the bizarre: the problem that lies just beyond analytical reach.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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Microworlds by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1985. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151594805. Translated by  Franz Rottensteiner and others. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book. Edited by Franz Rottensteiner. 256 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo: THE IMAGE BANK West/Dave Van Blair.

DESCRIPTION - A bold and controversial look at the past, present, and future of science fiction, by a master of the genre. In the ten extraordinary essays collected here, Stanislaw Lem expertly examines the scientific and literary premises of his own works and those of Lem believes that science fiction and fantasy should be a laboratory for attempting to discover what hasn't been thought or done before, a place for experiment on the cutting edge of human awareness. Lem writes with polemical passion about what he regards as science fiction's squandered potential: he sees it as bogged down in a rehash of myth and fairy tales. Too often, says Lem, science fiction resorts to well-worn patterns of primitive adventure literature, plays empty games with the tired devices of time travel and robots, and turns its back on time-honored cultural and intellectual values. This collection of critical essays is quintessential Lem—arch, incisive, and provocative.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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One Human Minute by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1986. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151695504. Translated from the Polish by Catherine S. Leach. 128 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews. Jacket illustration by John Alfred Dorn III.

DESCRIPTION - In these three previews of the 21st century—actually reviews of not-yet-written books—Lem brings us startling news indeed. ‘One Human Minute’ describes a kind of super—World Almanac that summarizes what everyone on earth is doing during a single minute. We learn, for instance, that 34.2 million men and women make love every minute. During the same sixty seconds, however, only 0.0000001 person is killed by a falling meteor. Star Wars are a thing of the past for the author of Weapons Systems of the 21st Century, which Lem 'reviews’ next. Human beings, obsolete on the battlefield of the future, have been replaced by synthetic insects, or synsects, with mixed results: ‘YOU can hardly have a parade of stainless steel bugs,’ observes Lem. The human experience on our planet, Lem argues in ‘The World as Cataclysm,’ has been a chancy business—more the result of catastrophes in the sky than of orderly evolution. ‘The universe is a crooked roulette wheel,’ Lem concludes, and in the future the game is likely to be no less crooked. One Human Minute is one of Lem's wildest flights of fancy—blending thought-provoking philosophical reflection with the Polish master's usual out-of-this-world humor.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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A Perfect Vacuum: Prefect Reviews of Nonexistent Books by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1978. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151716978. Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel. 229 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Milton Glaser.

DESCRIPTION - Described by critics as zany, tremendously amusing, fantastically humorous, and one of the most popular science-fiction writers in the world, Stanislaw Lem here breaks away from the science-fiction mold. Exercising his satiric wit and sophisticated knowledge, he invents books through reviews, spoofing various literary trends and styles. These reviews of nonexistent books point up the absurdities of our alarming civilization, with its fads and escalating silliness. There is U-WRITE-IT, a literary erector set; SEXPLOSION, in which three giant corporations, General Sexotics, Cybordelics, and Intercourse International, meet ruin, with disastrous effects on the economy; ‘The New Cosmogony,’ purporting to be the address of a Nobel Prize winner—a waterfall of pseudo-erudition. Fantasy of the wildest kind informs every one of these hilarious explorations into that growing realm where mankind's insanity masquerades as intellect.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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More Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem. New York. 1982. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151621381. Translated by Louis Iribarne with the assistance of Magdalena Majcherczyk, and by Michael Kandel. 220 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jean-Marie Troillard.

 
DESCRIPTION - Pirx, the bumbling astronaut who won widespread critical acclaim in Tales of Pirx the Pilot, here faces a new series of intriguing adventures - in which robots demonstrate some alarmingly human characteristics. These five stories, all deftly blending playfulness and suspense, reflect Lem's preoccupation with the technology of the future and his fascination with the artificial brain. The skeptical, commonsensical Pirx, one of the most endearing characters in Lem's universe, wrestles every step of the way with his mixed feelings about robots, beings that fill him with mounting suspicion and apprehension. One robot Pirx encounters in his interplanetary travels comes to grief by developing a human trait: gratitude. Another is so affected by the example of his human companions that he totally succumbs to the lure of mountain climbing and pays for it dearly. Pirx finds that it is indeed a fine line that separates a robot robot from a human robot. Or is there one? In Lem the cold and aloof technology of the future is studded with deep humanity and high lyricism. Each story, you might say, is a perfect constellation.

Stanislaw Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. In 1996, he received the prestigious Polish award, the Order of the White Eagle. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

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