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*4-385. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age. Seabury, 1974, $8.95. Tr. by Michael Kandel of Cyberiada, 1967.
A delightful cycle of ingenious and humorous stories modeled on European fables about two robot “constructors,” timorous Trurl and vexatious Klapaucius, who build fabulous machines for pay and pride throughout the galaxy. Stories individually point up lessons, such as “The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl's Prescription,” which satirizes bureaucracy, and “The Sixth Sally, or How Trurl and Klapaucius Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg,” which warns against the current information explosion. Collectively they demonstrate the retributory effects of the seven deadly sins despite the use of technology in their commission. The jargons of science, math, and technology permeate the stories, adding color and humor, as does the use of mechanical analogs of human behavior. Still, not truly myths of the age of science, as in Calvino's Cosmiccomics [4-136]; rather, traditional sorcerer vs. client fables jazzed up with scientific terminology and treating science as magic, men as machines, the future as the past. Outstanding translation; a carnival of words. Compare Bunch's Moderan [4-127].
4-386. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). The Futurological Congress, from the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy. Seabury, 1974, $6.95. Tr. by Michael Kandel of Ze wspomnien' Ijona Tichego. Kongres futurologiczny, 1971.
A satire on contemporary society, on professional futurists, and on “the sleeper wakes” utopias. Tichy goes to a convention of futurists held in the 100-story Costa Rica Hilton. Pointless terrorism abounds, and Tichy is caught up in a local rebellion and the counter-measures that unloose a flood of mind-altering drugs. In hallucinations, he is wounded repeatedly, frozen down, and awakes in the brave new world of the future where both good and evil come out of a pill bottle. Humor is an unsubtle as in Goulart's After Things Fell Apart [4-271], the violence as severe as in Brunner's The Sheep Look Up [4-115], though with little social insight.
4-387. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). The Investigation. Seabury, 1974, $7.95. Tr. by Adele Milch of 'Sledztwo, 1959.
Scotland Yard is confronted by the strange mystery of the dead moving and then walking away. Detective Gregory doubts it is supernatural and suspects the eccentric statiscian, Sciss–for the phenomenon's pattern suggests either ghoulish human activity or the existence of natural phenomena undreamt of in our philosophy. Finally, Gregory confronts the latter with all its psychic consequences. The story's familiar setting and form provide contrast to its central theme: man's limited understanding of and uncomfortableness with the unknown.
4-388. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). The Invincible. Seabury, 1973, $6.95. Ace, $1.25. Tr. by Wendayne Ackerman of Niezwyciezony, 1964.
The space ship Invincible lands on uninhabited Regis III to discover how its sister ship, the Condor, was defeated and its crew driven into infantile madness. It appears that abandoned machines have evolved through natural selection on Regis III, giving rise to highly specialized mechanical life forms–which are beyond man's efforts to defeat. Surface space opera with philosophical undercurrents.
4-389. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. Seabury, 1973, $6.95. Tr. by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose of Pamietnik Znaleziony w wannie, 1971.
Satire on militarism, the cult of secrecy, and its resultant paranoia in closed systems. A paper-decaying epidemic has destroyed civilization, so the U.S. military builds a “Third Pentagon” in the Rockies to weather the crisis. Locked under stone, the autonomous complex comes to believe it still functions to control affairs. A young man is given a meaningless secret mission and becomes involved in pointless spy-counter-spy activities leading to eventual self-destruction within the entombed Kafkaesk labyrinth filled with technological gimmickry. Story eventually becomes overly complex and tedious.
*4-390. Lem, Stanislaw (Poland). Solaris. Walker, 1970. Faber, £2.00. Tr. by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox of Solaris, 1968.
Written by Lem in 1961. A planet-wide ocean seems to have a life of its own as it twists itself into fantastic shapes and provides visions for Earthmen there to study it. But its nature defies all Earth's ingenuity; a multitude of “solutions” are offered, none of which seem to fit. Man can interpret the truly alien only in his own limited terms. A fascinating and philosophical work, highly original. Compare Blish's A Case of Conscience [4-75].
Barron Neil. Anatomy of Wonder: Science Fiction. – New York; London: R.R.Bowker Company; A Xerox Education Company, 1976. – P. 218-219.
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© 1976 Barron Neil, текст