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Solaris: The Definitive Edition

by Stanisław Lem, Bill Johnston (Translator), Alessandro Juliani (Narrator)

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 18,586 ratings · 788 reviews

Ein Meilenstein der Science Fiction

Der Planer Solaris ist von einem Ozean bedeckt - einem Ozean, der auf die physikalischen Verhältnisse ebenso Einfluß zu nehmen schient wie auf die Wissenschaftler, die ihn von der Raumstation aus untersuchen sollen. Der Psychologe Kris Kelvin wird geschickt, um die seltsamen Vorkommnisse zu klären, aber was ihn erwartet, übersteigt jeglic...more

Audiobook, 8 pages

Published June 7th 2011 by Audible Frontiers (first published 1961)

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Apr 12, 2012 Nataliya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads, excellent-reads, i-also-saw-the-film, location-is-the-true-protagonist

Many sci-fi authors think that they write about aliens. The truth is, they really don't. Instead, they essentially write about humans. Most sci-fi aliens are little more than an allegory for humanity, a mirror through which we can see ourselves - maybe slightly different-looking, with more (or fewer) appendages, different senses, funny names, different social structures - but still unmistakably human.

And so, when we think of aliens as shown in popular literature/ cinematography, 99% of us wil...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Kay rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who want to read intelligent sci fi

Recommended to Kay by: the ocean made me do it

Shelves: life-after-death, mind-fuck, philosophical-musings, sci-fi, 1001, 501

11/11/11 Update: Reflected on it a bit more, and bumped up the rating to 5 stars. Darn those coercive, psychic ocean mind waves!

**

Despite work, an appalling lack of sleep, work, life, work, copious amounts of laundry, work, and MORE WORK, I finally finished this little gem of a book. I am giving it four stars for now, but depending on how I feel after I absorb more of the book, I may bump up the rating.

Solaris is beautifully written, and the message behind the book is chilling if not eye-openin...more 11/11/11 Update: Reflected on it a bit more, and bumped up the rating to 5 stars. Darn those coercive, psychic ocean mind waves!

**

Despite work, an appalling lack of sleep, work, life, work, copious amounts of laundry, work, and MORE WORK, I finally finished this little gem of a book. I am giving it four stars for now, but depending on how I feel after I absorb more of the book, I may bump up the rating.

Solaris is beautifully written, and the message behind the book is chilling if not eye-opening. In most sci-fi, humans interact with non-humans violently, peacefully, symbiotically, or however else we communicate with them (the key words being interact and communicate). However, Lem pushes us to think waaaay outside our comfortable, boxy way of thinking and makes us wonder--what if there were beings so inherently different from us that we couldn't even begin to understand them? Do we even fully understand ourselves enough to communicate clearly with them?

The planet Solaris is inhabited by one living organism--a vast "ocean" that covers the entire planet. Solarists, academics who study Solaris, attribute nomenclatures to various phenomena that occur in the organism. The book is chock full of academic arguments about the psychology and behavior of the organism. We quickly grasp, however, that despite the theorizing and debating, they know close to nothing about the ocean, whereas the ocean knows...so much more.

Without spoiling the book, a psychologist named Kris Kelvin arrives in a space station above the ocean to study the organism. However, after a series of x-ray bombardments on the ocean's surface, the ocean reacts by somehow creating physical manifestations of the space station inhabitants' repressed anguish and regrets. In Kris's case, the ocean creates a striking likeness of his dead wife, whose memories has haunted him even before his arrival. The exchanges between Kris and his wife were shocking, tragic, and quite eerie, especially since she (1) cannot die, (2) physically cannot be out of his presence, and (3) she's creation of the ocean, for heaven's sake! As Kris’s and his wife’s relationship progresses, what becomes more and more evident is how little we know in comparison to how much we think we know.

Though the book spans a little over 200 pages, Lem tells a great story and presents interesting ideas. The writing is stodgy at times; Lem’s style reminded me of academic papers written decades ago by professors locked for far too long in their ivory towers. The story behind the writing, however, hooked, lined, and sinker-ed me. What were very dense passages, I blew right through with the concentrated focus that I should have employed more often during school. (Even though sci-fi, for the most part, is so much more fun than political theories.)

4.5 (and most probably 5) stars. Highly recommended.
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Apr 18, 2013 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: I can't stand my knees

Recommended to Mariel by: turning to snow

"Typical me, typical me
I gave my cargo to the sea
I gave the water what it always wanted to be." - Destroyer's Rubies

Was the ocean a living creature? It could hardly be doubted any longer by any but lovers of paradox or obstinacy. It was no longer possible to deny the 'psychic' functions of the ocean, no matter how that term might be defined. Certainly it was only too obvious that the ocean had 'noticed' us. This fact alone invalidated that category of Solarist theories which claimed that the oc

...more

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Jan 23, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 501, sci-fi

Who could have thought? Who could have thought of a planet, almost covered by ocean and that the ocean is in reality an organism enveloping the planet? Where the waves are actually muscle contractions of that organism? And that organism can "communicate" to the mind of human beings and has the ability to probe and analyze people's mind and manipulate it innermost secrets (guilt included)? And this can lead human beings to lunacy and commit suicide?

I am already at the stage of my life when I alre...more Who could have thought? Who could have thought of a planet, almost covered by ocean and that the ocean is in reality an organism enveloping the planet? Where the waves are actually muscle contractions of that organism? And that organism can "communicate" to the mind of human beings and has the ability to probe and analyze people's mind and manipulate it innermost secrets (guilt included)? And this can lead human beings to lunacy and commit suicide?

I am already at the stage of my life when I already find this genre (alongside formulaic fantasy, mystery, thriller and horror) almost always too unbelievable. However, if the author is good in his storytelling, the manner of writing takes the front seat and the plot, theme and characters become secondary. This is the case for Solaris (1961) by Polish novelist, Stanislaw Lew (1921-2006).

One of the very few novels that underwent "double translations" from Polish (1961) to French (1966) to English (1970) and filmed thrice. The last one was in 2002 starring George Clooney, who according to a Goodreads friend, appeared in one scenes in his birthday suit. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh and produced by James Cameron. However, the film emphasized the relationship between Kelvin and his dead wife — again excluding Lem’s scientific and philosophic themes so the book is definitely better than the film. The reason is that, in my opinion, it is the writing that makes this book worth reading. Unless, of course, if you want to see the younger George Clooney in his full glory ha ha.

Yes, the writing is exceptional. I read a good portion of the book while our motorboat was afloat the notorious Devouring Bay last weekend, the passengers uncertain of their fate, considering the strong wind and the mile-high waves. Last Saturday going to my island hometown for 4 hours (the boat afloat docked at the bay waiting for passengers) and the following day, Sunday for 1 hour going back to the mainland. Since the main alien character of this book is the organism enveloping the planet Solaris, Lem made sure that the ocean, alongside all those technical terms that made his narration felt believable. While reading, I kept on glancing at the ocean and these questions actually crossed my mind: what if our oceans are actually the same organism? And we do not know it? And that is the reason for our depressions, guilt, suicidal tendencies, divorce, etc? What if?

Needless to say, this book is an intelligent well-written science fiction. I actually enjoyed this more than say Isaac Asimov's I, Robot or Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. It will not insult your intelligence as it will make you think that there could really be a planet with two moons somewhere in the other still undiscovered universe.

If you are a sci-fi fan and you know how to appreciate a well-written work, go for this one. It is a 1961 novel but nothing in it is outdated except for the cassette tape recorder hanging on the wall in the opening scene. (less)

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Jun 06, 2009 Ceridwen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Manny said try other Lem first. I ignored his advice at my own p

Shelves: aliens, grok-this, sci-fi, the-future-is-now

There's an episode in “Little House on the Prairie” - the book, not the tv show. Jeez, people, I'm writing here on bookface after all - where Laura finds a book of Tennyson's poems in the house. She realizes that it's to be gift from her folks to her, and shuts up the book and puts it away, but not before reading these tantalizing lines, from “The Lotus Eaters”:

“COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”

She obsesses about this: what will th...more There's an episode in “Little House on the Prairie” - the book, not the tv show. Jeez, people, I'm writing here on bookface after all - where Laura finds a book of Tennyson's poems in the house. She realizes that it's to be gift from her folks to her, and shuts up the book and puts it away, but not before reading these tantalizing lines, from “The Lotus Eaters”:

“COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”

She obsesses about this: what will they do? What manner of monster will they meet? Will they have the courage they need to face the island and its foes?

She receives the book, in due course, and is horrified, shocked, by the culmination of the poem: they do drugs, and wander off in haze of beauty and iambic pentameter, shucking all their dreary work. It offends Laura's Midwestern Protestant Work Ethic that this happens, and gives her an excuse to tell us to Not Do Drugs, kids. Apparently, the American war on drugs has been going on for a while longer than we thought.

I thought of this after reading Solaris, because there's something of the “Lotus Eaters” in this book. It starts out, in medias res, with our protagonist, Kelvin, on his bumpy descent to the outpost above the planet of Solaris. It's very Joe Blaster science fiction: the rocky ride, the will-he-or-won't-he dock properly, the opening scenes in the station itself, with mayhem and blood on the floor, the protagonist looking for some sort of futurist scifi gun, etc. And then, nothing. Or not nothing, but a lot of thinking and considering, musing in the emptiness of space about the nature of consciousness, of God and Man. It's the 60s, Woman hasn't been invented yet.

Despite my Midwestern Protestant upbringing (because of?), I rather liked this. It's nowhere near perfect: Kelvin periodically gets himself to the library for some seriously painful info-dumps. We spend several chapters learning about scholarship about the planet of Solaris, or its topography, or whatever. I was seriously tempted to skip this stuff, and skimmed like crazy, but I was bothered by the sense I may be quizzed on this later. I wasn't, so skip it if you've never read it.

The central conceit: the person who most embodies your shame, your guilt, will appear in bodily form in the station above Solaris. The person appears to be a manifestation of the strange, long-studied, planet-wide ocean entity on the surface. Kelvin's is his long-dead wife, who killed herself after they had a nasty fight. She is unable to leave his side, and moves doors off of hinges to stay with him. She is indestructible, immortal; when she is killed, and who wouldn't kill the person of his shame? she resurrects, horribly. We never learn about anyone else's “visitor” but Kelvin's, but they are there nonetheless, in bangs and murmurs, the sounds of murders and arguments, the glimpse of a hat on the vid-phone (I mentioned that this is 60s scifi, right?) This isn't Terminator; they don't wake to a terrible purpose and murder Kelvin and his fellow scientists. Kelvin and his fellow humans become increasingly isolated from one another: locked into the rooms of their own shame, reading quietly while a resurrected lover sits quietly in the half-light.

What if our first contact with an alien race was so alien that we could never understand that contact, and the contact, for them, was at best a reflex of the nervous system? What if that alien was a child, a god-child, unknowing and unknowable? Lem plays with this, doesn't let us know anything but the unknowing, the voyage within, the self and its mirrors in the claustrophobia of our humanness. How can you understand what you're not? Sometimes, its transcendent, beautiful, and his language soars in the kind of poetry science fiction is attuned to. Kelvin is talking; his colleague, Snow responds:

“'No' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems of mechanisms that served specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, which now measures his unending defeat.'

Snow hesitated.... 'There was Manicheanism.'”

Don't you love this? Isn't it funny and sad, this essential lack of communication between one person and another? C'mon, Snow, Manicheanism? Were you even listening? Sadly, I think you were. How could we hope to contact the alien when we're so thoroughly baffled by the familiar?

But, unfortunately, sometimes this kind of story is just boring, and I feel like Laura, on the prairie, frustrated by all this thinking and not doing. Lem is definitely being subversive, the way he begins by shouting “Courage!” and pointing to the shore, but the shore is a mirage, and you're left in boat, in an ocean that may not be real either, dreaming of status reports and neutrinos, whose reality is transitory, at best. (less)

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Mar 07, 2011 Cindy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, own, sci-fi, social-sf

Thanks to a smart GR friend, I recently found out that Solaris was made into a movie long before the 2002 George Clooney/Soderburgh release. And it was in 1972 in the Soviet Union! And it gets great reviews over at IMDB. (What ever did we do without IMDB?) And if World Cat isn't lying to me, it looks like the library one town south of me has a copy! Well, well, well, a project for 2011.

Anyone out there seen it?

(Update! March 7, 2011 - I saw the Tarkovskiy adaptation last night. Check out my mini...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Oscar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ciencia-ficción, misterio-suspense, míos

Desde siempre había oído hablar de 'Solaris', según muchos, la mejor novela de ciencia ficción no anglosajona que se ha escrito, siendo para muchos otros un absoluto plomazo. Ni tanto ni tan poco, como suele decirse. Ciertamente, era remiso a un primer acercamiento por esta fama de lectura difícil y filosófica, pero el libro se lee bastante bien, aunque es verdad que hay que prestar atención a su lectura. Y es que no estamos ante una novela de aventuras espaciales, sino más bien todo lo contrari...more Desde siempre había oído hablar de 'Solaris', según muchos, la mejor novela de ciencia ficción no anglosajona que se ha escrito, siendo para muchos otros un absoluto plomazo. Ni tanto ni tan poco, como suele decirse. Ciertamente, era remiso a un primer acercamiento por esta fama de lectura difícil y filosófica, pero el libro se lee bastante bien, aunque es verdad que hay que prestar atención a su lectura. Y es que no estamos ante una novela de aventuras espaciales, sino más bien todo lo contrario, se trata de una historia claustrofóbica, reflexiva, pesimista, enigmática, triste.

Solaris, un planeta enigmático. Tiene dos soles, uno rojo y otro azul, y se trata un planeta totalmente cubierto por un océano, un océano pensante, un ente vivo. Solaris, un planeta que trae de cabeza a los científicos desde su descubrimiento.

La novela empieza con la llegada de Kris Kelvin al planeta Solaris para realizar estudios solarísticos. Pero se encuentra con una situación anómala: la estación aparece desordenada, casi abandonada, Gibarian, uno de sus residentes está muerto, y los otros dos, Snaut y Sartorius, parecen trastornados, locos, por algo que ha sucedido y está sucediendo en torno a la estación. Kelvin, el narrador, intentará comprender lo que está pasando, porque algo está pasando, ya que él también empieza a sentir y ver "otras" presencias en la estación.

Para mí, el mayor atractivo de 'Solaris' radica en la relaciones entre los habitantes de la estación, sobre todo entre Kelvin y Harey, que convierte la novela en una triste historia de amor. La atmósfera creada por Lem, sobre todo al principio de la novela, es magnífica, y llegas a sentir realmente la tensión y angustia del protagonista. Por último, destaco también toda la parte epistemológica del libro, donde Lem desarrolla la trama científica y filosófica, la historia y descripción del planeta Solaris, siendo extraordinarias las descripciones de los monstruos del océano.

'Solaris', novela de múltiples lecturas, llena de dilemas morales y filosóficos, nos habla de la imperfección del ser humano y de sus limitaciones a la hora de utilizar la ciencia como explicación del Cosmos.

La novela me ha gustado sin entusiasmarme.

(Después de un tiempo tras la lectura de esta novela, me doy cuenta de que la huella que me ha dejado es mayor de lo que pensaba. Así que subo de 3 a 4 estrellas.)
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Aug 03, 2009 Ninja Sock Puppet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Steven Soderbergh

Recommended to Ninja Sock Puppet by: Ceridwen

Shelves: deep-shit, stolen-from-ceridwen

What if, like, there were this planet that seemed intelligent, right? And like, we go visit it and after a few decades still can't talk to it? But one day, all of a sudden, it creates perfect humans out of our subconscious minds, indistinguishable from real humans down to the subatomic level except for the fact that that particular human died years ago? Like, how would we react to that, man?

Duuude.

This book is about aliens and what an alien encounter would truly be like. Solaris is a planet cove...more

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Jul 09, 2010 Troy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

Recently, I read Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, which was the basis of Tarkovsky's Stalker. I realized that I had never read the classic source for Tarkovsky's other sci-fi movie, Solaris. And like Roadside Picnic, the book is significantly different from the Tarkovsky's movie, and different in wonderful ways.

Some of the greatness of the book is the same as some of the greatness of the movie: i.e., a deeply philosophical examination of existence, human exceptionalism, memory and de...more Recently, I read Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, which was the basis of Tarkovsky's Stalker. I realized that I had never read the classic source for Tarkovsky's other sci-fi movie, Solaris. And like Roadside Picnic, the book is significantly different from the Tarkovsky's movie, and different in wonderful ways.

Some of the greatness of the book is the same as some of the greatness of the movie: i.e., a deeply philosophical examination of existence, human exceptionalism, memory and desire. You might know the story. A psychologist goes to an outpost on Solaris, a planet that has spawned a whole branch of science for nearly a hundred years. The planet seems to be covered by a living "ocean," which somehow stabilizes an orbit around two suns, but no one is sure how, and no one is sure if the ocean is conscious. As soon as Kris, a psychologist, reaches the Solaris station, it's obvious that something is deeply wrong. Soon enough, the psychologist runs into his dead girlfriend. His girlfriend, btw, killed herself, and it was partially his fault. He figures out, with the help of the other members still alive at the station, that everyone has dealt with people from their past (or even worse, their fantasies). It appears that the ocean has created these people based on readings from the members' brains.

What's great about the ocean is how damn foreign it is. A great part of the book is spent reflecting on the past century of Solaris Studies, describing the various regular and irregular structures the ocean 'builds,' and guessing why the ocean has recreated physical versions of the members' memories. What's great about their experiments and discussions is that they are up against the limits of their human-ness. Solaris Studies have persisted because the ocean is so damn alien. It is Other in a fundamental way. And the researchers, being human, simply can't think past their human-constrictions. There's more to it than that, but it's a thoughtful cool book. Like a comic I just read, Leviathan , it's hard to tell if the ocean (like the leviathan from the comic, is a stand in for our deity worship, or if it's just meant to be up against the limits of our understanding. What the book pushes is is philosophical questions: What does it mean to be human? How can we escape our boundaries? What is our place in the universe? The Tarkovsky film leaves out the last question (and how could he? it would require a massive budget and several more hours to successfully reinterpret the part of the book that dealt with the hundred years of Solaris Studies) but both are beautiful and thought provoking pieces of art.

One other note: the book I'm reviewing is translated from the French. It reads well, but I wonder if someone has translated a new version directly from Russian?(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Apatt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Always nice to take a break in the middle of a long book (Les Miz!) and read something nice and short. Solaris clocks in at only around 200 pages (I read the Kindle edition). It started off like a creepy haunted house story but quickly morphs into something very odd and mind blowing. Solaris is a planet with a single ginormous occupant, a living ocean of some weird alien liquid. When us puny humans set up a hovering station there and started messing about with the living ocean the latter does no...more Always nice to take a break in the middle of a long book (Les Miz!) and read something nice and short. Solaris clocks in at only around 200 pages (I read the Kindle edition). It started off like a creepy haunted house story but quickly morphs into something very odd and mind blowing. Solaris is a planet with a single ginormous occupant, a living ocean of some weird alien liquid. When us puny humans set up a hovering station there and started messing about with the living ocean the latter does not retaliate exactly but sends the humans a copy of the person from their past who cause them the most guilt. Their motive for doing this is unknown, just a very alien alien alienating humans with their alieness, my guess is they just want to mess with their heads.

I have seen the 2002 movie version of Solaris starring George Clooney (who adorns the awful paperback cover making out with his costar), I don't actually remember anything about the movie which is probably indicative of something, I probably fell asleep which I often do when watching a leisurely paced movie. The plot still interests me however, and this book has been in my TBR pile for the longest time. For me the book works much better than the movie because the quiet tone and the staidly pace is fine for books as reading is a more intimate experience than watching movies. I am happy to report that the Kindle edition I read was directly translated from the original Polish edition by Prof Bill Johnson*. For many years the only print editions you can find is the one translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox from a French translation (no idea by who) so what you'd get is a translation of a translation. That sort of thing is bound to play hell with the accuracy. In any event this is by no means an easy breezy read, there are passages of very dry infodump full of neologisms that caused by attention to drift into the unknown until the narrative return to the characters.

Over all I find this to be a fascinating read when the author is not waxing lyrical about “mimoids,” “symmetriads’ and “asymmetriads,”and such. The concept and ramification of the copy humans (called "guests" or "G-Formations" in the book) fascinating as they are not androids or ghosts, they are more like simulations given flesh. They can not leave you even if they want to, and they are unaware of their true nature. This leads to some unusual human drama and heart breaking scenes. If you like thought provoking scifi (with hardly any action to speak of) this one is not to be missed.(less)

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Dec 26, 2012 Benjamin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had never seen any of the film versions of this book, but it was recommended in several places as one of the better science fiction novels written. Normally I do not care for the stuff, but something lately has made me curious to see what I have missed by not reading scifi.

Truth be told, I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was well thought out and had some interesting ideas [not to mention some terrifying ones]. For those unfamilair with the story, a man travels to a far-flung planet to...more

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Nov 05, 2011 terpkristin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, audiobook, sci-fi

I listened to this book based on Luke Burrage's review on the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast. Overall, I thought it was pretty good, and would recommend it to others. It ended up getting 3 stars from me, instead of 4, because at times it went pretty heavy into the physics--to a point that my mind started wandering (and once I fell asleep, but I'll blame part of that on some medication I took). Normally, I don't like the overuse of science in science fiction, because usually authors get it p...more I listened to this book based on Luke Burrage's review on the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast. Overall, I thought it was pretty good, and would recommend it to others. It ended up getting 3 stars from me, instead of 4, because at times it went pretty heavy into the physics--to a point that my mind started wandering (and once I fell asleep, but I'll blame part of that on some medication I took). Normally, I don't like the overuse of science in science fiction, because usually authors get it pretty wrong or use it only tangentially and it takes me out of the story. That wasn't the case with the physics in this audiobook. From the parts where my mind didn't wander, it was spot on--I think Lem must have had a solid foundation in physics. It was refreshing, though a bit over the top (chapter 8 comes right to mind).

But this isn't really a book about physics. It's a book about man's psyche. In Solaris, humans end up interacting with an alien being in an unusual way. Somehow, the alien can read into the human's most poignant memories and then faces the humans with echoes of these memories. I won't go into the details of the main character's confrontation, as that is the meat of the book. Suffice it to say, the crew members who have these confrontations handled them quite differently. One of the scientists seems to be almost ashamed of his, and constantly hides--even going so far as to black out his video screen. One seems to have an almost violent history. One confronts it head-on and doesn't want to let go. It's a powerful statement that Lem makes about how humans deal with their inner selves and with others...all through the alien confrontations. At the end of the book, he brings in some broad brush strokes about religion. I didn't think these strokes were completely necessary, but didn't feel out of place; it's hard to talk about man's place without getting into religion.

This audiobook was quite good. The narration was fantastic, and apparently this translation is the only direct Polish-to-English translation. It's definitely worth your time (it's less than 8 hours in audio).(less)

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Jan 04, 2009 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Becky by: Science Fiction Films Group

Shelves: science-fiction, 2009, reviewed

Very, very interesting story. I didn't know what to think of this story at times, so I will describe, as well as I can, the different impressions I had at different times while reading. If this makes no sense, please accept my apologies. I'm gonna try to keep it clean, but be warned, there may be spoilers ahead. :)

Starting the book, it felt like your standard science fiction, pop into a space-suit and into your pod/shuttle/ship/whatever (please SF fans, no throwing stones!) and take off for part...more Very, very interesting story. I didn't know what to think of this story at times, so I will describe, as well as I can, the different impressions I had at different times while reading. If this makes no sense, please accept my apologies. I'm gonna try to keep it clean, but be warned, there may be spoilers ahead. :)

Starting the book, it felt like your standard science fiction, pop into a space-suit and into your pod/shuttle/ship/whatever (please SF fans, no throwing stones!) and take off for parts unknown. Once on Solaris though, oh man... What to think? Kelvin's exploration and conversations with Snow struck me as something really creepy, mysterious and "Clue"-like.

I mean, here Kelvin is, finding hints with his name on them, leading him to find other books, which lead back around to where they began and then he finds another clue... All this, strange as it may seem, reminded me of the game Myst. And I'm terrible at that game. Not that that has anything to do with anything.

Then the visitors make their appearances, and its scary even though it's familiar. The part where Kelvin manages to lock Rheya in the shuttle and she is screaming for him and battering the shuttle gave me chills. His disgust with her, and desire to be rid of her in any way possible made me think of Victor Frankenstein. OK yes, there are MAJOR differences there, the major one being that Kelvin didn't willingly create Rheya 2, but there she is, nonetheless. She is just as innocent of any crime as Frankenstein's monster was at first, yet just as abhorred.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll try to make the rest quick.

There were some very dry, science text-like sections, which really are what made this book a 3 star earner rather than a 4 star earner. Not too difficult to understand, but a little too much like work. But this book is smart, too. Perceptive. Take a look at this quote:

"...We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. [...:] We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us--that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence--then we don't like it anymore."

Enjoyable read, if dry in certain spots. But, don't let that stop you from reading this one. The rest of the story more than makes up for any slow parts.(less)

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Aug 18, 2012 Mark Folse rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: top-of-the-stack

I don't normally review books I'm still reading but one-third of the way I am ready to encourage readers of hard sci-fi and modern literature to give this version a try. This new translation by Bill Johnston improves on the popular Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox translation (at least according to an online review I read with passages side-by-side;). I read the old translation a number of years ago and was not terribly impressed, preferring the Andrei Tarkovsky film. (I have not watched the Georg...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Hildur rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2011, read-on-kindle, sci-fi

Solaris wasn't very rememberable.
I'm not even completely sure what it was about because not a lot of things happened.

The book is short (just over 200 pages) but it doesn't feel that way.
I had to drag myself through the main character reading endless reports about the planet Solaris. I get it! The planet's weird. Can we move on now? No? FINE, have it you way, Mr. Lem, but you won't get many stars from me on goodreads!

It probably would have been better had it been a picture book. If you could ski...more

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May 22, 2007 Erik Cameron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a very creepy book, with philosophical content that is both substantive and well done artistically. In a lot of ways, it's about a breakdown between the scientific project and the natural world it is supposed to study: the biggest scientific debate of the day is over the alleged sentience of a large, planet sized ocean on a world called Solaris. Hopefully, you put the book down unsure of whether you think the ocean is actually alive or not. (And then proceed to feel skeptical of the noti...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Harry Kane rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stanislaw Lem (Poland) and the Strugatski Bros (USSR) are the only names from the evil empire side of the Iron Curtain, who are easily better writers than all western competitors at the time, with the exception of say Aldiss and Ballard and Dick and Simak. As in 'wacky humanist sci-fi'.

Before Nixon declared LSD the most dangerous substance on the planet, and the whole world jumped with instant enthusiasm at the chance for some more reality enforcement legislation, it was used by scientists and...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Über Solaris werden wir kaum etwas erfahren, aber vielleicht etwas über uns...

1961 veröffentlicht der 40-jährige Sohn einer polnisch-jüdischen Arztfamilie den Roman „Solaris“, der die Genregrenzen der Science Fiction sprengt. Schon zu Beginn des Buches präsentiert sich dieses als Wissenschaftssatire, wenn die zahlreichen und dickleibigen Werke der Solaristik - der fiktiven Forschung über den Planeten Solaris - trotz des Gebrauchs abenteuerlichster Begriffe (präbiologische Formation; plasmatische...more

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Nov 28, 2011 John Wiswell rated it 3 of 5 stars

While I’ve read the old Polish-to-French-to-English translation, I knew it wasn’t reliable. This review is primarily about the Audible release that was allegedly the first direct translation from the original Polish to English. In either edition, though, I have no confidence that Lem’s prose style has necessarily been preserved.

The concern exists in minor and major cases: this translator deliberately points out things we could infer, like that the books we know the names of are alphabetized, whi...more While I’ve read the old Polish-to-French-to-English translation, I knew it wasn’t reliable. This review is primarily about the Audible release that was allegedly the first direct translation from the original Polish to English. In either edition, though, I have no confidence that Lem’s prose style has necessarily been preserved.

The concern exists in minor and major cases: this translator deliberately points out things we could infer, like that the books we know the names of are alphabetized, while another leaves it out. Just as easily, many of the conversations in both editions are so blunt as to sound unlike anybody would actually have them. This is a touchier subject in a book like Solaris than in most novels, because the story is about communication. Earthlings have found a living ocean and are struggling to comprehend or converse with it, and the only response seems to be it inducing visions of their own memories, which in the novella exist primarily as conversations with dead loved ones. How Lem actually made them talk, and how his pages upon pages of exposition on how the sciences analyzed this creature, is paramount to the quality of the book. If his language was anything but sharp, the whole exercise would be shoddy. At least for the Audible release, the novella seems more ambitious than excellent.

Late in the novella there is a passage that criticizes interest in the living ocean of Solaris at all. It aggressively rips into anyone who desires communication as secretly and ashamedly religious, of being intellectual cowards and generally foolish, and of wasting time and money that belongs elsewhere. Beyond how the narrator reads the audio edition, the translated text itself reads very bitter and sure of itself. It could be the author condemning such skeptics as cruel or willfully myopic, in their refusal to see things in other ways, or it could be a representation of academic skepticism, or it could be playing against the themes we’ve seen in the book thus far. But is any of that in the original Polish text? You don’t know, and without extensive footnoting or author notes, you can’t know. This is incredibly frustrating when you’re dealing with a book that is itself so tenuously built on its use of language.

That foundation would be one of Solaris’s greatest flaws regardless of how it was executed. The novella has two sorts of scenes: expository passages, and passages where people talk about conflicts. We never watch much behavior or action. Structurally this is classic SciFi, but also quite weak writing. We experience very little of what any character goes through, instead being relegated to hearing about it. It’s the sort of passive narrative that’s too common in Hard Science Fiction. It’s unsurprising to read interviews with Lem where he espoused primarily being interested in the notion of the being, rather than the story about it.

So we have this wild ocean that might be sentient in some way. We know that it’s so alien that it can’t be anthropomorphized successfully. Perhaps it’s Lem’s fascination with writing something truly alien that prevents him from having the characters directly interact with that ocean, going down to the planet and behaving around it. If they did, they’d project intention and perhaps break up his ambitious theme. It is unfortunate that the novella’s answer is to set itself near such a fantastic thing, without any direct experience of it.

In this absence, Solaris becomes a little like a great ghost story. Our main scientist is bombarded with experiences of his dead wife. Faced with the incapacity to comprehend the living ocean, he becomes more invested in the relationship with her. His own grief colors what he actually sees and hears, and her illusion grows so strongly that she is struck by an existential crisis over whether to continue existing, or to commit suicide again. This is poignant, and a deeply human reaction to the clinical scientific approach. Stripped from the novella, it would make a dynamite short story that would eclipse any of Clarke or Asimov’s wildest creations.

It would have to be stripped, though, from the hulk of a passive novella. It’s not as though the novella is so packed with action and vital insight that it can’t afford more scenes of action or interaction. There’s space enough for my least favorite kind of scene in all modern film and fiction: that one where a character turns to another and asks, “Do you believe in God?” To date, this scene has felt relevant to perhaps three out of a eighty pieces of fiction, and this novella isn’t one of the three cases. When characters are discussing sub-Freshman theology, and pretty clearly serving as mouthpieces for their author, and as mouthpieces on matters unnecessary to their plot, it’s pretty much unforgivable. Lem writing this decades ahead of the curve doesn’t absolve anything, for he does nothing unusual with the premise. They don’t even really cast their God-chat in light of the ocean’s cognition. It’s just poor philosophy cast in weariness, of which I’m wearier than any character is of its existence.

For the Audible release, they acquired Battlestar Galactica actor Alessandro Juliani to narrate. Juliani overacts from the first chapter on, including making characters who are described as sounding “almost calm” instead sound entirely manic. The aggressive voice he adopts works for the protagonist’s introspection, but grates over several hours. He can’t escape the text of the book. It’s worth reading or hearing in whatever edition you can find to scale such an ambitious attempt at writing about non-human sentience, especially if you are a student of Speculative Fiction, but remains a flawed experiment.(less)

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Aug 08, 2012 Alp Eren rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am only halfway through the book and without doubt it deserves 5 star. Nothing can compare to the vividness and realism that flows through the book despite the apparently surreal and fictitious content. The empathy you instantly build with the antagonist doubles, even triples the horror. Not even mentioning the originality of the story.

Now that I have finished the book, my previous impression of the book has only been reinforced.

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Jul 13, 2007 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is unfortunate that Lem is labeled as an author of "science fiction", but really only because of what the american traditions for that genre have imprinted on our culture. Solaris is a deeply philosophical look at the notion of "otherness", a meditation on the hard limits at the edges of human cognition, and science's inability to look outside of problems that science can describe.

Read this book instead of watching either of the films derived from it. Tarkovsky's Solaris is brilliant for it'...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Cheryl rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I barely remember the movie I saw a few years ago, but the back cover sold me on the book and it was interesting. I definitely want to see the movie again. “Can we understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?” It is excellent sci-fi. A psychologist arrives on Solaris to study the ocean there, which has been theorized to be a living being of some sort; he is confronted with the real ghost of the love of his life who committed suicide 10 years ago, and she is phy...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Sabrina1984 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

"Noch hatte ich mich zu nichts augerafft, zu keiner Entscheidung, kein Beschluss war gefasst. Ich stand reglos, vertieft in den nachdunkelnden Himmel, in die Sterne, die nur der schemenhafte Schatten irdischer Sterne waren. Und in der Öde, die den Gedankentrubel von vorhin abgelöst hatte, erwuchs ohne Worte die tote, gleichgültige Gewissheit, dass dort, wohin ich nicht reichen konnte, meine Wahl schon getroffen war. Und während ich vorgab, dass nichts geschehen sei, hatte ich nicht einmal Kraft...more "Noch hatte ich mich zu nichts augerafft, zu keiner Entscheidung, kein Beschluss war gefasst. Ich stand reglos, vertieft in den nachdunkelnden Himmel, in die Sterne, die nur der schemenhafte Schatten irdischer Sterne waren. Und in der Öde, die den Gedankentrubel von vorhin abgelöst hatte, erwuchs ohne Worte die tote, gleichgültige Gewissheit, dass dort, wohin ich nicht reichen konnte, meine Wahl schon getroffen war. Und während ich vorgab, dass nichts geschehen sei, hatte ich nicht einmal Kraft genug, um mich zu verachten."

"Nein - unterbrach ich ihn. - Mir gehts um einen Gott, dessen Unvollkommenheit nicht aus der Schlichtheit seiner menschlichen Schöpfer folgt, sondern seinen wesentlichsten innewohnenden Zug darstellt. Das soll ein Gott sein, der begrenzt ist in seiner Allwissenheit und Allmacht, fehlbar beim Voraussehen der Zukunft seiner Werke, einer, der den Verlauf der von ihm geformten Phänomene in Entsetzen versetzen kann. Das ist ein... krüppelhafter Gott, der immer mehr begehrt, als er kann, und sich das nicht sofort klarmacht. Einer, der die Uhren konstruiert hat, aber nicht die Zeit, die sie abmessen. Naturgefüge oder Mechanismen, die bestimmten Zielen dienen; aber sie wuchsen über diese Ziele hinaus und verrieten sie. Und er hat die Unendlichkeit erschaffen, die von dem Maß seiner Macht, das sie hätte sein sollen, zum Maß seines grenzenlosen Versagens geworden ist.
[...]
Eine derartige Religion kenne ich nicht - sagt er nach kurzem Schweigen. - So eine war nie... nötig. Wenn ich dich recht verstehe, und ich fürchte, das tue ich, dann denkst du an einen evolvierenden Gott, der sich zeitlich entwickelt und heranreift, sich auf immer höhere Stufen der Macht erhebt, bis zum Bewusstsein ihrer Kraftlosigkeit? Dein Gott da, das ist ein Wesen, das in die Göttlichkeit eintrat wie in eine auswegslose Lage, und als es das begriff, überließ es sich der Verzweiflung. Ja, aber der verzweifelnde Gott, das ist ja der Mensch, mein Bester? Um den Menschen geht es dir... "

"Wir wollen gar nicht den Kosmos erobern, wir wollen nur die Erde bis an ihre Grenzen erweitern. Die einen Planeten haben voll Wüste zu sein, wie die Sahara, die anderen eisig wie der Pol oder tropisch wie der brasilianische Urwald. Wir sind humanitär und edel, wir wollen die anderen Rassen nicht unterwerfen, wir wollen ihnen nur unsere Werte übermitteln und, als Gegengabe, ihrer aller Erbe annehmen. Wir halten uns für die Ritter vom heiligen Kontrakt. Das ist die zweite Lüge. Menschen suchen wir, niemanden sonst. Wir brauchen keine anderen Welten. Wir brauchen Spiegel. Mit anderen Welten wissen wir nichts anzufangen. Es genügt unsere eine, und schon ersticken wir an ihr. Wir wollen das eigene idealisierte Bild finden; diese Globen, diese Zivilisationen haben volkommener zu sein als die unsere, in anderen wiederum hoffen wir das Abbild unserer primitiven Vergangenheit zu finden. Indessen ist auf der anderen Seite etwas, was wir nicht akzeptieren, wogegen wir uns wehren, und schließlich haben wir von der Erde nicht das pure Destillat aus lauter Tugenden mitgebracht, das heroische Standbild des Menschen! Wir sind so hierhergeflogen, wie wir wirklich sind, und wenn die andere Seite uns diese Wahrheit zeigt, diesen Teil von ihr, den wir verschweigen, dann können wir das nicht hinnehmen!
- Also was ist das? - fragte ich, nachdem ich ihn geduldig angehört hatte.
- Das, was wir gewollt haben: der Kontakt mit einer anderen Zivilisation. Da haben wir den Kontakt! Übersteigert, wie unter dem Mikroskop - unsere eigene monströse Häßlichkeit, unsere Albernheit und Schande!!!"(less)

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May 16, 2013 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, science-fiction

This review is for the Definitive Edition from Audible translated by Bill Johnston from the original Polish.

At the beginning, Kris Kelvin boards the space station orbiting the most bizarre and disturbing planet in the known galaxy. A planet who's ocean is seemingly alive in the form of an ever changing ooze. Not only is it alive but in some way not known to our future selves; it can even control time and space keeping it from burning up or freezing while it orbits two suns.

What should have been...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Robert Slaven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first heard of this story when I bought Isao Tomita's LP Kosmos back in 1978. The last piece on the album was called "The Sea Named Solaris"; Tomita based it on two Bach pieces that are in the soundtrack of the 1972 Russian film Solaris; "Three-Part Invention No. 2 in C Minor" (BWV 788) and "Ich Ruf'zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ" (BWV 639). In the liner notes, Tomita said:

For this piece I was inspired by the Russian science fiction movie "Solaris". The planet "Solaris" consists entirely of a sea o

...more I first heard of this story when I bought Isao Tomita's LP Kosmos back in 1978. The last piece on the album was called "The Sea Named Solaris"; Tomita based it on two Bach pieces that are in the soundtrack of the 1972 Russian film Solaris; "Three-Part Invention No. 2 in C Minor" (BWV 788) and "Ich Ruf'zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ" (BWV 639). In the liner notes, Tomita said:

For this piece I was inspired by the Russian science fiction movie "Solaris". The planet "Solaris" consists entirely of a sea of plasma that is a living creature with its own power of reasoning. Men from the earth make a space station on Solaris, and send people there to make observations. The sea of Solaris extracts memories from the sleeping earthmen's brains and reincarnate loved ones from their past. I did not try to express the planet Solaris itself but a certain state of a human mind that might be created by the happenings there. The cherished memories are depicted by Bach's Invention, and the eternal longing is expressed by Bach's chorale I Call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ.

Anyhow, I finally got around to getting a copy of the novel and the 1972 film (thank you, Phoenix Public Library System). The premise of this story is wonderful; a planet covered by some kind of ocean which can read the minds of the humans in their orbiting space station, and bring their most cherished memories to life. It's quite a heartbreaking story, and it touches on the themes of love, loss, grief, regret, and remembrance in a way that few other science fiction novels do. There are some long tedious passages having to do with the scientific progress (or lack thereof) that the humans have made in trying to understand the planet, but if you can get through those, you'll be well-rewarded.

The 1972 film is available on DVD from Criterion, Russian with English subtitles. It's very long (2h45), but the languorous pace fits well with the themes of the story, in my opinion. If you thought 2001: A Space Odyssey was long and boring, you'll think the same of this film; if you loved 2001, then set aside 3 hours and take a look at this film.

(Note: This was also made into a 2002 Hollywood film of the same name, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney. I haven't seen that one yet, but I plan to soon.)(less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finished the book two days ago, and just last night as I was watching a program about the Sun did I discover an interesting correlation between the ocean planet and our Sun. The program was talking about solar flares ejecting themselves out from the planet into space and the sun's particles traveling to earth, having an impact on our satellites. I was shocked. Once a book is finished I tend to think about its background information, or how it came to be. Lem's vocabulary, for example, worked p...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Maryann rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001

I saw this movie, and I didn't get it. When I got the book, I thought, "Finally, I'll understand what's going on!"

Or not.

Solaris is a planet that is composed mostly of an ocean of plasma, which may or may not have consciousness. Kelvin/Kris has arrived at the space station and discovers one of the scientists has killed himself, but no one is willing to tell him why, exactly. He discovers his dead wife has joined him in his quarters when he wakes up one morning, very much alive. Other visitors,...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Andrea rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Borges avrebbe liquidato l'idea con un raccontino efficace

Questo, prima che essere un romanzo, è un "Manuale di Storia della Solaristica", una scienza inesistente di cui si descrive lo sviluppo dalle origini, passando in rassegna padri fondatori, innovatori, accademici, reiteratori non originali, eccetera, tutti inventati. Con le loro idee, le loro teorie, le loro pubblicazioni, i loro errori.

Vi ricorda nulla? A me Borges. Finzioni e l'Aleph sono pieni di scienze inventate. Solo che Borges avreb...more Borges avrebbe liquidato l'idea con un raccontino efficace

Questo, prima che essere un romanzo, è un "Manuale di Storia della Solaristica", una scienza inesistente di cui si descrive lo sviluppo dalle origini, passando in rassegna padri fondatori, innovatori, accademici, reiteratori non originali, eccetera, tutti inventati. Con le loro idee, le loro teorie, le loro pubblicazioni, i loro errori.

Vi ricorda nulla? A me Borges. Finzioni e l'Aleph sono pieni di scienze inventate. Solo che Borges avrebbe liquidato l'idea di fondo in un breve (ed efficacissimo) racconto, mentre Lem la tira per le lunghe in modo estenuante.

C'è una ulteriore lettura. Questo "romanzo" può essere visto come un'allegoria della storia della filosofia umana. I primi solaristi sono descrittivi ed enciclopedici, come Aristotele. Gli ultimi sono scettici come Nietsche o utilitaristi.

Una delle conclusioni filosofiche più interessanti è questa:

scopo classico della solaristica è il contatto con l'alieno. Del "contatto" i solaristi hanno fatto un "fine ultimo", una religione. Ma, avverte lo scettico, siamo sicuri che il contatto con un alieno come l'oceano vivente di Solaris sia realmente possibile? Che esista un piano condiviso in cui è possibile una vera comunicazione? Forse no, conclude lo studioso. Lo danno per scontato, ne hanno fatto una questione di fede, ma forse no.

Per tirare per le lunghe la vicenda, Lem ha ritenuto necessario inserire una vicenda sentimentale, anche questa tirata per le lunghe e inconsistente. La donna è una emanazione dell'oceano, ma Kelvin se ne innamora. Questa vicenda dà spunti per una serie di riflessioni sull'identità (ma io sono veramente io o sono un'emanazione dell'oceano vivente e non lo so?).

Che dire: tutto molto profondo, tutto profondamente noioso.

Un romanzo è un romanzo, un saggio è un saggio e un saggio vestito da romanzo è palloso se la parte romanzesca è poco solida e l'integrazione romanzo-saggio è ottenuta copiaincollando una lunga disquisizione dopo la frase "Kelvin pensò che..."
(less)

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Aug 29, 2012 Dot Gumbi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Apparently Lem didn’t like the English translation of his masterpiece. He thought it sucked the big one and lost much of the magic of his Polish original. That may be true as in places Solaris is eerily excellent and in others it’s a yawn-fest of technical nonsense.

The gist: A scientist goes to a remote outpost science research station on solaris, a planet with a supposedly living ocean (think pink golden syrup that can morph itself into shapes). For years scientists have been trying to establis...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Gijs rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, polish, 20th-century, eastern-europe, 20th-century-1960s

De roman die twee prachtige en mij dierbare films heeft opgeleverd, blijkt zelf behoorlijk af te wijken van beide. (view spoiler)...more

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About Stanisław Lem

Stanisław Lem (staˈɲiswaf lɛm) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of Solaris, which has twice been made into a feature film. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.

His works exp...more Stanisław Lem (staˈɲiswaf lɛm) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of Solaris, which has twice been made into a feature film. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.

His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind'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 and multiple translated versions of his works exist.

Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period led to the "Polish October", when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored 17 books. His works were widely translated abroad (although mostly in the Eastern Bloc countries). In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogi (Dialogues), one of his two most famous philosophical texts along with Summa Technologiae (1964). The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances. In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—like, for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology. Over the next few decades, he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological, although from the 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays.

He gained international fame for The Cyberiad, a series of humorous short stories from a mechanical universe ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. His best-known novels include Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (Głos pana, 1968), and the late Fiasco (Fiasko, 1987), expressing most strongly his major theme of the futility of mankind's attempts to comprehend the truly alien. Solaris was made into a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; in 2002, Steven Soderbergh directed a Hollywood remake starring George Clooney.(less)

More about Stanisław Lem...

Books by Stanisław Lem

The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy

The Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy

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Trivia About Solaris

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Quotes from Solaris

“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.” — 46 people liked it

“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore.” — 21 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12077902-solaris?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311136858l/12077902.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12077902-solaris?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Solaris: The Definitive Edition by Stanisław Lem[/url]

Solaris: The Definitive Edition

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