7 ms·

Lem has got to be one of the most profound writers in all science fiction--dare I say in all of literature? He's up there with writers like Wells and Asimov. S

by briga 9y ago

Lem has got to be one of the most profound writers in all science fiction--dare I say in all of literature? He's up there with writers like Wells and Asimov. Solaris is deservedly his most famous book, but he has many other books worthy of attention. His Master's Voice is a novel in the vein of the Carl Sagan's Contact, but with far more complex philosophical and scientific underpinnings than Sagan's work. Eden and Fiasco are both great as well, even if they fall short of Solaris. His comedic books never appealed to me quite as much, although there are parts of The Cyberiad with some interesting ideas. I'm interested in his Summa Technologiae--last time I checked it didn't have an English translation. Has anyone here read it?

nisa 9y ago
> Summa Technologiae--last time I checked it didn't have an English translation. Has anyone here read it? I've read it in German but it's been a while. It's one of those books where the exact words weren't known at the time, but all the ideas were present - you can reasonably argue at least Internet, VR and more are in there. Also some wonderful to read ideas about the future that are applicable to the present. If you can - it's worth a read.
jagger11 9y ago
I've read the original Polish version, though there seems to be English translation from 2013: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780816675760 https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780816675760
Hoasi 9y ago
Stanislaw Lem, "Summa Technologiae", translated by Joanna Zylinska, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2013, ISBN 978-0816675760 Phenomenal work, well worth reading and re-reading.
tpm 9y ago
His Master's Voice is a great book, it's the one I will remember as his best. I also love Peace on Earth, which while not a comedy is quite satirical, and also great sci-fi thriller movie material.
nn3 9y ago
Calling SEO adriadnology is pretty cool. I read Summa Technologae a long time ago in German translation. It wasn't easy to read, but had many interesting ideas. Two concepts I still remember and think of occasionally: - the concept of "technology evolution" and especially that technologies that soon get replaced with something else often develop "bizarre", e.g. very large, forms shortly before extinction. Lem extrapolated that from dinosaurs (although I think it showed a weak grasp of natural history because for dinosaurs size was not correlated with their extinction). Lem's technological example were steam train engines, which developed some bizarre forms shortly before they were replaced with Diesel and electric engines. It's interesting to think how this observation applies to our current technology. For example the monster die GPUs that Nvidia is building now for deep learning could be the last flowering before being replaced with far smaller and more efficient neuromorphic chips. - Another interesting observation was the cost of technology. He had the example of fighter planes in the first world war roughly being the cost of a car, in the 2nd world war 10 cars and now getting many orders of magnitudes more expensive. In the 60ies this trend was only beginning, but it's clear it's continuing. The prediction was that at some point even super powers would only be able to afford a few planes each, and it's already true if you consider the costs of the American B2 (until manned planes get replaced by far cheaper drones) We see similar trends with chip production. Originally even small companies could set up a computer chip fab, but now even very large companies like Intel or Samsung or TSMC can only afford a few and the costs are still growing quickly. - (the full book has many more of course, but it's hard to remember them all. Lem's books in general have a lot of ideas per page)
- 452early 9y ago
  A quick reply to second your highlight of tech evolution in Summa. I’ve been a Lem since my teens when I discovered a dozen of his novels in a small 1990s grocery store. However I didn’t read Summa until a couple of years ago. As a fan of Veblen (theory of Business Enterprise, specifically) I have a tendency to view technology as force and product of natural selection. Lem handles this with more care than most if not all related texts u thread in uni. Strongest recommendation
  - 452early 9y ago
mindcrime 9y ago
There is definitely an English translation. I've started reading it, but (sadly) haven't gotten very far into it yet.
ptero 9y ago
He was a true thinker and IMO is one of the giants of modern literature. When I was a kid I read "the Invincible" and was hooked. It is one of his simpler stories (which I still enjoy re-reading occasionally), but after that I read all of his fiction that I could find in a library. The need to be translated from Polish is a serious obstacle, though. To be enjoyed fully his works need a good translator.
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  It's amazing that until just a few years ago, there wasn't a direct translation of Solaris available in English. The English-language version, by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, was a translation of the French edition, which was know to be less than great. The first direct translation came out in 2011, by Bill Johnston, a professor of comparative literature.
  - Wildgoose 9y ago
    Aaargh! I've just bought a copy of Solaris and now I need to go home and check which version I bought. (I loved the Cyberiad when I read it as a schoolboy some thirty-odd years ago).
V-2 9y ago
> His comedic books never appealed to me quite as much I believe they don't lend themselves to translation that well. Lem's humour tends to be very linguistic. Greater degree of translation loss is inevitable here, same as with poetry.
ajuc 9y ago
I'm the exact opposite. I admire the ideas in serious books, but the style puts me off. I struggled to get through Invincible. Comedic Lem is just pure brillance, still high on ideas, but also very easy to read. But I read them in Polish, and I imagine translating Cyberiad can't be easy. BTW if you like serious, abstract sci-fi try Jacek Dukaj. He's often described as a successor to Lem, even if his style is IMHO something between Lem and Greg Egan. I believe only one of his books was translated to English so far, but surely they will follow with others, he's very good.
- ttctciyf 9y ago
  Regards translating the Cyberiad, the famous scene where Klapaucius tests Trurl's AI poetry machine has been translated by Michael Kandel: “Have it compose a poem — a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!!” “And why not throw in a full exposition of the general theory of nonlinear automata while you’re at it?” growled Trurl. “You can’t give it such idiotic — ” But he didn’t finish. A melodious voice filled the hall with the following: “Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide.” ... I don't know any Polish, but having found a more literal rendering of the original[1] it seems Kandel has not made it worse! 1: https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725b5a8086d9 https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-72...
  - gbhn 9y ago
    I've enjoyed this translation many times, and wondered how difficult a job it must have been to adequately do this translation!
    - Finnucane 9y ago
      I once asked Michael how he translated the list of imaginary things beginning with 'N' destroyed by Trurl's machine in the process of making 'nothing.' His answer: 'I made it up.'
tialaramex 9y ago
I actually rate Solaris last among the Lem works I've read. Below things like Hospital of the Transfiguration, which are pretty far off the beaten track for Lem. I actually stayed away from Lem for years because the (2002) Solaris movie made me think he's just waffling and hasn't any SF ideas worth looking at. Hardly could have been more misleading. A Perfect Vacuum is I think the pinnacle of Lem's achievement. Why write a book and leave others to criticise what you did, when you can imagine the finished book and write a critique of _that_ yourself? Imaginary Magnitude is a similar idea, and I like that too, but I think Vacuum ends up the cleverer of the two even though Golem XIV (from Magnitude) is better than most Singularitarian fiction you'll see today.
haZard_OS 9y ago
As mentioned in the article, an English translation appeared in 2013-4: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/summa-technologiae https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/summa-technol...
gambiting 9y ago
Yes! Invincible is my favourite book of all time - but all of his books exude the same aura of unknowing and never being able to know everything, unlike with most authors. The problem I have is recommending his books to my English-speaking friends - again, my favourite Invincible for example, has only been translated to English from German, not from its native Polish - so the translation is lacking somewhat, and there doesn't seem to be interest in producing modern translations and releases of Lem's books in English.
cpv 9y ago
Lem has amazing books. I have some of them in "To Read", along with Verne and others. Sadly, not all of them are translated in other languages, or are hard to find. "Solaris" and "The adventures of Ijon Tichy" are the most translated, I think.
scandox 9y ago
I think his comedy is some of his best work. The Futurological Congress is one of my absolute favourites. Brilliantly funny and clever. I have Summa Technologiae on my desk and started it but I admit my attention drifted. Its good but it is quite dense and it has a strange mix of great ideas and bizarre ideas whose time seems to have gone - though of course bizarre ideas have a habit of boomeranging back.

by briga 9y ago

nisa 9y ago

> Summa Technologiae--last time I checked it didn't have an English translation. Has anyone here read it? I've read it in German but it's been a while. It's one of those books where the exact words weren't known at the time, but all the ideas were present - you can reasonably argue at least Internet, VR and more are in there. Also some wonderful to read ideas about the future that are applicable to the present. If you can - it's worth a read.

jagger11 9y ago

I've read the original Polish version, though there seems to be English translation from 2013: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780816675760 https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780816675760

Hoasi 9y ago

Stanislaw Lem, "Summa Technologiae", translated by Joanna Zylinska, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2013, ISBN 978-0816675760 Phenomenal work, well worth reading and re-reading.

tpm 9y ago

His Master's Voice is a great book, it's the one I will remember as his best. I also love Peace on Earth, which while not a comedy is quite satirical, and also great sci-fi thriller movie material.

nn3 9y ago

Calling SEO adriadnology is pretty cool. I read Summa Technologae a long time ago in German translation. It wasn't easy to read, but had many interesting ideas. Two concepts I still remember and think of occasionally: - the concept of "technology evolution" and especially that technologies that soon get replaced with something else often develop "bizarre", e.g. very large, forms shortly before extinction. Lem extrapolated that from dinosaurs (although I think it showed a weak grasp of natural history because for dinosaurs size was not correlated with their extinction). Lem's technological example were steam train engines, which developed some bizarre forms shortly before they were replaced with Diesel and electric engines. It's interesting to think how this observation applies to our current technology. For example the monster die GPUs that Nvidia is building now for deep learning could be the last flowering before being replaced with far smaller and more efficient neuromorphic chips. - Another interesting observation was the cost of technology. He had the example of fighter planes in the first world war roughly being the cost of a car, in the 2nd world war 10 cars and now getting many orders of magnitudes more expensive. In the 60ies this trend was only beginning, but it's clear it's continuing. The prediction was that at some point even super powers would only be able to afford a few planes each, and it's already true if you consider the costs of the American B2 (until manned planes get replaced by far cheaper drones) We see similar trends with chip production. Originally even small companies could set up a computer chip fab, but now even very large companies like Intel or Samsung or TSMC can only afford a few and the costs are still growing quickly. - (the full book has many more of course, but it's hard to remember them all. Lem's books in general have a lot of ideas per page)

452early 9y ago
A quick reply to second your highlight of tech evolution in Summa. I’ve been a Lem since my teens when I discovered a dozen of his novels in a small 1990s grocery store. However I didn’t read Summa until a couple of years ago. As a fan of Veblen (theory of Business Enterprise, specifically) I have a tendency to view technology as force and product of natural selection. Lem handles this with more care than most if not all related texts u thread in uni. Strongest recommendation
- 452early 9y ago

mindcrime 9y ago

There is definitely an English translation. I've started reading it, but (sadly) haven't gotten very far into it yet.

ptero 9y ago

He was a true thinker and IMO is one of the giants of modern literature. When I was a kid I read "the Invincible" and was hooked. It is one of his simpler stories (which I still enjoy re-reading occasionally), but after that I read all of his fiction that I could find in a library. The need to be translated from Polish is a serious obstacle, though. To be enjoyed fully his works need a good translator.

lobster_johnson 9y ago
It's amazing that until just a few years ago, there wasn't a direct translation of Solaris available in English. The English-language version, by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox, was a translation of the French edition, which was know to be less than great. The first direct translation came out in 2011, by Bill Johnston, a professor of comparative literature.
- Wildgoose 9y ago
  Aaargh! I've just bought a copy of Solaris and now I need to go home and check which version I bought. (I loved the Cyberiad when I read it as a schoolboy some thirty-odd years ago).

V-2 9y ago

> His comedic books never appealed to me quite as much I believe they don't lend themselves to translation that well. Lem's humour tends to be very linguistic. Greater degree of translation loss is inevitable here, same as with poetry.

ajuc 9y ago

I'm the exact opposite. I admire the ideas in serious books, but the style puts me off. I struggled to get through Invincible. Comedic Lem is just pure brillance, still high on ideas, but also very easy to read. But I read them in Polish, and I imagine translating Cyberiad can't be easy. BTW if you like serious, abstract sci-fi try Jacek Dukaj. He's often described as a successor to Lem, even if his style is IMHO something between Lem and Greg Egan. I believe only one of his books was translated to English so far, but surely they will follow with others, he's very good.

ttctciyf 9y ago
Regards translating the Cyberiad, the famous scene where Klapaucius tests Trurl's AI poetry machine has been translated by Michael Kandel: “Have it compose a poem — a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!!” “And why not throw in a full exposition of the general theory of nonlinear automata while you’re at it?” growled Trurl. “You can’t give it such idiotic — ” But he didn’t finish. A melodious voice filled the hall with the following: “Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide.” ... I don't know any Polish, but having found a more literal rendering of the original[1] it seems Kandel has not made it worse! 1: https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725b5a8086d9 https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-72...
- gbhn 9y ago
  I've enjoyed this translation many times, and wondered how difficult a job it must have been to adequately do this translation!
  - Finnucane 9y ago
    I once asked Michael how he translated the list of imaginary things beginning with 'N' destroyed by Trurl's machine in the process of making 'nothing.' His answer: 'I made it up.'

tialaramex 9y ago

I actually rate Solaris last among the Lem works I've read. Below things like Hospital of the Transfiguration, which are pretty far off the beaten track for Lem. I actually stayed away from Lem for years because the (2002) Solaris movie made me think he's just waffling and hasn't any SF ideas worth looking at. Hardly could have been more misleading. A Perfect Vacuum is I think the pinnacle of Lem's achievement. Why write a book and leave others to criticise what you did, when you can imagine the finished book and write a critique of _that_ yourself? Imaginary Magnitude is a similar idea, and I like that too, but I think Vacuum ends up the cleverer of the two even though Golem XIV (from Magnitude) is better than most Singularitarian fiction you'll see today.

haZard_OS 9y ago

As mentioned in the article, an English translation appeared in 2013-4: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/summa-technologiae https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/summa-technol...

gambiting 9y ago

Yes! Invincible is my favourite book of all time - but all of his books exude the same aura of unknowing and never being able to know everything, unlike with most authors. The problem I have is recommending his books to my English-speaking friends - again, my favourite Invincible for example, has only been translated to English from German, not from its native Polish - so the translation is lacking somewhat, and there doesn't seem to be interest in producing modern translations and releases of Lem's books in English.

cpv 9y ago

Lem has amazing books. I have some of them in "To Read", along with Verne and others. Sadly, not all of them are translated in other languages, or are hard to find. "Solaris" and "The adventures of Ijon Tichy" are the most translated, I think.

scandox 9y ago

I think his comedy is some of his best work. The Futurological Congress is one of my absolute favourites. Brilliantly funny and clever. I have Summa Technologiae on my desk and started it but I admit my attention drifted. Its good but it is quite dense and it has a strange mix of great ideas and bizarre ideas whose time seems to have gone - though of course bizarre ideas have a habit of boomeranging back.