Solaris

Rating:
Summary: Tasty and Nourishing Brain Candy
Review: Quite possibly the best sci-fi novel ever written, Solaris goes deeper in its [too brief!] 200 pages than the entire output of just about any other toiler in this generally mediocre genre.

It's a novel of ideas, and those ideas are as box-fresh right now as they were back in the day. Unlike most other sci-fi practitioners, Lem is never explicit about his dream technologies, and the science in his fiction is completely believable. Thus we are spared the laughably dated flights of fancy that occasionally pop up in the otherwise wonderful work of, say, Phil Dick or Alfred Bester (atomic teletypes, anyone?). And while the book is indeed a heavy piece of speculative genius, Lem's descriptive powers are truly awe-inspiring; the intricately detailed passages describing the various forms and structures generated by Solaris' living ocean are nothing short of psychedelic.

Buy it, read it, savor it. Truly an amazing trip.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi with scientific commentary
Review: The first thing, which surprised me, about the novel was the copyright date. Lem wrote this in 1961, which predates Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (written in 1968). There are some similar themes. I don't know if Clarke was familiar with this book, or if reading this after reading the book or Kubrick's film has caused this sense of deja vu.

The story concerns a space station where the scientists are studying, and attempting to make contact with, the planet Solaris. Each character has to deal with his or her own internal doubts, but also has to interact with the other members of the crew. These doubts are more important than you may think on a first read.

In the story, there are long sections where Kris Kelvin is going through the library reading up on the research of Solaris and neutrinos. In the initial read, I thought that a lot of this could have been cut to keep the novel more concise. Since there is so much of it, I wondered if Lem intended for us to focus on this. I believe he did.

The research and the history of research give us a mirror of our own scientific community. It also questions the SETI project and our attempts to make contact. His statement about this seems to be that our endeavor to contact something non-human is flawed because we are approaching it from a human frame of mind.

This is a very good book, and I would highly recommend reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Answer to a fallacy of the times
Review: In the 60s a popular fallacy worldwide was to believe that contact with extraterrestrial cultures was imminent and would be immediately beneficial to humankind, so radiotelescopes were searching for signs of life and messages sent out by several means.
Two sensible answers to this illusion came from two science-fiction books: one was Lem's Solaris, the other the Strougatski brothers' Stalker. In Solaris a direct contact is found with an alien form of life which is so different that after repeated efforts the earthlings find no way to communicate. Finally it is the alien who finds a vector of communication which stops the scientists' work dead without answering their questions or doing harm.
I like this book because it is up to you yo interpret the story as it unfolds and understand what happens. Best sci-fi book ever, don't judge it by the films.

Rating:
Summary: A Science-Fiction Writer's Science-Fiction Writer
Review: Solaris is a truly remarkable novel. I'm happy Steven Soderbergh has remade Solaris as a film if only to draw a larger audience to Stanislaw Lem's work. While enjoyable viewing, neither Soderbergh's film nor Tarkovsky's 70's Russian version of Solaris fully capture the intelligence, depth and scope of Lem's novel.

This is science-fiction at it's best, boundary exploration. Epistemological and metaphysical inquiry in the guise of fiction. The beauty of Lem's work is in his thorough exploration of profound questions like, "What does it mean to be human?". He works from an oblique angle by plumbing the depths of premises like, "What if a planet were actually a giant alien living being that wished to communicate with humans who landed on it?", and, "How do two completely different life forms actually go about communicating?" He asserts that perhaps man doesn't really want to explore the universe and communicate with other life forms so much as he simply wants to expand "humanity" out to the cosmos indefinitely. A narcissistic solipsism at the level of species. Wow.

Consider this: At one point, the planet Solaris creates a living being from the memory of the protagonist, a psychologist, for the purpose of communicating with him. That the being is his dead wife who committed suicide years earlier and that he feels responsible for not being able to save her only serves to complicate things wonderfully. It brings about even more profound questions. Are we more than just our memory? And if so, when does a being created by another being become truly autonomous? There are only a small number of science-fiction writers capable of tackling this kind of material, and fewer still that do it well.

Lem is Polish with an IQ purportedly in the 180's. Apparently, he doesn't write his novels in his native tongue, but in French and German. His material is then translated into English, and there's the rub that explains only four stars. At times, the translation can be stiff. Think stereo instructions. But the sheer originality and weight of ideas largely overcomes the problem.

This novel stimulated tremendous introspection and reflection in me. IMO that's what the best of the best fiction does. It makes you think and experience a genuine sense of Wonder again.
Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Transcends the Genre
Review: This is the best book you'll find in the "sci-fi" section of the book store, and I'd argue that it's not really science fiction.

Solaris is primarily a human drama with a science fiction setting. The main character's conflict has more depth than most literary novels, let alone genre books. The sci-fi elements are there, however, sparse leaving the imagination to fill in the blanks - this keeps the story fresh because there are no outdated details. Also, Lem never answers the story's most intriguing questions, adding to the book's resonance.

This drama will engross anyone and I challenge those who wouldn't normally read "science fiction" to try this one out.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Work But Over Hyped
Review: This is a story of humanity in contact (but only just) with alien intelligence on a scale and of a type unprecdented in history. Lem describes the planet, the station and it's inhabitants very well and gives the reader a sense of the mystery of Solaris.

The characters are very well drawn and Kelvin's reactions to the arrival of a clone of his dead wife drawn from his memories is excellent. However there are problems with the lack of description of the "companions" that are visiting the other two station crew members, we never find out who they are or what part of their backgrounds they come from which I found frustrating. I thought it was an ideal opportunity to delve into the other men's background that Lem bypassed for no good reason. The fact that no one on the station would have contacted the space station orbiting overhead, or Earth, about the mysterious visitors for days and weeks before Kelvin's arrival is pretty hard to believe too, they'd have had a team down checking it all out pronto, not just a single psychologist with no clue as to what had been going on. It's a tribute to Lem's story-telling that the reader can so easily ignore these logical flaws and just suspend disbelief. The writing is excellent and the sense of our inability to comprehend such a different intelligence (and it's struggles to understand and communicate with us) is beautifully done.

The "philosophy" that everyone raves about is nothing special, suggestions of an "imperfect" god and similar towards the end are pretty yawn-inducing--the world Lem has so tellingly described is much more interesting than anything as dumb as that.

It's very good story, but not as great as many seem to think (the hype around it I suspect twists people's perceptions). No way is it worth 5 stars but that's nothing to be ashamed of. It's well worth your time and is better than many other SF works that are also overrated (Dune for example).

Rating:
Summary: The ocean of you
Review: SOLARIS is a fascinating if somewhat cold science fiction novel about the bizarre interaction between a semi-sentient ocean planet and the scientists sent to study it up close. In the novel, volumes of scholarship have been penned and schools of theory advanced about the how and the why of the mysterious entity/planet, but until the current expedition no one has really been privy to the secrets that ebb and flow in the waters of Solaris. The scientists soon discover that the planet has the ability to reach into the darkest recesses of their subconscious and make their most vulnerable thoughts and memories reality.

It's an intriguing premise, but unfortunately Stanislaw Lem intellectualizes his story to the point that the majority of SOLARIS doesn't even read like fiction. For a good chunk of the novel, you feel like you're reading a philosophical tract, or at times a psychology text. It's not uninteresting stuff, but it's not necessarily an easy or fun read, either. The characters are pretty thin, and in spite of the author's obvious passion for his themes, there isn't much emotion in the writing.

SOLARIS is a good book, but maybe not a great novel. It is, however, well worth reading if you like thought-provoking science fiction and know not to expect a pot-boiling page-turner.

As a side note, Steven Soderbergh did a fine job last year with his film version starring George Clooney. The movie, like the book, isn't for everyone, but if you can get into it, it does offer a certain detached poetic beauty.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes Difficult, but Beautiful
Review: I'm not a science-fiction buff and I don't usually care for the genre, but after seeing the movie (2002 version) I was intrigued enough to purchase the book. It is more of a love story set in a scientific outer-space background than it is a story of outer-space exploration. The emotions of Kris Kelvin towards the woman he loves is incredible. From a woman's point of view, I enjoy seeing the strength and intelligence Kelvin has, but I also love experiencing the emotions and feelings he has towards Rehya--a beautiful creature in her own right. The book is difficult to get "in" to, but once you do, you can't put it down. I also recommend the film--both versions!

Rating:
Summary: The Sentient Sea?
Review: According to Solaris's back-cover blurbs, of all science fiction authors writing outside the English Language, Stanislaw Lem has been the most widely translated. I can believe it. Even in this somewhat jerky double translation, Lem's 1970 classic is intelligent, passionate, and intensely lyrical (despite which, it has recently been turned into a pretty good, moderately arty movie...).

What is life? What is the universe? And, can we know the one without knowing the other? These are the main questions asked in Solaris. The answers matter a great deal to the science mission on the planet, a true curiosity in that it has a stable orbit even though it orbits two stars. By way of explanation, it turns out that Solaris's gelatinous ocean is a life form of sorts. (How it evolved in the absence of natural selection is not explained.) But is it self-aware? Could be....

Rating:
Summary: More questions than answers
Review: Most readers come to a book hoping for some sort of escalating tension and crafty resolution. "Solaris" is a sublime fiction precisely because it knows this and resolves its conflicts in a unique way, deciding to leave the reader with more questions than whan they began. It's a deeply philosophical and thoughtful examination of what actual contact with an alien intelligence might look like. It also touches on the nature of scientific exploration and the sometimes false security that our knowledge lends us. This book is Stanislaw Lem at his crafty and subtle best and I would highly recommend it to anyone.