Fiasco

Rating:
Summary: Stanislaw Lem: The Moral Conscience of Science Fiction
Review: In my opinion, Fiasco is an even more damning statement of the folly and pretense behind space exploration than Solaris is, and thank God for that. I believe Stanislaw Lem is one of the most aware authors in the whole field of science fiction. What some readers seem to perceive as his cynicism is, I believe, nothing more than the deep disappointment of a sensitive and truly optimistic man who is sick to death of the evil that men do to each other through the agency of science. Yes, he appreciates scientific inquiry, but he also understands fully how the emotional coldness of scientific inquiry has had the undesirable consequence of freezing our hearts dead, doorknob-stiff.

Furthermore, I think that what righteously enrages Mr. Lem is his ruthless recognition of the fact that for mankind, the primary benefit of technological advancement has been the acquisition of power, and we sure can't get enough of THAT. The indisputable proof of his sensible, knowledgeable, and historically validated cynicism as regards man's rush to technological godhood is written in the blood-splattered pages of the history of this planet.

Christopher Columbus' expeditions to the New World were followed up by a holocaust that engulfed the North and South American continents in a firestorm of genocidal warfare and deliberately introduced disease, resulting in the near-extinction of the peaceful, innocently welcoming Indians that he 'discovered' in 1492. In 1853-54, Commodore Perry on three visits to the Ryukyu and Bonin islands before going to Japan and while waiting for a reply from Japan, arrogantly dismissed the native's desire to be left the hell alone and made a naval demonstration by way of a volley of cannon-fire and landed his Marines twice. Of course, all of this preemptive violence was only to secure facilities for commerce, henceforth known as the "opening of Japan." Hurrah! So much for 'free' trade. Makes you think about the attack on Pearl Harbor in a new and interesting light, doesn't it?

In Fiasco, Mr. Lem has the courage to state plainly the true reason why we want to run out to the stars: to conquer them, to steal them, and claim them as our property. Listen, just listen, will you, to the thoughts of Tempe, the main protagonist in Fiasco who, after landing his capsule on the planet Quinta, wanders over a landscape utterly devastated by the cataclysmic assault that was launched from the orbiting mothership, Hermes, to punish the Quintans for not welcoming contact with the Earth-men:

"It was not his belief that communication with the Quintans was senseless, based on false assumptions---it was not that which oppressed him, but the fact that they had entered into a game of contact where violence was the highest suit. This thought he kept to himself, because more than anything he wanted to see the Quintans. How could he, despite all his reservations and doubts, turn his back on such an opportunity? Arago (the priest onboard the mothership) had taken a dim view of their policy even before the phrase "show of strength" came up (and) had called a lie a lie, had repeated that they were entering into a contest of deceit; that they were pushing so forcibly toward communication that they were actually abandoning it; that they were covering themselves with masks and stratagems---safer thereby, perhaps, but more and more removed from any genuine opening up of a view into an Alien Intelligence. They jumped upon Quinta's subterfuges, struck at Quinta's every refusal, and made the goal of the expedition less attainable the more brutal the blows they used in its attainment."

The way I see it, if we ever get as far out into this universe as some of us would like, and if we ever encounter any form of life that could respond in any way to our presence, I hope to God almighty that they are advanced enough, powerful enough, and angry enough at our uninvited intrusion into their space to send us back here with the quickness, with our tails between our rocket exhausts, humbled and ready to look into the mirrors that Stanislaw Lem advises us to look deeply into, before we go slinging our slop all over the cosmos again.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: In my opinion, this is the best of Lem's books, but they're all excellent. "Fiasco" deals with how humans react to something TRULY alien. I learned more about mankind from reading this one book than I have from years and years of learning history.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best science fiction novel ever written.
Review: Lem borrows deftly from the languages of medicine, mythology, physics, and engineering in weaving a spellbinding tale of earnest but fallible men travelling to a distant planet. As the title suggests, things go wrong with alarming and often comical regularity; Lem simply refuses to take for granted some utopian future in which everything-- machines, ideas--work flawlessly. Compared to his American counterparts, Lem strikes one as decidedly "old school:" how many works of this category portray with sympathy and understanding a soldier or a Catholic priest? The style is surprisingly polished considering the spotty quality of some of Lem's other endeavors. A book of philosophical debate as well as an adventure story, but without the benefit of character development, it almost qualifies as literature, and it is quite possibly the best science fiction novel ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best science fiction novel ever written.
Review: Lem borrows deftly from the languages of medicine, mythology, physics, and engineering in weaving a spellbinding tale of earnest but fallible men travelling to a distant planet. As the title suggests, things go wrong with alarming and often comical regularity; Lem simply refuses to take for granted some utopian future in which everything-- machines, ideas--work flawlessly. Compared to his American counterparts, Lem strikes one as decidedly "old school:" how many works of this category portray with sympathy and understanding a soldier or a Catholic priest? The style is surprisingly polished considering the spotty quality of some of Lem's other endeavors. A book of philosophical debate as well as an adventure story, but without the benefit of character development, it almost qualifies as literature, and it is quite possibly the best science fiction novel ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Lem's best book
Review: Like all of Lem's better books, Fiasco explores a traditional science fiction theme --- in this case, contact with an alien civilization --- with a fresh and thoughtful point of view. Here the twist is that the aliens don't want contact, and as we gradually learn why, their disturbing behavior becomes more comprehensible. Dark, repulsive, enervating, brilliant. Nothing like the escapist tripe typical of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Bad science fiction
Review: Like Philip K. Dick's best, this is a science fiction novel with some pretty shaky science fiction. The story is gripping and the alien race is fascinating, but it's not about any of that. The reason to read this book is that it makes you cooperate with it; the characters go morbidly insane bit by bit, and you go mad right along with them. It's fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: A TAle for the Ages
Review: One reviewer said it best when he said the book asked how we could ever hope to communicate with alien beings who have a completely different evolutionary history and psychological makeup. One of the worst aspects of some sci-fi is their justaposition of our value systems, wants and needs onto an entirely (forgive the word) alien culture.

Lem seems to delight in writing about these encounters and all the misplaced hopes, dashed dreams, incorrect assumptions and not so surprising outcomes. His irony is so thick one could spread it on morning toast. In the end, of course, the book is all about us and our nature.

Rating:
Summary: A TAle for the Ages
Review: One reviewer said it best when he said the book asked how we could ever hope to communicate with alien beings who have a completely different evolutionary history and psychological makeup. One of the worst aspects of some sci-fi is their justaposition of our value systems, wants and needs onto an entirely (forgive the word) alien culture.

Lem seems to delight in writing about these encounters and all the misplaced hopes, dashed dreams, incorrect assumptions and not so surprising outcomes. His irony is so thick one could spread it on morning toast. In the end, of course, the book is all about us and our nature.

Rating:
Summary: I Got My Own Problems
Review: Stanislaw Lem's novel asks several questions: What happens if we meet intelligent beings in outer space and they don't want to talk to us? Do we write off a multi-billion-dollar space mission and go home, or do we try to communicate with them by any means necessary? And what business do we have interfering with them in the first place? "Fiasco" is aptly titled: the space crew decides to engage the aliens in dialogue, with disastrous consequences. The theme crops up very often in Lem's work: the concept of aliens who are so different from us that communication is difficult or impossible. In fact, it is the humans who come off as aliens in this novel. The book manages to be two things at once: a 'hard' science-fiction story and a moral meditation. Usually those two things seem mutually exclusive, but here it works very well. In fact, a member of the ship's crew is a Dominican friar (Father Arago) who is also a priest. I understand that Lem is sort of a nominal atheist with theological leanings, but he was also a friend of Karol Wojtyla before he was elected Pope, and Wojtyla's character seems to have left its impression on Arago. And one of the most affecting scenes in the novel is when a hard-boiled member of the crew sits alone and weeps over the destruction that he and the crew have inflicted on the alien planet. The overall tone of the novel is dislocation; the protagonist is a man who has been reanimated several hundred years after his death and no longer remembers who he was. He awakens aboard a spaceship, among recognizably human beings gifted with God-like technological abilities but cursed with human failings. And when they finally reach their destination, the alien culture is so inexplicable that several members of the crew argue that they might as well go home. What to do? There are certain artistic achievements that deserve their own genre, in my view: "2001", "Apocalypse Now", "The Lord of the Rings", etc. As far as I'm concerned, "Fiasco" is one of them. It's a science fiction milestone, and although the story line is very negative, Lem leaves some hope in the sense that things might have worked out otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: The best of the best with an excellent translation by Kandel
Review: The cover art has nothing to do directly with the story. Simply the artist's idea of what the story was about in a metaphorical way.

What IS the story about? Set in a future when humankind finally acts on the basis of a scientific ideal not personal gain a planet is discovered in a distant solar system that has a high probability of supporting life. An expedition is sent and seemingly noble efforts are made to make contact with the inhabitants. The story illustrates, in my own opinion, that no matter how 'evolved' we think we are, no matter how noble and honorably we think we can be, our pride in ourselves and our accomplishments has a way of causing us to ultimately act in barbaric ways.

The beginning of the story is astonishing and relates the re-animation of a man frozen on Titan a century earlier. The scene painted by Lem of this man's technique in saving himself, his death, and his eventual return to the living are all astonishingly well-written and full of imagery. Lem is a master at getting the reader to imagine a very realistic and plausible scenario. All of this takes place in the first few chapters. This introductory story also serves to acquaint us with the 'evolved' and noble human of the distant future. The human we all hope our children's children become.

There is also a short description of man's mastery of gravity and cybernetics. This is related in a short description of an 'smart' probe vehicle and the probe's independently deduced attempts to avoid capture by the planet's inhabitants.

I've read other reader's comments regarding Lem's use of science as a tool only and that he is not a true science fiction writer. I completely disagree. Perhaps Lem does not display a firm understanding of science to some readers, but it is obvious to me that he not only understands the science behind his ideas he is capable of explaining that understanding in the way he can illustrate the possibilities and limitations of his machines.

Lem's stories are unusual in that there is rarely a happy ending or any ending at all. When the message is delivered the story ends often without a climactic scene. Also, it is rare (except for Ijon Tichy or Kris Kelvin) for Lem to make any of his characters more important than any others in a particular story.

I would love to see this story made into a movie. In fact I think this particular book is much better subject matter than Solaris for movie material. With the recent advances in CGI and special effects I think this could be done very well.

Finally, Lem is a science fiction writer like no other. No one in the west comes close and Michael Kandle's translations are absolutely the best.