Rating: 
Summary: Short and silly but very entertaining
Review: Is it science fiction? Fantasy? No, it's Stanislaw Lem's preposterous farce about the future. And it was written over 30 years ago, so we can see if we are getting any closer to it.
In this story, very few real things remain in the world. Almost everything is an illusion, brought about by very specific illusion-causing chemicals.
Maybe the best thing about this farce is the multitude of hilarious words that Lem invents. I've no idea how Michael Kandel managed to translate them so wonderfully from Polish. I liked the mimicretins (computers that play stupid in order, once and for all, to be left in peace). And when Ijon and Aileen get into an argument which she intensifies by taking recriminol. Or when Ijon has some of his illusions removed when he takes up'n'at'm, a powerful vigilanimide.
Anyway, it's unusual and very funny.
Rating:
Summary: Future not so far from our own... or is it ?
Review: It seems that this book is not intended for readers with short attention span.
The book dips you into a "potential future", tantalizing the reader with dark visions of the world in part created by and in part governed by pseudo-sensations, created by advanced hallucinogenic substances. This theme switches on and off in other Lem's works, but in this book it actually is the canvas upon which the author draws a sad, somewhat bizarre and somehow very familiar picure of the world of the "next century". I highly recommend this book to all who seek more than passing amusement in literature.
Rating:
Summary: Round the bend with Ijon Tichy
Review: Lem's intrepid protagonist Ijon Tichy, the scientist, space traveller, diarist and sometime saver of the universe, here attends a congress in Costa Rica on What Is To Be Done About The State Of Things On Earth. He is just getting into the proceedings when, as usual, revolution breaks out, forcing the government to bombard the hotel with benignimising drugs. From then on, it's downhill all the way as our stoical hero endures more drugs, umbrella-points, hand grenades, more drugs, radical experimental surgery, death, suspended animation, the future and yet more drugs. Far and away Lem's battiest book, and his funniest after The Cyberiad, The Futurological Congress is a maniacal take on the dangers of complacency, overpopulation and virtual realities of the chemical kind. The translator, Michael Kandel, has done an incredible job rendering the verbal humour into English - all the more incredible in that much of it consists of neologisms (drug names, varieties of robot defect, old words with new meanings) and puns that should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention (religion-inducing drug = quaker oats). There's even a school of "futurologians" who believe they can predict the shape of things to come by theorising about the evolution of language; hence from the word "Myself" we get "I, my, mynd. Thy mynd - thynd. And ego makes wego...we're talking about the fusion of the mynd with the thynd..." Multiple personality dissociation, of course, is a mygraine. (And if you think that's bad, you should see some of the jokes in the Polish version.) This is a hilarious piece of sustained insanity (I've never known anyone, even Lem, to be quite this zany for a hundred and seventy pages together), and an absolute masterpiece of translation.
Rating:
Summary: Prophetically Hilarious! Lem at his best form.
Review: Lem, educated as an physician, presages events well. Many bizarre items appear in this novella set in a near-future global conference of "Futurologists" (Alvin Toffler-types), including a "papelshooter," a gun specifically designed to kill popes, and hors d'oeuvres for enviro-conscious snackers made from the recycled corpses of the recently deceased. Mood enhancing chemicals also abound making the depressed extremely happy; did someone say Prozac? Although most everyone on the planet appears to live in a state of terrible poverty & ill-health, they don't seem to mind. The chemicals put into their porridge make them think they're living in idyllic splendor & luxury; dining on fine gourmet delicacies whilst ferried about in chauffered limousines. Reading Lem makes one a wee bit uncomfortable. His vision seems a bit too much like the reality of the present.
Rating:
Summary: Government, Over-Population, and Time Travel
Review: My favorite Lem book, after THE CYBERIAD. It's short, eerie, amusing, and has a punch to the storytelling you certainly won't find in, say, SOLARIS. I noticed that a number of the reviews already posted have given away the essential plot twist in the story; I'll try to avoid doing so myself. For the most part, the story is part of the "Sleeper" (after Woody Allen) genre, like Frederik Pohl's AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT (and, to an extent, Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER), where the main character wakes from cryogenic slumber to the world of the future. After learning to navigate through the new environment, he finds the governments of the world have solved some of the worst social problems that were on the horizon of the 20th century, such as overpopulation, pollution, and urban blight. But things turn out to be not really quite so nice as they appear, once he bothers to look below the surface. The final, silly twist at the end of the story is far inferior to the major the one that precedes it, and I'm almost tempted to take off a star. But otherwise it's highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Government, Over-Population, and Time Travel
Review: My favorite Lem book, after THE CYBERIAD. It's short, eerie, amusing, and has a punch to the storytelling you certainly won't find in, say, SOLARIS. I noticed that a number of the reviews already posted have given away the essential plot twist in the story; I'll try to avoid doing so myself. For the most part, the story is part of the "Sleeper" (after Woody Allen) genre, like Frederik Pohl's AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT (and, to an extent, Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER), where the main character wakes from cryogenic slumber to the world of the future. After learning to navigate through the new environment, he finds the governments of the world have solved some of the worst social problems that were on the horizon of the 20th century, such as overpopulation, pollution, and urban blight. But things turn out to be not really quite so nice as they appear, once he bothers to look below the surface. The final, silly twist at the end of the story is far inferior to the major the one that precedes it, and I'm almost tempted to take off a star. But otherwise it's highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a brilliantly maximal example of its genre.
Review: My first acquaintance with Lem was via The Cyberiad, which unlike any other non-Lem book had me laughing out loud almost once per page. While The Futurological Congress is also satirical, in that Lem tells the tale with just the right amount of insincerity to make the story credible in its framework, it also takes the genre of "psychological sci-fi" to an extreme. Picture Philip K. Dick to the nth power. I was incredibly amused, bemused, and provoked by this novel and would recommend it to absolutely everyone. (Also any other Lem book.)
Rating: 
Summary: The Matrix on speed
Review: This book is great on so many levels - the concept, the ideas, and possibly most of all, the sharp satirical humor. While the main thesis presented in the book - alteration of preceived reality to control humanity - has nowadays been made accessible to the general public through the Matrix movies, at the time this book was written (1970s) the concept was quite fresh. His choice of method (drugs and chemicals) was reasonable for the time, and although some of his views on our future will probably not pan out (he forsaw an ice age, whereas it is now thought the earth will overheat to death), he is certainly heading in the right direction.
Through it out hillarity reigns. It is accentuated by his casual, matter-of-fact description of the most absurd events; I find the narrative voice remeniscent of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". A few words of appreciation must also be directed at Michael Kandel, who had the hard task of translating Lem's subtle humor - a task masterfully done.
My only regret is that the book seems rushed, which I suppose it has no choice but to be, given the amount of Narrative Lem delivers over only 150 pages. Other than that - a wonderful, thought-provoking and very funny book.
Rating:
Summary: Matrix
Review: This book was written in 1970 (!) and its simply about that Matrix everyone will live in in the future. Or are we there now?
Rating:
Summary: Livin' the lap of luxury...maybe...
Review: This book will make you think of the world differently. I guarantee that you will question the value of subjectivity by the time you're done. Lately, I've been asking friends to loan me books that changed their lives or that have found particularly noteworthy. I asked this in an attempt to broaden my reading background and also to learn more about my friends. I've always considered myself a science/speculative fiction fan but had never heard of Stanislaw Lem until this book was loaned to me. After this wonderful first experience, I will certainly be tracking down a few more copies of some of his other titles.
This book embodies everything that good science fiction should be - using the future to teach us more about our present. "The Futurological Congress" is a heavily layered book that relies on the reader to engage the storyline and draw parallels to the present day. The text (in translation) is spare enough to be clear and move the plot along rapidly, while also being satirical and comical at the same time. I don't want to go into the plot in too much depth since folks before me have already done an admirable job in that regard, but suffice it to say that reality becomes almost immediately problematized and you will not be able to figure out what is fact or fiction within the world of the book (not that it matters). Ijon Tichy, the main character, goes to attend a conference called the "Futurological Congress", where all sorts of folks discuss the future directions of humanity. During the conference, a popular revolution places the scientists in danger. Drugged by the hotel water supply, hallucinating hotel guests hide out in the sewer. It gets more insane from there... If you like Philip K. Dick's more mindbending works like "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" or "Ubik," you will love this one by Lem. At a scant 150 pages, you'll truck right on through it and then wonder whether you actually read it.
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