Rating: 
Summary: Satisfying introduction to Lem
Review: This is the first book I've read by Lem (having resolved to bone up on the sci-fi masters), and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. I was worried that the book might come across paler for being in translation, but my fears are laid to rest-- Michael Kandel gives the work vim and vigor and keeps it moving briskly along. I'm looking forward to reading more Kandel translations of Lem.
Rating:
Summary: Satisfying introduction to Lem
Review: This is the first book I've read by Lem (having resolved to bone up on the sci-fi masters), and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. I was worried that the book might come across paler for being in translation, but my fears are laid to rest-- Michael Kandel gives the work vim and vigor and keeps it moving briskly along. I'm looking forward to reading more Kandel translations of Lem.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!!! Bizarre and Zany ...
Review: This was a very captivating book. Lem writes with his usual dry
humor and intellectual prowess. Not only does this book boast of a wild and funny plot, but also includes a profound look at humanity as a whole. I highly recommend it, if for nothing else than a great laugh!
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!!! Bizarre and Zany ...
Review: This was a very captivating book. Lem writes with his usual dry
humor and intellectual prowess. Not only does this book boast of a wild and funny plot, but also includes a profound look at humanity as a whole. I highly recommend it, if for nothing else than a great laugh!
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite sci-fi novels.
Review: This was my introduction to Lem, and in my opinion, nothing else of his quite lives up to it. The seemingly farcical tale turns into an intellectual puzzle before your very eyes. This dystopia will make you sit up and say "Wow!" at the end, with plenty of laughs before you get there.
Rating: 
Summary: Comical vision of a drugged-out dystopia
Review: Written when Poland was under the grip of Communism, "The Futurological Congress" is a powerful parable of a totalitarian state that uses psychotropic drugs not only to subdue its citizens but also to make them believe things are better than they are. The first third of the book reads almost like an adventure story: Ijon Tichy is attending a convention of futurologists in Central America, when he and his colleagues are caught up in a bizarre coup d'etat. When Tichy's cryogenically frozen corpse is reanimated decades later, the entire overpopulated world is hooked on drugs. Unlike most pieces of dystopian fiction, Lem's novel is funny and brainy rather than depressing and catastrophic, but it is still scarily prophetic. At times, though, the prose threatens to collapse into a pun-laden Physician's Desk Reference for the Year 2039: "they give the children throttlepops, then develop their character with opinionates, uncompromil, rebellium, allaying their passions with sordidan and practicol; no police, and who needs them when you have constabuline. . . ?" (These passages must have been a nightmare to translate and, remarkably, they never lose their fluency.) But Lem keeps the reader's interest by alternating his pharmocological laundry lists with clever plot twists and bizarre visions, and the novel's pace continuously accelerates until its frenzied, over-the-top climax.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: Yes, the beginning of this book is rather silly (but lots of fun), then the book gets more and more serious and profound. The best part is the very ending, a chilling twist that says something vital and essential about the world we live in RIGHT NOW--a truth a great many people want to deny or ignore, obviously (you'll know what I mean when you read the book). Don't miss "The Futurological Congress" by Stanislaw Lem. (If you want more Lem, I also recommend "The Star Diaries" and "Return from the Stars".
| 
