Rating: 
Summary: Planet of the Wussies
Review: Although I am a fan of Stanislaw's writing, I was disappointed by "Return from the Stars." Lem is at his best when writing satire or using humor, not when he's painfully earnest, as he is in "Return." And especially when he's earnest in such a macho, 1950s-esque manner. The premise is intriguing: an astronaut, Bregg, returns to Earth after spending 100 equivalent years in space (due to light-speed travel) and has to cope with the world he discovered, which has irretrievably changed since his departure. Bregg finds that his planet's society has emasculated itself, eliminating violence and conflict from its members using a government-sponsored surgical procedure on all humans at or near birth. The result is two-fold. First, war, conflict, greed, and other "violent" or "aggressive" vices have been eliminated. Second, everybody's a "wussie." They dress in colorful clothes, they don't engage in any combative or competitive sports, they don't even argue. In order to compensate for his new environment's passivity, Bregg boxes, gets in fights, and carries off a woman over his shoulder. Essentially the book's core message echoes Susan Faludi's "Stiffed," in which she postulates that evolving gender roles have left modern men feeling displaced. As a result, those who feel threatened tend to overcompensate and engage in supra-masculine activities. Of course, "Return from the Stars" predates "Stiffed" by a decade or so. "Return" also implies that the government of the future falls into the hands of Rush Limbaughian nazi-feminists who organize and implement the collective "snipping" of mankind. Bregg is hard to like. He yearns for the mythical 1950s suburban paradise where women were chaste and modest, and men strong, silent, and dressed in charcoals and earth tones. As a result, I had trouble sympathizing with the he-man astronaut and his conservative and backward longings. And in a way, thankfully, Bregg is already out-of-date in 2001.
Rating: 
Summary: a tale of an individual attampting to return to a community
Review: Another impressive book by Lem, who is, in my mind, a top science fiction writer in any language. Return From the Stars proves this by staying away from formulas, relying instead on strong characters who actually are affected emotionally and psychologically by the futuristic world they live in. If anyhting, Lem is a writer concerned with characters, and ultimately with the heart of man and how it reacts to the world. This book will speak to anyone who has had the experience of returning to a community from which one has been excluded for a number of years; be it a return from prison, repatriation or imigration, the experience of Bregg returning from the stars is symbolic of all of them. To those who never left a community and never returned to it later, the book will be a chance to see what returning from the stars might be like.
Rating: 
Summary: Stranger in a familiar land
Review: Hal Bregg returns to Earth after a journey that spanned 10 of his years and 100 years at home to find a world unrecognizable from the one he left. He and his crew embodied the loftiest aspirations of a society willing to take risks, even fatal ones, in the pursuit of exploration, discovery, and advancement. Sound familiar? But society in the intervening century now has expunged all possibility of risk. To achieve this, humanity accepts a narcotized solution in the form of betrization--a socially engineered necessity. Hal, full of passion and vigor, is thus a living anachronism and unsure how he will fit in.
With this scenario that seemingly could go anywhere Lem would like, it oddly becomes something of a romance. Please though don’t surmise that this a standard love story. The book contains the classic Lemmian effulgence of realities that presciently evoke some of our own: reals (simulated encounters with danger); betrization (aforementioned); an enslaved workforce of robots; electronic books; etc. Without revealing more, the ending confirms Lem’s place among the pantheon of superb literary artists.
Rating:
Summary: It is my favourite book since I have read it 15 years ago.
Review: I am from Turkey(somewhere between MiddleEast and Europe). I have been known as a fast reader all my life.( I can read more than 200 pages an hour in Turkish, 150 in English, 100 in German ). It was one of those days when I was used to reading 1000 page books in a few hours, when I came across this book. It took me a full 2 days, unbelievable for a book of size 300 pages. Basically it is a book written on a space pilot, who returns to Earth after a 10 year journey to a different star; meanwhile 120 years had passed in Earth time. It is not a book that you can read 10 or 20 pages a day.The first chapter is the definitive one : if you can manage to read it (app. 70 pages ) at one grasp, you will love it; if not, you will go on thinking that Solaris is the best book written by Lem. For me it is this book. In Solaris Lem was looking at a planet level, in this book he is looking at an individual human level. Lem is my favorite writer, and I love all of his writings. Lem has created two space pilots : Ijon Tichy and Pirx the Pilot. The adventures of Ijon Tichy are more amusing and eventful, Pirx on the other hand relatively uneventful and serious. This book is much more closer to the adventures of Pirx, than Tichy. If you get this book and love it, I will suggest that you get Eden too.
Rating:
Summary: What direction is this taking?
Review: I have always enjoyed Mr Lem's writing and this novel starts so magically with the arrival back on a changed Earth. I felt as mystified and perplexed - even childishly naive - as Bregg did on his return. Do all children feel this way as they grow to know the world around them? And the unfolding of the story was logical and interesting to me. But where was it going? Could Bregg ever integrate usefully into the new world. Clearly he rejected the possibility of a return to the stars. There is only one other possibility available to him. What disturbed me about this novel was the sequence of unlikely events and revelations - built one on top of the other they left me unconvinced in the novel as a novel. However it is a good yarn and has some very interesting observations about what makes a human being, casting some doubt that the result would still be human if some radical changes were made.
Rating:
Summary: What direction is this taking?
Review: I have always enjoyed Mr Lem's writing and this novel starts so magically with the arrival back on a changed Earth. I felt as mystified and perplexed - even childishly naive - as Bregg did on his return. Do all children feel this way as they grow to know the world around them? And the unfolding of the story was logical and interesting to me. But where was it going? Could Bregg ever integrate usefully into the new world. Clearly he rejected the possibility of a return to the stars. There is only one other possibility available to him. What disturbed me about this novel was the sequence of unlikely events and revelations - built one on top of the other they left me unconvinced in the novel as a novel. However it is a good yarn and has some very interesting observations about what makes a human being, casting some doubt that the result would still be human if some radical changes were made.
Rating:
Summary: Old but new...
Review: Short and bit outdated attempt to look into future of star travel and related consequences (including fate of the Earth). When you will check the date of first publication you will be amazed by the contents. For me it's like a classic work - it was one of books, which built foundation of my perception of the future. If you ever read anything of Lem, you definitely should check this one. If not, this book could be a perfect introduction into Lem's world (and possibly ours).
Rating:
Summary: Society's blessing or damnation?
Review: This book is one of Lem's most serious works he ever wrote. His creativity is unique even among best science fiction (and any novelist)of all. All of his books have a deep concern for the future of humanity, this one , though, deals with some matters without the satirical humor he perfected so well (even as far as to create his own linguistic style). There are many new futuristic terms in this one, they are very clear and well understood, and nonetheless meaningful. Awe inspiring richness of the vision creator's future world gives the book the artistic quality of a Bosh's painting while deeply analizing the course which the future society might take. And its course is technological advancement, beyond anything today's modern science can offer. Molecular engineering, massive global sociogenetic alterations to the human body and mind, virtual reality that is all too real, holography, anti gravity are only a few of the many possibilities studied very closely here. This book is together a warning and a moral study of the genesis of the human race. Lem warns of the consequences these ultra - technological trends might bring to human mind and behavior, as well as the enviroment, tries to understand the importance of the individual's free choice and self governed social developement. The book's underlying sadeness is a substitute for a crititical exclamation. A complete literal masterpiece, flawlessly executed, from a genius of the genre. Only a person with a limited imagination can pass it off and ignore it's value. As a native Pole I have had the unoubtful pleasure of reading both the original and the translation and, here are kudos to the translator - I would say it is 99% accurate. I have been reading Stanislaw Lem for the past 20 years since I was barely 10 years old, his books have had a deep impact on my thinking and helped me to find my place among others of this troubled planet, beautiful and precious all the same...
Rating:
Summary: What would happen if the radical feminists took over
Review: This book was disturbing and utterly silly. It should be titled "What would happen if the radical left Feminists took over the world". A completely emasculated society.
I had trouble feeling sympathy for any character. The women who think that violence is evil and men are rapists destroy society in this story. Although set in the future, due to the new order there is no real progress. The driving desire to compete and fight for what you need is gone. Along with all the testosterone apparently. As a women I hated this society. Although I didn't care for the protagonist's backward thinking either. It was an interesting read if only to see what would happen if a certain small segment of society got its way. Scary stuff.
Rating:
Summary: What would happen if the radical feminists took over
Review: This book was disturbing and utterly silly. It should be titled "What would happen if the radical left Feminists took over the world". A completely emasculated society.
I had trouble feeling sympathy for any character. The women who think that violence is evil and men are rapists destroy society in this story. Although set in the future, due to the new order there is no real progress. The driving desire to compete and fight for what you need is gone. Along with all the testosterone apparently. As a women I hated this society. Although I didn't care for the protagonist's backward thinking either. It was an interesting read if only to see what would happen if a certain small segment of society got its way. Scary stuff.
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