A Perfect Vacuum

Rating:
Summary: So many ideas, so little time...
Review: ...must have been Stanislaw Lem's predicament. He had the ideas for a good dozen novels, but didnt' actually feel like writing them, so he wrote reviews of them. The kind of reviews that thoroughly give away the plot.

Well no, that's probably not what happened, but it amuses me to pretend it did.

A Perfect Vacuum is a collection of reviews of non-existing books. In fact, some of them (Gigamesh, written using a battery of computers supplied by IBM, foremost) couldn't even exist. Other books ("Rien du tout") would probably be excrutiatingly boring. Others ("Gruppenfuehrer Louis XVI") sound so good I wish someone would actually write them.

Some of the reviews are lighthearted, commenting mostly on the story. Others, however, wax philosophical about the author's ideas,
and there is my problem with this book. Some of the reviews seem to me polemics against certain literary schools. But if Lem first needs to set up a caricature of something in order to shoot it down, isn't that just a strawman argument? Also, if Lem writes a brilliant review of a very bad book, can I be forgiven for asking `what's the point'? If he writes (review of "Les Robinsonades") about `the full boorishness of the blunder' of the author, am I to find him clever for pointing out an error that he first himself introduced?

However, despite these objections this is a wonderfully inventive book, and many of its chapters have a timeless quality that makes me reread them time and time again.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Vacuum
Review: Creative and thought-provoking, Lem delves into the realm of the "unwritten." Being both playful and serious at the same time, this book is very smart.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Vacuum
Review: Creative and thought-provoking, Lem delves into the realm of the "unwritten." Being both playful and serious at the same time, this book is very smart.

Rating:
Summary: one of my favorite satirical works ever
Review: I forget when I discovered Lem - in college? -- but A PERFECT VACUUM remains one of my favorite works and I'm delighted it's still in print (it may have been out of print once). Lem packages a collections of fake book reviews of nonexistent books, written in a delightful broad array of styles and voices. His wry humor lights every page. He includes a scathing review of his own book !! Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys satires and highbrow whimsy. (If you like this, try Julian barnes: Foucault's Parrot, or,History of the world in 10.5 chapters.

Rating:
Summary: one of my favorite satirical works ever
Review: I forget when I discovered Lem - in college? -- but A PERFECT VACUUM remains one of my favorite works and I'm delighted it's still in print (it may have been out of print once). Lem packages a collections of fake book reviews of nonexistent books, written in a delightful broad array of styles and voices. His wry humor lights every page. He includes a scathing review of his own book !! Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys satires and highbrow whimsy. (If you like this, try Julian barnes: Foucault's Parrot, or,History of the world in 10.5 chapters.

Rating:
Summary: Ideal for?
Review: The collection of essais (forewords or afterwords) on non-existent major books of our future. Perfect food for thought, but rather bleak in reading comfort - a little bit too dry and condensed. It's not a blood thriller(s), even if dissecting thrilling matters.
Anyway, it is a must for any real SF fan. Especially after Star diaries, Futurologic congress and things like Peace on Earth and Fiasco.