Engineer Al's Sci-Fi Library: Stanislaw Lem

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Thank you for this article. I'm currently struggling through solaris. I,loved,the beginning but really feel the book gets bogged down towards the latter half.

If it wasn't for you I would give up on his book from here. But I will try out some of his more humerous books now for sure!

Great article. Thanks from Poland!

some great stuff here. I'm intrigued to read these but wish I had access to an English language library. Dont know why books are still so expensive, even Electronic ones cost the same as physical ones, outrageous! By now i thought we would have some kind of streaming/subscription based service where you could rent out a book to read for a small sum. Maybe it will happen one day.

Bojack wrote: some great stuff here. I'm intrigued to read these but wish I had access to an English language library. Dont know why books are still so expensive, even Electronic ones cost the same as physical ones, outrageous! By now i thought we would have some kind of streaming/subscription based service where you could rent out a book to read for a small sum. Maybe it will happen one day.

Amazon has some sort of Prime/Kindle library with unlimited checkouts. United States libraries have something called Overdrive, if you have a friend with an account who will share. You can often search for "book title" and "full text" and find an Epub or PDF file. And there is always Project Gutenberg and its descendants.

Why don't you have access to an English library?

Thanks for doing this. I've been trying to read more sci-fi lately... it's not usually my thing but my old man is a nut for the stuff and I've been trying to get into it a bit more lately. Someone bought me a copy of Solaris years ago and I enjoyed it but never looked further into his work. I'm just finishing up PKD's Valis trilogy (I think the third isn't really part of it but that's the way it was presented to me) and was going to read 'We' (Yevgeny Zamyatin) next, I'm really curious about that one. So I'm going to throw The Star Diaries, His Masters Voice and Return from the Stars on there too. Hopefully my local library has them... thanks again. Great write up.

Thanks for reading Folks, and thanks for the kind comments. I enjoy writing these articles almost as much as I enjoy seeing what you all have to say. When I get around to writing about Manly Wade Wellman, and Gene Wolfe it will be because of recommendations I received in response to what I wrote.

LilRed wrote: I'm currently struggling through solaris. I,loved,the beginning but really feel the book gets bogged down towards the latter half.

I agree.

JonJacob wrote: . . . my old man is a nut for the stuff and I've been trying to get into it a bit more lately.

Cool! What does he like to read? Also, I love PKD, but VALIS is SOOO not where I would start, Thanks for teaching me about WE, seems to be a classic that I somehow knew nothing about.

Bojack wrote: I'm intrigued to read these but wish I had access to an English language library.

Lem's works have been translated into just about every language out there. Wherever you are, you should be able to find something. And just where the heck are you?

engineer Al wrote:

JonJacob wrote: . . . my old man is a nut for the stuff and I've been trying to get into it a bit more lately.

Cool! What does he like to read? Also, I love PKD, but VALIS is SOOO not where I would start, Thanks for teaching me about WE, seems to be a classic that I somehow knew nothing about.

Well the old man's the one who gave me the PKD stuff (5 books as presents in the last three years) and Solaris so those two for sure. As a kid I remember lots of Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Douglas Adams, Phillip Jose Farmer, Roger Zelazny... some others I can't recall at the moment. Some trashy and some literary, he had hundreds of the things hanging around. I still remember being a little kid and my father had me read him a chapter or two from Riverworld while we drove to Toronto together but then part way through the reading there were some explicit sexual bits and he snatched the book away from me... I thought for sure I'd read it in secret as soon as I got home but I was ten or so and I never bothered. I still haven't read a thing that guy wrote.

Valis isn't quite where I started with PKD... although I've only read a collection of shorts and two other novels (Man in the High Castle and Ubik) ... but I love Valis so far. I just started book two last week. I normally read religious stuff ... theology, mythology etc.. so it's right up my alley. Although more info on his life would be useful since it seems very personal.

JonJacob wrote: As a kid I remember lots of Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Douglas Adams, Phillip Jose Farmer, Roger Zelazny...

That's awesome. Those guys are a bunch of my favorites as well. Except for Farmer, he never really did it for me.

JonJacob wrote: Valis isn't quite where I started with PKD... although I've only read a collection of shorts and two other novels (Man in the High Castle and Ubik) ... but I love Valis so far. I just started book two last week. I normally read religious stuff ... theology, mythology etc.. so it's right up my alley. Although more info on his life would be useful since it seems very personal.

Good, those two are some of my favorites of his and your choice of Valis makes a lot more sense now. What's going on with Valis is obviously subject to debate, but I do think it is personal and I think it is a doorway into the mind of a man who is going insane. HAVE FUN!

Have you read Daemon Al? I'm getting it recommended to me by three different people.

I know I know, hasn't aged sufficiently yet. But I can get it from the library at no charge.

Sagrilarus wrote: Have you read Daemon Al?

Sorry SAG, but my tastes tend toward the older sci-fi for the most part. I've read SOME more contemporary stuff but not much and not that one.

Thanks as always for the great article Al! I never really tried much Lem so it's good to know where to start. Look forward to your Manly Wade article
I've been reading more modern stuff lately and one you might enjoy is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and its standalone sequel. Fun feel-good character focused space adventure. On the flip side of that is Blindsight, a complete mind-fuck with a ton of ideas and a neat take on an unreliable narrator.

Happy reading!