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The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

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Re: The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

#2

Post by anarbadalov »

Fair warning, this story is about 9,000 words. But it's so rich and weird and dazzling. It's among my favorite Lem stories — although i admit i hadn't read anything of his until we (MIT Press, where i work) started reissuing his books last year, so i'm by no means an expert on him. Anyway, there was a lot of interest in an excerpt from Lem's memoir I submitted here a few months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25533405), so thought i'd share this as well.

Re: The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

#5

Post by rjsw »

woleium wrote: post #4

Lem is best known for Solaris, of which there are two film adaptations. imho the book is better than both films, and the first film is better than the second.

Even in the first film there is only one brief scene that hints at the backstory that is a major part of the book.

Re: The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

#6

Post by shkkmo »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Creative fantasy? If life exists in the plasma of a Sun, creating an artificial 'sun' would no more create life than building a crib creates a baby.

The implication is that processes happen so much faster at temperatures over a million degrees that all you have to do is create the right conditions and then life evolves immediately from our temporal frame of reference.

So the analogy would be closer to watching a goldilocks planet from the edge of the event horizon of a black hole.

Re: The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

#8

Post by brg »

Fiasco remains Lem's work that has had the most profound affect for me. The creativity and style of Lem, as it has been brought it English speaking audiences, is unparalleled in bridging science fiction and literature.

Re: The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)

#9

Post by dkarl »

woleium wrote: post #4

Lem is best known for Solaris, of which there are two film adaptations. imho the book is better than both films, and the first film is better than the second.

He is also known among programmers for The Cyberiad, which is available in an amazing English translation by Michael Kandel. The Cyberiad is a collection of tales about two Constructor robots who travel together and try to outdo each other at creating bizarre and often disastrous inventions to solve problems on different planets.

Edit: Here is a snippet in which Klaupacius challenges Trurl's latest invention, the electronic bard, to compose "a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics," and gets a response: https://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jbuhler/cyberiad.html

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