41–50 of 61 posts
I'm having a hard time finding the original title of this story, The Truth. Prawda? Googling around isn't helping... Anyone know?
It was part of The Invincible and Other Stories according to wikipedia [0]
[0] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niezwyci%C4%99%C5%BCony_i_inne...
Truly, being able to read Lem's works untranslated is my favourite thing about being a native polish speaker. There are some fantastic translations out there, but somehow, when it comes to sci-fi, I find works written in polish or other eastern european languages to flow better. In addition to the above, I find that reading an older physical edition adds much charm to vintage sci-fi. The copy of The Truth I own comes…
> native polish speaker. Ah, the man I want. Tell me, is "Ijon Tichy" a joke on "tachyon", or something else? (noticed that years ago, been wondering it could not possibly be accidental, not Lem ...)
The word 'tichy' means 'silent' in Czech/Slovakian, and maybe in some smaller Polish dialects.
Though http://encyklopediafantastyki.pl/index.php?title=Ijon_Tichy claims that "the ancestor of Tichy was called Cichy (the silent one in Polish), but the official putting down the name in the official register was lisping"
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…
The first novel I read of him was "The Invincible", recommended here. It was great, but it didn't prepare me at all for the second book someone recommended me, "The Futurological Congress". It's like two different styles.
My favorite book is "Wizja Lokalna", the title has been translated to English as 'Observation on the Spot' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observation_on_the_Spot). It's a wonderful allegory of problems related to the concept of the 'world of abundance' vs 'communism/authoritarianism'. The presented problems (ethico-sphere, abundance of material thing) are serious and well researched and described, even if in a humorous fashion.
I'm having a hard time finding the original title of this story, The Truth. Prawda? Googling around isn't helping... Anyone know?
its Prawda. It was part of The Invincible and Other Stories according to wikipedia [0] [0] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niezwyci%C4%99%C5%BCony_i_inne...
I wish the subject of "solar life" was explored more in sci-fi. It's something that shows up every now and then, but rarely in any detail, or significant to the plot. For another example along these lines, there's David Brin's "Sundiver": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96472.Sundiver
“Aren’t you a star any longer?” asked Lucy. “I am a star at rest, my daughter,” answered Ramandu...
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of." [--Ramandu]
C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader"
Marcin Wichary translated one of Lem's stories from Polish to English, and wrote an article about the translation process. https://mwichary.medium.com/translating-a-stanislaw-lem-stor... >Marcin Wichary: This is a backstory of why I translated Stanisław Lem’s short story One hundred and thirty-seven seconds. >Translations of [Lem’s] works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic p…
I'm working on a translation of Limes Inferior, which is a novel about a stratified socialist economy, likely a commentary on soviet society.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like the cover art on these books, by Przemek Dębowski. They have a very suitable and appealing retro-future look, I'd encourage people to them out. I actually ordered one from Dębowski as a poster recently.
I used (and attributed) some of the wonderful cover art and illustrations by Lem and Mroz and others from his web site, to illustrate this article about "GPT-3 Riffs on Stanislaw Lem’s Cyberiad and SimCity, and Admits it’s an Evil Machine": https://donhopkins.medium.com/gpt-3-riffs-on-stanislaw-lems-... Here are some of Lem's drawings: https://english.lem.pl/gallery/lems-drawings And Daniel Mróz's covers and illustra…
Truly, being able to read Lem's works untranslated is my favourite thing about being a native polish speaker. There are some fantastic translations out there, but somehow, when it comes to sci-fi, I find works written in polish or other eastern european languages to flow better. In addition to the above, I find that reading an older physical edition adds much charm to vintage sci-fi. The copy of The Truth I own comes…
> native polish speaker. Ah, the man I want. Tell me, is "Ijon Tichy" a joke on "tachyon", or something else? (noticed that years ago, been wondering it could not possibly be accidental, not Lem ...)
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.