31–40 of 61 posts
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.
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…
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…
Really glad to hear there is an effort forward to bring out more of Lem's work. One of the most interesting SF authors, with what would seem to be a deeper understanding of actual science than most of the others I've read. I especially love His Master's Voice, and am happy to see that on the list of MIT reissues!
I like my SF very hard ("Incandescence" by Greg Egan is roughly where I'd say I'm comfortable, a plausible mechanism by which a pre-industrial civilisation might discover general relativity, that novel made me cry at the end) but even when he's being totally whimsical I really enjoyed Lem.
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…
Prawda?
Googling around isn't helping...
Anyone know?
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…
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…
Could you point to some good Lem translations? My sense is that a lot is lost because of the cultural differences, too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you point to some good Lem translations? My sense is that a lot is lost because of the cultural differences, too.
Michael Kandel’s translations are as good as you’re going to find. Lem’s literary agent called them “excellent”.
Most anyone would have just broke down and changed jobs.
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…
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.
Maybe I'm a Crazy Hippie Sun Worshiper, but my take is it's an outlandish creative fantasy to suppose life DOESN'T exist in the sun, with all that hot matter and strong gravity and powerful energy and freaky chaotic shit happening.