Stanisław Lem Book order

"Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing."-- Provided by publisher

"A collection of philosophical essays by science fiction master Stanislaw Lem, exploring cybernetics and the ethics of technology"-- Provided by publisher

A playful, witty, reflective memoir of childhood by the science fiction master Stanislaw Lem.

The travels of Ijon Tichy, a Gulliver of the space age, who encounters faulty time machines, intelligent washing machines, suicidal potatoes, and other puzzling phenomena.

A space cruiser, in search of its sister ship, encounters beings descended from self-replicating machines.

World renowned sci-fi writer and Caldecott Honor artist team up for a zany sci-fi tall tale about an astronaut caught in a time loop in space who must confront past and future versions of himself!

'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?' From a giant of twentieth-century science fiction, these four miniature space epics feature crazy inventors, surreal worlds, robot kings and madcap machines. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

A psychologist arrives at a research space station called Prometheus, his mission to ascertain whether research into the mysterious planet of Solaris should be terminated. He finds Prometheus all but deserted, its straggling crew seemingly haunted by hallucinations of figures from their pasts.

@lt;DIV@gt;Ijon Tichy, Lem's Candide of the Cosmos, encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in space that serve to satirize science, the rational mind, theology, and other icons of human pride. Line drawings by the Author. Translated by Michael Kandel. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book@lt;br@gt;@lt;/div@gt;

An engaging and caustically logical philosophical treatise about human and nonhuman life in its past, present, and future forms.