Peace on Earth

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547995121
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
Robot armies, an arms race in space, and a brain at war with itself add up to “a futuristic version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (The Boston Phoenix). Anxious to avoid a war that would destroy the entire planet, the major powers of Earth have come to an ingenious compromise. Each country sends a force of adaptable, self-programming robots to the surface of the moon to play out the conflict there and, hopefully, reach a mutually agreeable stalemate. But when the robots stop responding, it is up to Ijon Tichy to travel to the lunar war zone and discover what went wrong. Tichy finds what he needs to know, but falls victim to an attack that severs the left and right sides of his brain: one of which knows nothing about the status of the moon, the other of which isn’t telling. Now Tichy finds himself at the center of a new sort of war of attrition, with each world power clamoring for his knowledge and each half of his stubborn brain clamoring for control. Wry and action-packed in equal measure, Stanislaw Lem’s absurd, insightful sendup of the Cold War is required reading for any fan of science fiction. Here, “humor and a breathless pace create a delightful and thought-provoking read” (Publishers Weekly).

Stories of Your Life and Others

Author: Ted Chiang
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1931520895
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
From the author of Exhalation, an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" (The New York Times). Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Includes “Story of Your Life”—the basis for the major motion picture Arrival

The Star Diaries

Author: Stanisław Lem
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780749304720
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
@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@@

Stanislaw Lem's The Seventh Voyage

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Publisher: Graphix
ISBN: 9780545004626
Category : JUVENILE FICTION
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
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!

The Truth and Other Stories

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262366657
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. 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.

Mortal Engines

Author: Stanisław Lem
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156621618
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Publisher description: Translated from the original Polish text, and with an introduction by Michael Kandel. These fourteen science fiction stories reveal Stainslaw Lem's fascination with artificial intelligence and demonstrate just how surprisingly human sentient machines can be. The first eleven stories, a cycle called "Fables for Robots," are set in a cosmos inhabited exclusively by machines. Revolving around an assortment of electroknights and cyberkings, the stories combine the timeless quality of fairy tales and parables with a twist that is unmistakably Lem.

Battle of the Linguist Mages

Author: Scotto Moore
Publisher: Tordotcom
ISBN: 1250767695
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
“This is a stand-alone novel with material enough for six... By the halfway point, it had blown my mind twice... an audacious, genre-bending whirlwind.” —New York Times “It reads like Snow Crash had a dance-off with Gideon the Ninth, in a world where language isn't a virus from outer space, it's a goddamn alien invasion.” —Charles Stross In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire. Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"—unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skilfully pronounced. But Isobel’s reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from toppling California over the edge of a terrible transformation, with forty million lives at stake. Time is short for Isobel to level up and choose a side—because the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance, emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Investigation

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544080092
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
An eerie and offbeat mystery by a Kafka Prize–winning author. The case confronting Lieutenant Gregory is not one that a man of Scotland Yard would expect. In fact, it is not one any sane man would care to entertain. Bodies are disappearing. The initial assumption is that a grave robber is roaming London and defiling local morgues. But upon further examination, it seems the deceased are, in fact, resurrecting. As Gregory stumbles his way through the tangled clues, seeking advice from scientific, philosophical, and theological experts alike, he finds himself tossed into a baffling metaphysical puzzle of incomprehensible truths and unbelievable realities. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “closer to Kafka than the police precinct house,” Lem’s intelligent and puzzling foray into the mystery genre offers an appealing combination of disturbance and delight.

Stanislaw Lem

Author: Peter Swirski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1781381860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem's life, career, and literary legacy to light in order to mete out cognitive justice to the writer who preferred to be known as the philosopher of the future.

Fiasco

Author: Stanislaw Lem
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544080106
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
“A stunningly inventive fantasy about cosmic travel” from the Kafka Prize–winning author of Solaris (The New York Times). The Hermes explorer ship represents the epitome of Earth’s excellence: a peaceful mission sent forth to make first contact with an alien civilization, and to use the expansive space technology developed by humanity to seek new worlds, friendships, and alliances. But what its crew discovers on the planet Quinta is nothing like they had hoped. Locked in a seemingly endless cold war among themselves, the Quintans are uncommunicative and violent, refusing any discourse—except for the firing of deadly weapons. The crew of the Hermes is determined to accomplish what they had set out to do. But the cost of learning the secrets hidden on the silent surface of Quinta may be grave. Stark, startling, and insightful, Fiasco has been praised by Publishers Weekly as “one of Lem’s best novels.” It is classic, thought-provoking hard science fiction, as prescient today as when it was first written.