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Manufacturer: Harvest Books

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8537
EAN: 9780156235501
ISBN: 0156235501
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 312
Publication Date: 1985-06-26
Publisher: Harvest Books
Studio: Harvest Books

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Great Book
Comment: If you like Calvino, Borges, and Beckett, this book is for you. It is philosophically rich and witty. If you are a run-of-mill sci-fi nerd, geek or troll, skip this one because it will be beyond your comprehension.

Customer Rating:

Summary: This should be renamed: The Cyberetard.
Comment: I actually managed to wade through several of the "stories" in this book before I gave up.

For the most part, books should be enjoyable to read.

This one by Lem (like many others) requires a lot of work on the readers part to sort though the jumble of non-sense words.

I've never done drugs; however, I believe you have to in order to read one of his books.

I understood all the words he used - I guess he just didn't put them in the right order; because it sure was tiresome to read...

Better than His Masters Voice - Not by much though.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Hugely disappointing
Comment: This book received such great reviews, but I found it incredibly boring. Particularly because every story followed the same format, and there were no "rules" to his universe.

Basic story outline:
Protagonists: "Let's go visit planet ABC!"
King of ABC: "I have a problem you need to solve, it might be considered a riddle!"
Protagonists: "We'll just create a machine to do it, because we can build machines that can do absolutely anything!"
King of ABC: "Alas, you have outsmarted me!"
Protagonists: "That was troubling! Let's not go to ABC again!"

If you can create a machine that can do anything, then basically the machine and its creator are basically gods, and therefore there will be nothing interesting in their stories. There is no conflict worth telling a story about when everything can be solved by the snap of a finger.

Furthermore, even though the stories are about robots and space travel, this book is NOT science fiction, it's just space fantasy. The stories seem like they were written by someone with just a passing understanding of science. Granted, you have to take Lem's time era into consideration, but the pulp magazines of early last century did a much better job of creating stories about future technology.

You could replace Lem's robots with summoned demons and his space ship with a horse and the story would not change, because there are zero rules in his universe, and that is an incredibly unforgiving fault.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Philosophical gem
Comment: This is an ultimate classic for those that love Kafka, mathematical games and philosophy. In a series of fantastic stories Lem shows to be a master in crafting compelling stories, all vivid and laden with simple yet deep wisdom. All stories do leave philosophical traces that may positively linger on in your head for days.

The translation is outstanding. Originally written in Polish, yet the translation of Michael Kandel is perfect. If you wouldn't know better, you'd think the book was natively written in English.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Where Are We Coming From? Where Are We Going To?
Comment: Lovely book dealing with several philosophical issues. A collection of falsely simple short stories with deep insights. Recommended both to adults and children.

Editorial Reviews:

Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each other. They travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their employers. â€œThe most completely successful of his books... here Lem comes closest to inventing a real universeâ€ (Boston Globe). Illustrations by Daniel Mrâ€”z. Translated by Michael Kandel.