Stanislaw Lem

The author of Solaris critiques science fiction in a collection of provocative essays. In this bold and controversial examination of the past, present, and future of science fiction, Lem informs the raging debate over the literary merit of the genre with ten arch, incisive, provocative essays. Edited and with an Introduction by Franz Rottensteiner. Translated by Rottensteiner and others. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Una fantasía cósmica de altos vuelos, llena de un ácido sentido del humor. Una de las obras más míticas del polaco Stanislaw Lem, absolutamente entretenida y cautivadora. Seres con circuitos, princesas autómatas, ladrones de guante eléctrico, sabios muy sabios, bestias de silicio y reyes del algoritmo. Artefactos mecánicos que se han expandido hasta colonizar el último rincón de la galaxia, y que a pesar de todas sus virtudes y bajezas,...

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure. Translated by Michael Kandel.

An eerie and offbeat mystery by a Kafka Prize–winning author. A young officer at Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a puzzling and eerie case of missing-and apparently resurrected-bodies. To unravel the mystery, Lt. Gregory consults scientific, philosophical, and theological experts, who supply him with a host of theories and clues.

An ex-astronaut investigates a string of potential murders in this novel by the Kafka Prize–winning author of Solaris. A former astronaut turned private detective is dispatched to Naples to discover the pattern in a mysterious series of deaths and disappearances occurring at a seaside spa. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

A six-man crew crash-lands on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. The men find a strange world that grows ever stranger, and everywhere there are images of death. The crew's attempt to communicate with this civilization leads to violence and to a cruel truth-cruel precisely because it is so human. Translated by Marc E. Heine. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Brilliant stories of a bumbling astronaut, and the human desire to discover the unknown, by the much-loved author of Solaris. In Pilot Pirx, Lem has created an irresistibly likable character: an astronaut who gives the impression of still navigating by the seat of his pants-a bumbler but an inspired one. By investing Pirx with a range of human foibles, Lem offers a wonderful vision of the audacity, childlike curiosity, and intuition that can give...

The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet's written history. Fortunately, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community . . . From the Kafka Prize–winning author of Solaris, this is an entertaining and thought-provoking blend of politics, philosophy, humor, and science fiction. Translated...

Twelve stories by science-fiction master Stanislaw Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these 12 short stories by science-fiction master Stanislaw 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...