Wednesday, June 15, 2005

"How the World was Saved" by Stanislaw Lem

Never, never, never need nature negate nor nullify negligible, nonexistent "n" nouns now! If you have no idea what that alliteration alludes to, perhaps you best listen to this tale of a robot simply trying to do exactly what its master wants it to do. Read by Scoot.

Stanislaw Lem is one of the most amazing writers you'll ever read, so you might as well start now, perhaps with his robotic story cycle, The Cyberiad. (It's very funny and very smart.) Solaris, though the most well-known of his novels, is hardly the best of his work--work which is sometimes a sort of meta-meta-metafiction that simply must be read to be believed. One simply can't think the same after reading such things! Now, never, never, never call him "merely" a science-fiction writer, though he is a scientist, philosopher, and one of the greatest writers, if not the greatest, to have come from his native Poland.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another "file not found". :(

Scoot said...

Oh, bother! Sorry once more--we think the problem's been fixed now. Thanks for alerting us--and try again, please.

Viscountess of Affairs, 2012-13 said...

I realize it's 2009, but the link still isn't working. Is there something else you can direct me to? Thanks!