The Futurological Congress is the fourth satirical science fiction novel in the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy series from Kafka Prize–winning author Stanislaw Lem.
“Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem.”— Paris Review
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—a future whose strangeness exceeds anything the congress conjectured.
Translated by Michael Kandel.
“A vision of Earth’s future where the authorities dose the population with ‘psychemicals’ to make life in a desperately over-populated world worth living.”— Boston Globe
A brilliantly funny collection of stories for the next age, from the celebrated author of Solaris. Ranging from the prophetic to the surreal, these stories demonstrate Stanislaw Lem's vast talent and remarkable ability to blend meaning and magic into a wholly entertaining and captivating work.
Ijon Tichy travels undercover to a robot world, joining an organization to clean up world history thru time travel.
Things go crazy immediately. His spaceship runs into gravitational vortices at relativistic speeds, resulting in massive time anomalies. It may be a blessing in disguise. The reason he couldn’t get out of the way was that a meteor had shattered the drive regulator & rudder. He could no longer steer his ship. He had a spare rudder, but couldn’t install it. It was a two-man job & he was alone. So when other versions of him start appearing, all he should need do is team up with one of them, fix the rudder & leave the gravitational vortex field.
After that gets straightened out, he goes undercover. A ship’s computer has mutineed & started its own colony, reproducing itself on a previously uninhabited planet. The insurance company paid the shipowner’s claim, & now believes that the ship, it’s computer & all its progeny belong to them. Tichy disguises himself as a robot & goes to investigate.
On another voyage, he heads to a planet where the government irrigation agency has irrigated beyond all need & refused to give up power. People live in water & are jailed in dry cells if they violate the love of water.
After his modern voyages, he comes back from 2166 to recruit himself as a member of THEOHIPPIP, the Teleotelechronistic-Historical Engineering to Optimize the Hyperputerized Implementation of Paleological Programming & Interplanetary Planning. History is in a mess because of all the time travelers. THEOHIPPIP's mission is: “For World History to be regulated, cleaned up, straightened out, adjusted & perfected, all in accordance with the principles of humanitarianism, rationalism & general esthetics. You can understand, surely, that with such a shambles & slaughterhouse in one’s family tree it’s awkward to go calling on important cosmic civilizations!...If need be, alterations will be made even before the rise of man, so that he arises better.”
SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, diese Fahndung nach der Nadel im Heuhaufen, hat diesmal Erfolg: ein Planet im Sternbild Harpyie, die Quinta im dortigen Zetasystem, sendet Signale, und nach jahrhundertelanger Vorbereitung startet die irdische "Hermes" mit einer auserwählten Crew von Spezialisten, unter ihnen der zweite Pilot Marek Tempe, der später die Landung und den ersten Erkundungsgang vornehmen wird. Die Verwirklichung des Projekts bildet den Inhalt dieses Romans.
Als ein Gegenstück zu seinem Jugendroman "Gast im Weltraum", den er in den Jahren 1954/1955 schrieb und der erstmals 1956 bei Volk und Welt in Deutsch erschien (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...), möchte Stanisław Lem seinen neuesten Roman betrachtet wissen, den er im Februar 1985 abschloss.
Keine Negierung von "Gast im Weltraum" soll "Das Fiasko" sein, sondern eher eine Revision eigener, allzu naiver fortschrittsfreudiger Illusionen, die den jungen Lem einst beflügelten und denen er nun den komplizierten, naturwissenschaftlichen, technischen und moralischen Zwängen unterliegenden Prozeß gegenüberstellt, den die Menschen bei ihrem Drang auf der Suche nach außerirdischen Zivilisationen durchlaufen.
The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding. Translated by Michael Kandel.
The novel was published in German translation (translated by H. Schumann) in 1986. The Polish text published in 1987, the English translation (by M. Kandel) the same year.
La trama inicia con el arribo de una poderosa nave de guerra, El Invencible, al planeta recientemente descubierto Regis III. La tripulación del Invencible tiene como misión investigar la desaparición de la nave, Cóndor, gemela del Invencible.
W absurdalnym, sztucznie wykreowanym świecie Argolandu, nic nie jest tym, czym się na pierwszy rzut oka wydaje. Drobny kombinator dzięki sprytowi i inteligencji odkrywa prawdę o pozornie idealnym porządku społeczno-ekonomicznym.
Sztandarowa powieść Janusza A. Zajdla, twórcy nurtu fantastyki socjologicznej w Polsce. Główny bohater, Adi Cherryson, alias Sneer, wzorowany jest na postaci kolegi po piórze, Adamie Wiśniewskim-Snergu. Stanisław Lem uznał Limes inferior za najoryginalniejszą polską powieść SF, jaką czytał.
The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet's written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community. Translated by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose.
Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose. Run, Run, Run.
A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed “The Butcher’s Masquerade.”
The sixth floor. The Hunting Grounds.
As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, a new, terrible threat looms. Outside tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are here and ready to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.
But their prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.
Dungeon Crawler Carl and Princess Donut return in book five of the acclaimed litrpg series.
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