stanislaw lem

[Elohim is plural]

...anyone read this guy?..

the only polish sci-fi i've ever come across...some of his books are kind of wacky with a lot of fun with word sounds(even though i can't read it in the original polish, great translators)

...that george cloony flick(which i have'nt seen) 'solaris' is based on one of his more serios novels...the other end of the spectrum for him would be 'the futurilogical congress'...by no means is this style of sci-fi epic but definately in a class of its own
EIP

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ah, no wonder the name was familiar.

I think knivesout may have read his original novel that Solaris was roundly sourced from.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Actually, I've only seen the earlier Russian make of the film by Andrei Tarkaovsky, and it was very brilliant. We discussed both Solaris and Lem in some detail elsewhere here...I can't find the link right now, but the forum search (in that little blue horizontal strip up above) should help?


Tangentially, that reminds me...I have an anthology of Soviet SF somewhere around that I really need to dig out one of these days.

 

[BAYLOR]

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub about an agent living in the underground third pentagon who get sent on a spying mission with no clear goal or objective. The book is madcap with sides of Dr Strangelove . It's a terrific read.

 

[hitmouse]

Tales of Pirx the Pilot is highly recommended

 

[Stephen Palmer]

^ Hitmouse is right.

 

[StuartBurchell]

The only one I have read is The Invincible, the rocketship Invincible lands on an unknown planet to find out the fate of sister rocketship Condor. They find a planet with no life on it's surface, life flourishing only after a certain depth in the seas. And when they find the Condor, the crew are disturbed to find that the Condor's crew apparently went insane before they died...

I liked this book a lot and have kept it over many years.

 

[Boreas]

Fiasco is my favourite of his pessimistic first contact stories - hard sf with a Jesuit perspective and a deadly finale.