Quite boring. The best story was The Hunt and the Rat Laborant (or something). ( )

Stanislaw Lem was one of the first authors I read when I first got into adult science fiction, and I think about Solaris, like, once every couple of hours. So when I heard a new collection of his stories was being translated into English (many for the first time), obviously I made a netgalley purely to get an ARC of it.
(Insert obligatory netgalley disclaimer here, etc. etc.)
It's interesting for me to think of these stories in comparison to Solaris, with is, I think, a high water mark for thoughtful, philosophical scifi. A lot that is repeated here—Lem returns, again and again, to the idea of alien intelligence: what it would look like, and whether we would recognize it, and what that means about us.
But there's a lot of humor here, too. ("Invasion from Aldebaran", in particular, made me do that weird snort-laugh people do when they read amusing things alone in their bedrooms during a worldwide plague.) Which, you know! Was very refreshing given the general gloominess of life right now. It reminded me of watching the Twilight Zone late at night as a kid, funny and kind of existentially horrifying in equal measure.
I think this style of witty/horrifying/philosophical writing is having something of a comeback lately—I'm thinking, in particular, of Ted Chiang, who's probably the best writer of speculative short friction working right now. Obviously, there's a big gulf there stylistically—each story in this collection comes with a little note about when it was written, but it would be clear even without them that these stories aren't exactly contemporary. Nonetheless I think this collection is a compelling entry point to the Lem-iverse for those who are late to the party, as well as long-time fans who haven't bothered to learn how to read Polish in pursuit of new material.
Also, you know, nice cover! ( )

Stanisław Lem is one of the great philosophers in the worlds of classic science fiction, and this new collection is a truly intriguing glimpse into the mental worlds of a rather unique thinker. His worldview--that of an irreverent iconoclast, a wildly creative nonconformist, and a fantastically satirical humorist--is handily showcased by the twelve stories included here.

As in much of Lem's work, themes of artificial and alien intelligence have a strong presence in many of these stories. The emotional tension and tragedy of stories such as "The Hunt" and "Rat in the Labyrinth" is underscored by their inhuman casualties, while the comedy of "Invasion from Aldebaran" is made acerbic by the fact that no one human in the story even really knows the truth of what did and did not happen. The questions Lem asks about what it means to be human, alive, or aware remain timelessly relevant, and this running thread ties the collection together in a relatively cohesive way I might not have expected from a set of stories spanning nearly four decades of the author's life.

While I cannot read Polish and am therefore unable to comment on the accuracy of Antonia Lloyd-Jones's translation, the prose in this book has the feeling of a translation that largely stands aside and lets the author's voice shine through--an impressive feat, given the specificity of Lem's voice and his propensity for neologisms.

Overall, this is an excellent collection, and one I look forward to recommending to the existing Lem fans in my life as well as to anyone looking for interesting and intellectually provocative science fiction.

I received a free e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )