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The Three Electroknights
'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?'
From a giant of twentieth-century science fiction, these four miniature space epics feature crazy inventors, surreal worlds, robot kings and madcap machines.
The four stories are "The Three Electroknights", "The White Death", "King Globares and the Sages", and "The Tale of King Gnuff". All have previously been published in the collection Mortal Engines.
From a giant of twentieth-century science fiction, these four miniature space epics feature crazy inventors, surreal worlds, robot kings and madcap machines.
The four stories are "The Three Electroknights", "The White Death", "King Globares and the Sages", and "The Tale of King Gnuff". All have previously been published in the collection Mortal Engines.
54 pages, Paperback
First published February 22, 2018
23 people are currently reading
772 people want to read
About the author
Stanisław Lem
504 books4,504 followersStanisław Lem (staˈɲiswaf lɛm) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer of Jewish descent. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of Solaris, which has twice been made into a feature film. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.
His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult and multiple translated versions of his works exist.
Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period led to the "Polish October", when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored 17 books. His works were widely translated abroad (although mostly in the Eastern Bloc countries). In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogi (Dialogues), one of his two most famous philosophical texts along with Summa Technologiae (1964). The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances. In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—like, for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology. Over the next few decades, he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological, although from the 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays.
He gained international fame for The Cyberiad, a series of humorous short stories from a mechanical universe ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. His best-known novels include Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (Głos pana, 1968), and the late Fiasco (Fiasko, 1987), expressing most strongly his major theme of the futility of mankind's attempts to comprehend the truly alien. Solaris was made into a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; in 2002, Steven Soderbergh directed a Hollywood remake starring George Clooney.
He was the cousin of poet Marian Hemar.
His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult and multiple translated versions of his works exist.
Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period led to the "Polish October", when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored 17 books. His works were widely translated abroad (although mostly in the Eastern Bloc countries). In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogi (Dialogues), one of his two most famous philosophical texts along with Summa Technologiae (1964). The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances. In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—like, for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology. Over the next few decades, he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological, although from the 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays.
He gained international fame for The Cyberiad, a series of humorous short stories from a mechanical universe ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. His best-known novels include Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (Głos pana, 1968), and the late Fiasco (Fiasko, 1987), expressing most strongly his major theme of the futility of mankind's attempts to comprehend the truly alien. Solaris was made into a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; in 2002, Steven Soderbergh directed a Hollywood remake starring George Clooney.
He was the cousin of poet Marian Hemar.
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December 29, 2022These fantastical fables set in outer space with battling royalty and power hungry robots are so out of my interest zone that I'm not going to rate them. I'm sure they would appeal to some readers.
Penguin Modern Classics
#1 - Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.
#2 - Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber by Allen Ginsberg
#3 - The Breakthrough by Daphne Du Maurier
#4 - The Custard Heart by Dorothy Parker
#5 - Three Japanese Short Stories (3 authors)
#6 - The Veiled Woman by Anais Nin
#7 - Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell
#8 - Food by Gertrude Stein
#9 - The Three Electroknights by Stanislaw Lem
Penguin Modern Classics
#1 - Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.
#2 - Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber by Allen Ginsberg
#3 - The Breakthrough by Daphne Du Maurier
#4 - The Custard Heart by Dorothy Parker
#5 - Three Japanese Short Stories (3 authors)
#6 - The Veiled Woman by Anais Nin
#7 - Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell
#8 - Food by Gertrude Stein
#9 - The Three Electroknights by Stanislaw Lem
October 1, 2021
I don't know how these stories compare to Solaris, but they do show Lem really likes building stories (4, here) focusing on murderous planets or kings. The problem is that the fable behind them falls flat or is lost in translation. Lem never seems to want to justify the motives for why characters would try challenge murderous scenarios, and takes it on faith that readers will be alright with 'for a challenge' to be the reason every single time. For this reason, these almost read like stories for children, yet we're being bombarded with overly complex and often irrelevant detail about physical sciences. How am I supposed to visualize how environments composed of vanadium and molybdenum would be like to live in? It feels as if Lem was so focused on plugging as much as he could of a Periodic Table onto the page he forgot he was writing a story. But I can't rule this out as bad as it is very unique and distinct and so in a larger story these descriptions might make a great fantasy world. It could also be that I just can't stand scifi that forgets that there are people involved over the details.
I'm yet to read a Polish translation with an easily readable syntax. It is very hard to pay attention to these stories for some reason, to know what is happening and why.
For that reason I think most people will read them and forget them. For he creates intricate settings and does nothing with them, which is a reminder for my true interest in literary fiction which often aspires to do exactly the opposite.
Proper review coming soon, will do one more Penguin Modern, take a break (@10/50) and recap with video reviews. Then get back on it!!
I'm yet to read a Polish translation with an easily readable syntax. It is very hard to pay attention to these stories for some reason, to know what is happening and why.
For that reason I think most people will read them and forget them. For he creates intricate settings and does nothing with them, which is a reminder for my true interest in literary fiction which often aspires to do exactly the opposite.
Proper review coming soon, will do one more Penguin Modern, take a break (@10/50) and recap with video reviews. Then get back on it!!
April 29, 2018
"Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it. What do we really know about the origin of the Universe? A blank so wide can be filled with myths and legends.
A great introduction to Lem, or it seems that way to me. I'm now fully convinced that his imagination is boundless and he was just way too smart.
The stories included in this tiny collection are 2.5/4 successful. Meaning that I really liked the last two, somewhat liked the middle story and didn't really care for the first. If you're curious, these read like interstellar parables or fables. Each contains a pointed "lesson" but takes place on strange worlds with strange beings.
This definitely made me want to try Lem's longer fiction. Maybe Solaris?
April 6, 2021
Four of the best stories I have ever read! In my humble opinion, I see Lem as one of the masters of fantasy. His prose, his ideas, every word is brilliant! My only regret is that I haven't viewed his works earlier.
October 4, 2025
A mixed bag: four short stories, two of them intriguing, the other two unremarkable. This was my first exposure to Lem’s work. It’s enough to interest me in reading his famous book Solaris - but not in any particular hurry.
August 17, 2020
Οι 'ανατολικές' ιστορίες Ε.Φ. σε αυτό το μικρό βιβλιαράκι τα δείχνουν τα χρονάκια τους, αλλά σαν σύλληψη δεν παύουν να είναι έτη φωτός μπροστά. Απίστευτα πρωτότυπες, ευφάνταστες και μοναδικές.
February 17, 2025
This is so fun I love a space opera fairy tale
February 17, 2022
I enjoyed these four stories, the third one less than the others though I still managed to enjoy it. I found them imaginary, unique, multi-coloured. Their sci-fi nature was highly appreciated. I'd recommend The Three Electroknights if you're looking for a light and entertaining read.
September 23, 2025
The Three Electroknights is one of those cute little Penguin Modern editions containing four brief fables with sci-fi trappings. They are classic Lem, conveying the arbitrary absurdity of authoritarianism via robot and spaceship motifs. I prefer his longer work, as these stories essentially just whet your appetite. They are good fun, though. My favourite was the last, 'The Tale of King Gnuff', about a monarch who has his mind built into a whole city:
This story reminded me of a passage Ali Smith wrote in Gliff, about the dictator who murders his opponent, then cremates him, then locks his ashes in a safe, then flushes them down a toilet, but remains consumed with fear of opposition. While Lem's writing style is very different, he is also a droll and deft political satirist.
One night, after a particularly hard-working day - for the King had been thinking up new kinds of medals with which to decorate himself - he dreamed that his uncle, Cenander, had sneaked into the capital, taking advantage of the darkness, wrapped in a black cloak, and was roaming the streets in search of supporters, to organise a vile conspiracy. Out of the cellars crawled a host of masked ones, and there were so many of them and they showed such readiness for regicide, that Gnuff started trembling and awoke in terror. It was already dawn and the golden sun played upon the little white clouds in the sky, so he said to himself: "A dream, nothing more" - and resumed his work of designing medals, and those he had invented the previous day were pinned onto his terraces and balconies. When however after his daylong toil he again settled down for the night, no sooner did he doze off than he saw the conspiracy in full flower. It had happened this way: when Gnuff, before, wakened from the conspiring dream, he did so incompletely; the downtown sector, in which had hatched that antigovernment dream, did not wake up at all, but continued to lie in its nightmare grip, and only the King awake knew nothing of this. Meanwhile a considerable part of his person, namely the old centre of the city, quite unaware that the uncle-malefactor and his machinations were only a phantom, remained under the delusion of his nightmare.
This story reminded me of a passage Ali Smith wrote in Gliff, about the dictator who murders his opponent, then cremates him, then locks his ashes in a safe, then flushes them down a toilet, but remains consumed with fear of opposition. While Lem's writing style is very different, he is also a droll and deft political satirist.
July 3, 2021
Maybe 3.5 stars
Full review will follow later!
Full review will follow later!
May 4, 2020
I had never heard of Stanislaw Lem, but this is a great intro to his work. He's a beautiful writer, has an incredible imagination, and uses science fiction – at least in this collection – to allegorize humanity's own existence and relationship to the very real world we inhabit.
In this collection of four (very) short stories, Lem takes us to four different worlds, although all of them share in common a physics that is barely possible to imagine, and they all feature a figure – an invader, a protector, a ruler – larger than life, yet deeply flawed:
• The Three Electroknights: Three warriors attempt to conquer a frozen land for its beautiful gems.
• The White Death: A planet protected by its encircling ruler and shield of meteors nevertheless is threatened by the crash landing of an odd ship.
• King Globares and the Sages: A bored king demands his sages entertain him, with a (somewhat tedious) exploration of the absurdity of the universe the answer he receives.
• The Tale of King Gnuff: A power-mad and paranoid ruler loses track of what is real and what is dream – or whether it even matters.
In this collection of four (very) short stories, Lem takes us to four different worlds, although all of them share in common a physics that is barely possible to imagine, and they all feature a figure – an invader, a protector, a ruler – larger than life, yet deeply flawed:
• The Three Electroknights: Three warriors attempt to conquer a frozen land for its beautiful gems.
• The White Death: A planet protected by its encircling ruler and shield of meteors nevertheless is threatened by the crash landing of an odd ship.
• King Globares and the Sages: A bored king demands his sages entertain him, with a (somewhat tedious) exploration of the absurdity of the universe the answer he receives.
• The Tale of King Gnuff: A power-mad and paranoid ruler loses track of what is real and what is dream – or whether it even matters.
July 31, 2020
*Score: 8/10*
This is an extremely short collection comprising of 4 short stories:
1. The Three Electroknights (7/10): atmospheric and interesting, but a bit too short and pointless, could have benefited from more pages.
2. White Death (6/10): Interesting ideas, but even more brief than the first story without much impact.
3. King Globares and the Sages (8/10): This shows the interesting blend of sci fi and philosophy that I love about Stanislaw Lem's writing. Wonderful imagination, good story, and interesting views on creation and the universe. Ending though was a bit abrupt and it didnt give a satisfying conclusive feel.
4. The Tale of King Gnuff (9/10): wow! This is dreamlike and obsessive in just the right ways, with a king that is paranoid and scared from being killed by his relatives. It discusses one of my favorite topics of dreams vs reality, and ends in some truely powerful imagery. By far my favorite of the bunch.
Overall: starts with 2 extremely brief and unmemorable stories, but ends with two longer and much more interesting ones. Not a must read overall, but for Stanislaw Lem's fans its a good choice.
This is an extremely short collection comprising of 4 short stories:
1. The Three Electroknights (7/10): atmospheric and interesting, but a bit too short and pointless, could have benefited from more pages.
2. White Death (6/10): Interesting ideas, but even more brief than the first story without much impact.
3. King Globares and the Sages (8/10): This shows the interesting blend of sci fi and philosophy that I love about Stanislaw Lem's writing. Wonderful imagination, good story, and interesting views on creation and the universe. Ending though was a bit abrupt and it didnt give a satisfying conclusive feel.
4. The Tale of King Gnuff (9/10): wow! This is dreamlike and obsessive in just the right ways, with a king that is paranoid and scared from being killed by his relatives. It discusses one of my favorite topics of dreams vs reality, and ends in some truely powerful imagery. By far my favorite of the bunch.
Overall: starts with 2 extremely brief and unmemorable stories, but ends with two longer and much more interesting ones. Not a must read overall, but for Stanislaw Lem's fans its a good choice.
November 3, 2018
Παίξε μπάλα μεγάλε Λεμ! 10 σελίδες χρειάστηκαν για να μου αρέσει ο Λεμ, δηλαδή η πρώτη ιστορία. Δεν χρειάζεται να βγαίνει νόημα, δεν χρειάζεται να καταλαβαίνεις απολύτως τι γίνεται. Απλά αφέσου στην γραφή του μεγάλου αυτού συγγραφέα. Απο μένα περνάει.
March 14, 2021
Interesting and odd bunch of space fairytales with a very eastern european vibe.
March 12, 2025
Històries curtes plenes d'imaginació, veritat, però d'una molt naïf. Semblen narracions per a infants plenes de neologismes incomprensibles per aquests. Per mi, molt lluny del nivell de Solaris o el Congrés de futurologia.
July 1, 2023
I never expected Stanisław Lem's writing to be so silly but it was a pleasant surprise
May 13, 2025
Super weird space robots
October 4, 2025
It’s a book that cost £2, fits in the inside pocket of your jacket, lasts the length of a return trip to Peckham, and is entirely surreal all the way back to St Albans - what more could you want?
November 25, 2021
Four exceedingly strange sci-fi and fantasy mixed stories about kings and their power and subjects. Not all that good. I’ve just purchased Lem’s newest short story collection, here’s to hoping it’s better than these.
August 29, 2024
Fun sci-fi short stories.
November 8, 2018
Quattro storie brevi tratte dalla raccolta Mortal Engines, a sua volta una riduzione di Fables for Robots; un titolo che ben sintetizza questo assaggio della produzione in forma breve del grande scrittore polacco, quasi dimenticata a causa del successo di Solaris.
-The Three Electroknights ★★★½
-The White Death ★★★★½
-King Globares and the Sages ★★★★
-The Tale of King Gnuff ★★★★
In questo volumetto c'è la fantascienza sì, ma diluita attraverso le convenzioni stilistiche dell'epica cavalleresca e della fiaba. I protagonisti sono versioni robotiche di stilemi della fiaba classica e dell'epica medioevale europea: il re folle e codardo, i cavalieri erranti che invadono il territorio straniero ricco di gemme e preziosi, mortali pestilenze, il re diabolico e sadico che vuole uccidere tutti i suoi saggi.
Questo impianto classico si fonde con i temi fantascientifici ed esistenziali cari a Lem, a partire dall'incomunicabilità con intelligenze "altre", l'angosciante ricerca del ruolo che il sé ha nell'universo, anche se é un sé alieno.
Nonostante siano un pugno di pagine, richiede parecchia concentrazione, sia per la ricchezza linguistica sia per la suggestione filosofica ed esistenziale che permea queste fiabe "atomiche". Per chi ha nostalgia della golden age della fantascienza più esistenziale, questa valida alternativa europea alla malinconia delle Cronache Marziane di Bradbury è imperdibile.
Peccato la traduzione di Marcos y Marcos del 2005 sia quasi introvabile. Se leggete in inglese, c'è una ristampa del 2016 nella collana Penguin Modern Classic su cui conto di metter le mani pure io il prima possibile.
-The Three Electroknights ★★★½
-The White Death ★★★★½
-King Globares and the Sages ★★★★
-The Tale of King Gnuff ★★★★
In questo volumetto c'è la fantascienza sì, ma diluita attraverso le convenzioni stilistiche dell'epica cavalleresca e della fiaba. I protagonisti sono versioni robotiche di stilemi della fiaba classica e dell'epica medioevale europea: il re folle e codardo, i cavalieri erranti che invadono il territorio straniero ricco di gemme e preziosi, mortali pestilenze, il re diabolico e sadico che vuole uccidere tutti i suoi saggi.
Questo impianto classico si fonde con i temi fantascientifici ed esistenziali cari a Lem, a partire dall'incomunicabilità con intelligenze "altre", l'angosciante ricerca del ruolo che il sé ha nell'universo, anche se é un sé alieno.
Nonostante siano un pugno di pagine, richiede parecchia concentrazione, sia per la ricchezza linguistica sia per la suggestione filosofica ed esistenziale che permea queste fiabe "atomiche". Per chi ha nostalgia della golden age della fantascienza più esistenziale, questa valida alternativa europea alla malinconia delle Cronache Marziane di Bradbury è imperdibile.
Peccato la traduzione di Marcos y Marcos del 2005 sia quasi introvabile. Se leggete in inglese, c'è una ristampa del 2016 nella collana Penguin Modern Classic su cui conto di metter le mani pure io il prima possibile.
November 15, 2020
This little book turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. It’s a collection of 4 short stories in which Stanislaw Lem imagines 4 alien worlds very different from anything one might expect to read. For a SF buff, this was a delight!
My favourite quote is from "King Globares and the Sages": "Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it. What do we really know about the origin of the Universe? A blank so wide can be filled with myths and legends. I wished, in my mythologizing, to reach the limits of improbability, and I believe that I came close. You know this already, therefore what you really wanted to ask was if the Universe is indeed ludicrous. But that question each must answer for himself."
My favourite quote is from "King Globares and the Sages": "Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it. What do we really know about the origin of the Universe? A blank so wide can be filled with myths and legends. I wished, in my mythologizing, to reach the limits of improbability, and I believe that I came close. You know this already, therefore what you really wanted to ask was if the Universe is indeed ludicrous. But that question each must answer for himself."
March 17, 2022
This surprised me; I knew I was getting science fiction, I knew there would be tumultuous alien races, and outer space antics, but these felt so much like fairy tales, or fables, that I was immediately taken in. Imagine a Grimm story set in a far flung galaxy - lessons and moral teachings with kings and farm girls transformed into cosmic entities.
I’d never encountered Lem before, but it’s clear his imagination is boundless. His skill lies in relating these surreal tales to our lives on this far less exciting planet. He shows us greed, power, paranoia, and even a pandemic, to help us question our own morals.
A good introduction to Lem, and thought-provoking in its extraterrestrial allegory.
I’d never encountered Lem before, but it’s clear his imagination is boundless. His skill lies in relating these surreal tales to our lives on this far less exciting planet. He shows us greed, power, paranoia, and even a pandemic, to help us question our own morals.
A good introduction to Lem, and thought-provoking in its extraterrestrial allegory.
July 6, 2018
“The Three Electroknights” by Stanisław Lem
Intriguing stories from the phenomenal imagination of the Polish author (1921-2006) of “Solaris”, considered by many to be the greatest sci-fi novel. *****
1 - The Three Electroknights
'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?'
2 – The White Death
Analogy of colonialism, in the vein of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi.
3 - King Globares and the Sages
“Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it. What do we really know about the origin of the Universe? A blank so wide can be filled with myths and legends. I wished, in my mythologizing, to reach the limits of improbability, and I believe that I came close. You know this already, therefore what you really wanted to ask was if the Universe is indeed ludicrous. But that question each much answer for himself.”
Adroitly (p22) = in a clever or skillful way.
4 - The Tale of King Gnuff
Askance (p38) = with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval.
“I am the state.” (p42)
“King-titan” (p43)
- - -
Quotes from “SOLARIS”
“Solaris” by Stanisław Lem
“Another wide panoramic window, almost as large as the one in the cabin where I had found Snow, overhung the ocean, which, sunlit on this side, shone with an oleaginous gleam, as though the waves secreted a reddish oil. A crimson glow pervaded the whole room, whose lay-out suggested a ship's cabin.” (p12)
“By now I was wearing nothing but my underwear. I tore it off, flung it across the room and dashed under the shower. The shock of the water did me good. Turning beneath the scalding, needle-sharp jets, I scrubbed myself vigorously, splashing the walls, expelling, eradicating from my skin the thick scum of morbid apprehensions which had pervaded me since my arrival.” (p14)
“... the scientific world was torn by one of the most violent controversies of the century. Revered and universally accepted theories foundered; the specialist literature was swamped by outrageous and heretical treatises; ‘sentient ocean' or ‘gravity-controlling colloid' - the debate became a burning issue.” (p19,20)
“The notion was incorrect, for the living ocean was active. Not, it is true, according to human ideas - it did not build cities or bridges, nor did it manufacture flying machines. It did not try to reduce distances, nor was it concerned with the conquest of Space (the ultimate criterion, some people thought, of man's superiority). But it was engaged in a never-ending process of transformation, an ‘ontological autometamorphosis.' (p24)
“The room was empty. There was nothing in front of me except the wide convex window and, beyond it, the night. But the same sensation persisted. The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single star relieved the darkness behind the glass. I pulled the thick curtains. I had been in the Station less than an hour, yet already I was showing signs of morbidity. Was it the effect of Gibarian's death? In so far as I knew him, I had imagined that nothing could shake his nerve: now, I was no longer so sure.” (p26)
“Every metal fitting, every latch and joint, blazed, and the great glass panel of the laboratory door glittered with pale coruscations.” (p45)
* Coruscations = To give forth flashes of light; sparkle and glitter: e.g. diamonds coruscating in the candlelight.
“Man has gone out to explore the worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” (p157)
“'Are there no other planets like this?'
'It's possible. This is the only one we've come across. In any case, it's in an extremely rare category, not like Earth. Earth is a common type - the grass of the universe! And we pride ourselves on this universality. There's nowhere we can't go; in that belief we set out for other worlds, all brimming with confidence. And what were we going to do with them? Rule them or be ruled by them: that was the only idea in our pathetic minds! What a useless waste…'” (p159)
“A superb sunset was blazing through the windows of the upper-deck corridor. Usually the horizon was reddish and gloomy at this hour. This time it was a shimmering pink, laced with silver. Under the soft glow of the light, the somber foothills of the ocean shone pale violet. The sky was red only at the zenith.” (p163)
{Additional Quotes}:
“On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”
“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
“I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. they say it closely resembles death.”
“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore.”
“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?”
“We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.”
“What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”
“Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?'
'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?'
'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...'
'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
'There was Manicheanism...'
'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'
Snow pondered for a while:
'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'
I kept on:
'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...'
'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.'
'If you're going to take what I say literally...'
...Snow asked abruptly:
'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”
“Each of us is aware he's a material being, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and that the strength of all our emotions combined cannot counteract those laws. It can only hate them. The eternal belief of lovers and poets in the power of love which is more enduring that death, the finis vitae sed non amoris that has pursued us through the centuries is a lie. But this lie is not ridiculous, it's simply futile. To be a clock on the other hand, measuring the passage of time, one that is smashed and rebuilt over and again, one in whose mechanism despair and love are set in motion by the watchmaker along with the first movements of the cogs. To know one is a repeater of suffering felt ever more deeply as it becomes increasingly comical through a multiple repetitions. To replay human existence - fine. But to replay it in the way a drunk replays a corny tune pushing coins over and over into the jukebox?”
“I had no hope. Yet expectation lived on in me, the last thing she had left behind. What further consummations, mockeries, torments did I still anticipate? I had no idea as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over.”
“Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain?”
“But what am I going to see?
I don't know. In a certain sense, it depends on you.”
“We’re not searching for anything except people. We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors.”
“The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.”
“The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass.”
“So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...”
“This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.”
“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos....
We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation)”
“Successive bursts of static came through the headphones, against a background of deep, low-pitched murmuring, which seemed to me the very voice of the planet itself.”
“The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word. The symmetriad is a million—a billion, rather—raised to the power of N: it is incomprehensible. We pass through vast halls, each with a capacity of ten Kronecker units, and creep like so many ants clinging to the folds of breathing vaults and craning to watch the flight of soaring girders, opalescent in the glare of searchlights, and elastic domes which criss-cross and balance each other unerringly, the perfection of a moment, since everything here passes and fades. The essence of this architecture is movement synchronized towards a precise objective. We observe a fraction of the process, like hearing the vibration of a single string in an orchestra of supergiants. We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands and millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint. It has been described as a symphony in geometry, but we lack the ears to hear it.”
“It was not possible to think except with one’s brain, no one could stand outside himself in order to check the functioning of his inner processes.”
“For some time there was a widely held notion (zealously fostered by the daily press) to the effect that the 'thinking ocean' of Solaris was a gigantic brain, prodigiously well-developed and several million years in advance of our own civilization, a sort of 'cosmic yogi', a sage, a symbol of omniscience, which had long ago understood the vanity of all action and for this reason had retreated into an unbreakable silence.”
Intriguing stories from the phenomenal imagination of the Polish author (1921-2006) of “Solaris”, considered by many to be the greatest sci-fi novel. *****
1 - The Three Electroknights
'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?'
2 – The White Death
Analogy of colonialism, in the vein of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi.
3 - King Globares and the Sages
“Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it. What do we really know about the origin of the Universe? A blank so wide can be filled with myths and legends. I wished, in my mythologizing, to reach the limits of improbability, and I believe that I came close. You know this already, therefore what you really wanted to ask was if the Universe is indeed ludicrous. But that question each much answer for himself.”
Adroitly (p22) = in a clever or skillful way.
4 - The Tale of King Gnuff
Askance (p38) = with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval.
“I am the state.” (p42)
“King-titan” (p43)
- - -
Quotes from “SOLARIS”
“Solaris” by Stanisław Lem
“Another wide panoramic window, almost as large as the one in the cabin where I had found Snow, overhung the ocean, which, sunlit on this side, shone with an oleaginous gleam, as though the waves secreted a reddish oil. A crimson glow pervaded the whole room, whose lay-out suggested a ship's cabin.” (p12)
“By now I was wearing nothing but my underwear. I tore it off, flung it across the room and dashed under the shower. The shock of the water did me good. Turning beneath the scalding, needle-sharp jets, I scrubbed myself vigorously, splashing the walls, expelling, eradicating from my skin the thick scum of morbid apprehensions which had pervaded me since my arrival.” (p14)
“... the scientific world was torn by one of the most violent controversies of the century. Revered and universally accepted theories foundered; the specialist literature was swamped by outrageous and heretical treatises; ‘sentient ocean' or ‘gravity-controlling colloid' - the debate became a burning issue.” (p19,20)
“The notion was incorrect, for the living ocean was active. Not, it is true, according to human ideas - it did not build cities or bridges, nor did it manufacture flying machines. It did not try to reduce distances, nor was it concerned with the conquest of Space (the ultimate criterion, some people thought, of man's superiority). But it was engaged in a never-ending process of transformation, an ‘ontological autometamorphosis.' (p24)
“The room was empty. There was nothing in front of me except the wide convex window and, beyond it, the night. But the same sensation persisted. The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single star relieved the darkness behind the glass. I pulled the thick curtains. I had been in the Station less than an hour, yet already I was showing signs of morbidity. Was it the effect of Gibarian's death? In so far as I knew him, I had imagined that nothing could shake his nerve: now, I was no longer so sure.” (p26)
“Every metal fitting, every latch and joint, blazed, and the great glass panel of the laboratory door glittered with pale coruscations.” (p45)
* Coruscations = To give forth flashes of light; sparkle and glitter: e.g. diamonds coruscating in the candlelight.
“Man has gone out to explore the worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” (p157)
“'Are there no other planets like this?'
'It's possible. This is the only one we've come across. In any case, it's in an extremely rare category, not like Earth. Earth is a common type - the grass of the universe! And we pride ourselves on this universality. There's nowhere we can't go; in that belief we set out for other worlds, all brimming with confidence. And what were we going to do with them? Rule them or be ruled by them: that was the only idea in our pathetic minds! What a useless waste…'” (p159)
“A superb sunset was blazing through the windows of the upper-deck corridor. Usually the horizon was reddish and gloomy at this hour. This time it was a shimmering pink, laced with silver. Under the soft glow of the light, the somber foothills of the ocean shone pale violet. The sky was red only at the zenith.” (p163)
{Additional Quotes}:
“On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”
“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
“I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. they say it closely resembles death.”
“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore.”
“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?”
“We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.”
“What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”
“Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?'
'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?'
'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...'
'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
'There was Manicheanism...'
'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'
Snow pondered for a while:
'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'
I kept on:
'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...'
'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.'
'If you're going to take what I say literally...'
...Snow asked abruptly:
'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”
“Each of us is aware he's a material being, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and that the strength of all our emotions combined cannot counteract those laws. It can only hate them. The eternal belief of lovers and poets in the power of love which is more enduring that death, the finis vitae sed non amoris that has pursued us through the centuries is a lie. But this lie is not ridiculous, it's simply futile. To be a clock on the other hand, measuring the passage of time, one that is smashed and rebuilt over and again, one in whose mechanism despair and love are set in motion by the watchmaker along with the first movements of the cogs. To know one is a repeater of suffering felt ever more deeply as it becomes increasingly comical through a multiple repetitions. To replay human existence - fine. But to replay it in the way a drunk replays a corny tune pushing coins over and over into the jukebox?”
“I had no hope. Yet expectation lived on in me, the last thing she had left behind. What further consummations, mockeries, torments did I still anticipate? I had no idea as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over.”
“Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain?”
“But what am I going to see?
I don't know. In a certain sense, it depends on you.”
“We’re not searching for anything except people. We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors.”
“The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.”
“The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass.”
“So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...”
“This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.”
“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos....
We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation)”
“Successive bursts of static came through the headphones, against a background of deep, low-pitched murmuring, which seemed to me the very voice of the planet itself.”
“The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word. The symmetriad is a million—a billion, rather—raised to the power of N: it is incomprehensible. We pass through vast halls, each with a capacity of ten Kronecker units, and creep like so many ants clinging to the folds of breathing vaults and craning to watch the flight of soaring girders, opalescent in the glare of searchlights, and elastic domes which criss-cross and balance each other unerringly, the perfection of a moment, since everything here passes and fades. The essence of this architecture is movement synchronized towards a precise objective. We observe a fraction of the process, like hearing the vibration of a single string in an orchestra of supergiants. We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands and millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint. It has been described as a symphony in geometry, but we lack the ears to hear it.”
“It was not possible to think except with one’s brain, no one could stand outside himself in order to check the functioning of his inner processes.”
“For some time there was a widely held notion (zealously fostered by the daily press) to the effect that the 'thinking ocean' of Solaris was a gigantic brain, prodigiously well-developed and several million years in advance of our own civilization, a sort of 'cosmic yogi', a sage, a symbol of omniscience, which had long ago understood the vanity of all action and for this reason had retreated into an unbreakable silence.”
December 26, 2019
I read in English but this review is in Bahasa Indonesia
Terdiri dari 4 cerita pendek yang menggunakan fiksi sains sebagai tema. Keempatnya menarik dan menyenangkan. Tetapi juga menunjukkan ironi. Setidaknya itulah yang aku tangkap dari membaca The Three Electroknights. Misalnya saja, Stanislaw Lem mengatakan bahwa seharusnya kehadiran ilmuwan bisa membawa perubahan yang baik untuk manusia. Bukan malah saling beradu untuk menjadi yang terbaik tapi mengesampingkan kehidupan banyak orang.
Bagaimana Lem menganalogikan tentang posisi ilmuwan, ilmu pengetahuan, dengan moralitas membuat pembaca jadi berpikir, "benar juga." Dan hanya melalui cerita pendek, ternyata pesan yang ingin diutarakan Lem sudah bisa tersampaikan dengan baik.
"Infinite is the power of those pallid beings, that if they die, they are reborn anew countless times, far from the mighty suns! Carry out your orders, O atomizers!"
Terdiri dari 4 cerita pendek yang menggunakan fiksi sains sebagai tema. Keempatnya menarik dan menyenangkan. Tetapi juga menunjukkan ironi. Setidaknya itulah yang aku tangkap dari membaca The Three Electroknights. Misalnya saja, Stanislaw Lem mengatakan bahwa seharusnya kehadiran ilmuwan bisa membawa perubahan yang baik untuk manusia. Bukan malah saling beradu untuk menjadi yang terbaik tapi mengesampingkan kehidupan banyak orang.
Bagaimana Lem menganalogikan tentang posisi ilmuwan, ilmu pengetahuan, dengan moralitas membuat pembaca jadi berpikir, "benar juga." Dan hanya melalui cerita pendek, ternyata pesan yang ingin diutarakan Lem sudah bisa tersampaikan dengan baik.
"Science does not concern itself with those properties of existence to which ridiculousness belongs. Science explains the world, but only Art can reconcile us to it."
January 8, 2022
More akin to fantasy and fables than science fiction. They had a juvenile quality to them, and made me feel as though I was reading fairy tales in my youth. Unfortunately I found them repetitive and not very interesting. Maybe his longer work is better. If you want good quality science fiction short stories try Asimov instead.
January 15, 2024
Brimming with otherworldly prose (pun intended) and scratching that itch for 1950s alternative futures—if you have it—the oppressive use of adjectives in each interstellar tale, both real and imaginary, ties down otherwise captivating stories, leaving you feeling red raw if you don't.
October 24, 2018
Interesting stories. This is a good introduction and has made me want to read more by Lem.
August 8, 2019
What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews