The Star Diaries - Stanislaw Lem

The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem / ISBN 9780241240021 / 336-page paperback from Penguin Classics

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A Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age - The New York Times

Stanislaw Lem's set of short stories, written over a period of twenty years, all feature the adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy and recount him spinning in time-warps, spying on robots, encountering bizarre civilizations and creatures in space and being hopelessly lost in a forest of supernovae. This is a philosophical satire on technology, theology, intelligence and human nature from one of the greatest of science fiction writers.

"Lem veers between joyous slapstick, freewheeling satire, and insanely involuted logical paradoxes--with surprisingly serious excursions into issues of will and faith. Funny, unexpected, tantalizing"--Kirkus Reviews

Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) was born in Lviv, then part of Poland. He is probably the most original and influential European science-fiction writer since H.G. Wells. Best known in the West for Tarkovsky's film of his novel Solaris, Lem wrote novels and stories that have been published all over the world. He is credited with anticipating in his writing artificial reality, e-books and nano-technology. His most famous works include The Cyberiad, Mortal Engines, The Star Diaries, The Futurological Congress, Tales of Pirx the Pilot and Solaris.