Fiasco [Paperback]

Stanislaw Lem (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1988

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. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Polish (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Stanislaw Lem is the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he is a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and he is the author of numerous works, including Solaris.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (March 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156306301
• ISBN-13: 978-0156306300
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stanislaw Lem is the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he is a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and he is the author of numerous works, including Solaris.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard science fiction, November 22, 2000

By 

Philip Challinor - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fiasco (Paperback)

How hard can you take it? Fiasco is the fourth and most pessimistic of Lem's "contact" novels (after Eden, The Invincible and Solaris). Humanity undertakes its first interstellar voyage in the hope of making contact with the inhabitants of the planet Quinta, but the aliens won't play ball and all the scientists can do, as usual, is present various theories which achieve little, nothing, or worse than nothing. The basic problem is a simple one (and a recurrent Lem theme): how can human beings hope to recognize, let alone understand or talk to, creatures which are wholly different in their biological and technological heritage? There's a good deal of technical discussion, concerning both the possibilities of contact and the workings of interstellar travel, which might prove difficult going; but if you stick with it the paradoxes are delightful, though hardly encouraging; and the descriptive passages are as good as anything in Solaris. The opening chapter is a stunning jou!rney through a literally titanic landscape, and although it might at first seem rather loosely related to the rest of the book, its perspective on the "heroic" protagonist is vital to the ending - another set-piece in a beautifully evoked alien landscape, this time on Quinta. Heroism, even human-ness itself, when confronted with the alien, is not just an irrelevance (as it is to varying degrees in the three previous books) but a deadly liability. Even now that it can resurrect the dead and travel to the stars, humanity still can't see outside itself. The expedition, though a miracle of human endeavour, is a fiasco. But Fiasco is a hard, ironic, sometimes breathtaking triumph.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What if alien life doesn't want to be contacted?, January 14, 2006

By 

John Gossman (Seattle, wa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fiasco (Paperback)

Almost all of Lem's science fiction centers around one or two variations of one theme. The theme is "What is intelligence?" and the two variations are "What would robotic life be like?" and "What would a truly alien intelligence be like?" "Fiasco" is in the latter category. An expedition from Earth approaches and attempts to contact an alien race that does everything it can to avoid being contacted. The humans use their technological advantage to slowly escalate their efforts with ultimately catastrophic results.

"Fiasco" is a brilliant read on its own, and very approachable, but should really be considered part of Lem's larger set of works on this theme: "Solaris", "Eden" and "His Master's Voice" being the most obvious...with "Fiasco" being the most approachable, "Solaris" the best known and "His Master's Voice" the most challenging.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Science as Sociology, Literature, May 12, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Moscow, Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fiasco (Paperback)

The finest example of science fiction in the world. Kandel does his usual acrobatics in rendering Lem's Polish into English. Lem has obviously learned much from Olaf Stapeldon; if only other writers would do the same, sci-fi would not be such a disappointing genre. Instead, sadly, Fiasco and Stapeldon's sci-fi books seem to be out-of-print.

Fiasco is simply astonishing: a meditation on the nature of intelligence, culture, technology. Lem often parodies science fiction while writing serious literature, but with this novel he and translator Michael Kandel outdid all previous efforts.

While The Futurological Congress remains my favorite Lem book (personal taste), Fiasco is the best Lem book in English, followed closely by the 'lectures' of GOLEM the computer in Lem's Imaginary Magnitude.