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Told in essentially diary format, HMV tells the story of one scientist's involvement in a secret goverment project established to decipher what appears to be a message from possibly superior, intelligent life. While most scientists spiral their theories into the fantastic, ours manages to poke sensible holes in each assertion...unfortunately escalating the Project's sense of hopelessness and ineptitude along the way.
Somehow, the scientists manage to produce possibly random effects from the recorded signal, but what does it all mean in the grander scheme? It's a wonderful moment when the main character finallly establishes his own theory of the signal, the effect, and his own short-comings.
I loved it.
This is not his best science fiction (Fiasco gets that honor) nor his most revealing psychological work (ironically that's Cyberiad). It doesn't explore technology to the greatest extent (try the Golem lectures). However, it may stand as simply the most important work of fiction of the information age.
Another point is that nothing is really ever solved in HMV. Just like the scientists trying to understand the message from the stars, the reader is left with the same frustration because we are told the outcome in the first few pages of HMV; defeat.
The message that Mankind has stumbled upon is an enigma so complex it would be like explaining the laws of physics to a baboon. The slight progress man does make is so subjective that it can't be considered true progress at all.
I would recommend HMV only to avid Lem fan's and to the others I would point in the direction of Fiasco, Solaris, or The Invincible.
This book is not light reading.
Many parts require a mental effort like, say,
that needed to play chess.
This can be irritating, even infuriating.
For readers are up to the task, however,
the book rewards the effort many times over.
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