Comments on: Stanislaw Lem: 1921-2006

Stanislaw Lem: 1921-2006

jdroth — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:54:05 -0800

Stanislaw Lem: 1921-2006. Polish science-fiction giant Stanislaw Lem died this morning. He was 84. Though Lem was not as well known as Asimov or Heinlein or the other "Masters", he was just as important to the genre. Lem was not a fan of traditonal science-fiction, and in his work tried to approach futuristic themes from a more humanistic, almost psychological, perspective. (And his books are funny!) His best-known work, Solaris, was twice made into a film, most recently in 2002. [Woefully out-of-date official site.]

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:55:24 -0800

Jesus, it feels like the bad news just keeps coming recently.

By: puddles

puddles — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:55:43 -0800

. one of my all time favorites

By: NucleophilicAttack

NucleophilicAttack — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:57:11 -0800

Truly one of the greats. Little can compare to Cyberiad. .

By: Squid Voltaire

Squid Voltaire — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:57:16 -0800

By: justkevin

justkevin — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:57:55 -0800

I'm not a huge SF fan, but I really like Lem. His books and short stories have an originality and uniqueness unlike any other author.

By: elendil71

elendil71 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:58:06 -0800

Awww, man. He was one of my all-time favorites, too. Rest in peace old friend.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:00:24 -0800

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:01:00 -0800

"Some time ago crime was modest - take Al Capone and his mere two dozens of victims. Now we have the Independence Day movie, where alien spaceships murder almost the entire mankind. Some American producer claims now that his next picture will be even stronger. But what can be stronger? To murder an entire biosphere? This is so disgusting for me, that I decided to leave the street-car of science fiction on a stop of essay writing."

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:02:56 -0800

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:03:23 -0800

Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans by Stanislaw Lem

By: bshort

bshort — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:05:39 -0800

. I didn't realize he was still alive.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:06:02 -0800

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:06:05 -0800

I loved Solaris (the book). I've always enjoyed saying Lem and Dick were the two giants of cerebral sci-fi. Mostly because saying "Lem and Dick" is fun.

By: Eothele

Eothele — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:06:49 -0800

By: shoepal

shoepal — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:08:44 -0800

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:10:59 -0800

Man, between this and Robert Jordan's illness, it hasn't been a good few days to be a nerd. .

By: ubersturm

ubersturm — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:11:15 -0800

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:14:22 -0800

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:16:26 -0800

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:17:33 -0800

Dick eventually tried to turn Lem into the FBI for being a commie. Nevermind that Lem didn't live in the US. A Minneapolis theater company did an unbelievable stage adaptation of Terminus a few years back (sort of a self-link.)

By: bru

bru — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:17:55 -0800

By: Espy Gillespie

Espy Gillespie — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:18:25 -0800

By: Miles Long

Miles Long — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:18:30 -0800

a truly original voice in science fiction. i wish i believed in heaven so i could imagine he's now chatting with asimov and bester and clarke, hunter s. thompson and, hell, benjamin franklin and socrates too. we have his books. he'll live forever.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:29:28 -0800

Terrible news.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:30:30 -0800

Man. What an great writer. I've never read a book by him that wasn't amazing. Solaris. Chain of Chance. Memoirs found in a Bathtub freaked me out for weeks after I read it.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:36:40 -0800

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:37:37 -0800

By: lyam

lyam — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:38:02 -0800

Oh crap! Dammit. What a great author. Challenging. Visionary.

By: SmileyChewtrain

SmileyChewtrain — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:38:57 -0800

By: picea

picea — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:40:15 -0800

No author has been so consistent at being able to jolt me and switch on a certain dark and weird part of my imagination like Lem.

By: Termite

Termite — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:40:39 -0800

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:48:38 -0800

. One of the greats. Abstract, brillant unrelenting imaginative flights.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:51:00 -0800

I am very sad.

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:54:04 -0800

Cyberiad, Solaris, and Manuscript Found in a Bathtub are three of my favourite sci-fi books. And Dick denounced Lem as not only being a commie, but a collective of communist spies all engaged in an intricate conspiracy to defraud him personally for unknown reasons. .

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:55:15 -0800

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. I always get that one's name wrong.

By: kalimac

kalimac — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:56:37 -0800

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:00:46 -0800

I just quoted him in a proect I was working on last night. He was awesome.

By: Vaska

Vaska — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:00:47 -0800

Dammit. I have most of his books on my shelf and they suddenly look very forlorn.

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:02:49 -0800

. Rest in peace, Klapaucius and Trurl.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:05:23 -0800

Damn. Saturday I unpacked 300+ books I had in storage looking for one of his stories.

By: the Real Dan

the Real Dan — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:06:44 -0800

By: kyrademon

kyrademon — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:11:20 -0800

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:38:59 -0800

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:49:09 -0800

Lem was a genius. He lived a long life. Rest in peace.

By: gurple

gurple — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:56:23 -0800

By: n9

n9 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:58:41 -0800

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:59:52 -0800

I always thought I might be Pirx the Pilot. Lem was truly a genius.

By: darkstar

darkstar — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:00:28 -0800

. Just read his Cyberiad for the first time last year. Reminds me of Sheckley's passing a few months ago, too. This is what it's like to grow older...all the people you admire die. *sigh*

By: Laotic

Laotic — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:04:14 -0800

Stop whining, he just got really tired of us and went back to future where he belonged.

By: blahblahblah

blahblahblah — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:07:44 -0800

That is really sad. The Cyberiad was wonderful: "Have it compose a poem--a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism and in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!!" "And why not throw in a full exposition of the general theory of nonlinear automata while you're at it?" growled Trurl. "You can't give it such idiotic--" But he didn't finish. A melodious voice filled the hall with the following: Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide. (Credit to translator Kandel as well)

By: entropy

entropy — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:07:46 -0800

RIP .

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:11:26 -0800

Damn. One of my favorite authors is dead. When I first read The Cyberiad, I was astounded. I've read nothing like that before or since. All of his books really exercised my brain, my imagination. All of his extraterrestrial encounter stories and books did a great job of capturing the truly alien - how incomprehensible we might find them. Now maybe his Summa Technologiae will get translated? Just looking at the table of contents gives me a pleasant headache. Thank you Mr. Lem. For everything.

By: farlane

farlane — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:12:08 -0800

I can believe in all sorts of things due to the work of Lem and his counterparts, so I can believe he's chatting with his peers in heaven ... or bouncing with them through the galaxy in wave form ... or whatever makes a good tale.

By: adamt

adamt — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:12:59 -0800

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:15:01 -0800

By: Aster

Aster — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:18:44 -0800

Lem was amazing. .

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:22:53 -0800

I always really liked Lem - I think I've read all of his widely available work... though up to this point, I've never met anyone else who'd ever heard of him, except for the one bookstore employee who gave me a knowing nod and a "Yeah. Lem." He was totally unique.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:32:13 -0800

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub was one of those books that became dated after the Soviet Union collapsed, and then became relevant again in the 21st century. Just as a quick synopsis, Memoirs is superficially an account by an inhabitant of a self-sufficient underground military installation that has developed a culture of extreme paranoia.

By: kolophon

kolophon — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:40:14 -0800

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:44:32 -0800

By: carmina

carmina — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:45:07 -0800

By: girandole

girandole — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:47:52 -0800

And The Futurological Congress! Poor old Ijon Tichy.... .

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:48:25 -0800

By: ooga_booga

ooga_booga — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:00:03 -0800

By: nlindstrom

nlindstrom — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:31:14 -0800

This is a tragedy. From where I sit, writing this, I can see The Investigation, Return from the Stars, and The Star Diaries. Another dozen of his books sit in another room. Like several previous posters mentioned, his work Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is truly a masterpiece (Sorry, self link, I wrote the wikipedia entry.) Pirx the Pilot was my hero growing up, along with John Carter of Mars. Lem will be missed. :(

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:33:49 -0800

By: Substrata

Substrata — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:08:11 -0800

By: n0man

n0man — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:12:36 -0800

. Also one of my favs:-( RIP

By: muckster

muckster — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:25:44 -0800

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:31:28 -0800

I just mentioned him in an AskMe thread about ten minutes ago. Damn.

By: 31d1

31d1 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:33:51 -0800

Stanislaw Lem is Dead, Alas. (And if you don't know, now you know.)

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:37:13 -0800

By: Sparx

Sparx — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:07:48 -0800

. It was a good innings, though. May we all achieve as much.

By: Grimgrin

Grimgrin — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:53:49 -0800

. This essay by Bruce Sterling remains one of my favourite things written about Stanislaw Lem.

By: Chirael

Chirael — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:29:29 -0800

Another great passes away... though I'll admit I never read more than Solaris, but still, it did make a mark or me back in college when I took the interdisciplary Russian Fantasy and Science Fiction class (which, incidentally, had a remarkably high number of CS majors in it trying to fill their humanities requirement ;)

By: cellphone

cellphone — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:54:11 -0800

By: rob511

rob511 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:22:31 -0800

So Stanisław's silenced. Salut, sweet scribe!

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:00:24 -0800

By: Aknaton

Aknaton — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:15:32 -0800

. I'm very surprised to hear that Dick had problems with Lem, after Lem said such nice things about Clans of the Alphane Moon (while tearing apart a bunch of other hack writers). Lem had the courage and drive to make aliens alien. I'm not sure it always worked, but I'm glad somebody tried!

By: teferi

teferi — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:58:58 -0800

Go in peace, fair constructor. Your name will be known farther than those of the great Klapacious and Trurl. .

By: asok

asok — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 03:37:47 -0800

By: atholbrose

atholbrose — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 07:14:18 -0800

The Cyberiad was wonderful rollicking fun to read aloud -- especially the Steelypips -- and has become the source of many family in-jokes. We never did read another Lem aloud, but I've enjoyed every book of his I read for myself. I'll keep my rather heretical views on the two Solaris movies to myself. .

By: Goblindegook

Goblindegook — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:12:50 -0800

I'm coming in a little late for this, but I very much want to add my .

By: ChrisR

ChrisR — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:39:19 -0800

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:51:23 -0800

Well, it'll never be too late now. .

By: edgeways

edgeways — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:35:28 -0800

By: pointilist

pointilist — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:55:00 -0800