Subject:
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Re: Ford Prefect
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Wed, 12 Jul 2000 03:16:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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529 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Selçuk Göre writes:
>
>
> Shiri Dori wrote:
> >
> > In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Selçuk Göre writes:
> > > Yes there are some including me...:-)
> >
> > Well, hi there! ;-)
> >
> > I really should get those books while I'm on vacation... but I doubt I'll have
> > much time for reading (even REreading...). Oh well ;-)
> >
> > -Shiri
> > -- I'll be on vacation between July 15th and the end of August... please
> > forgive slow replies to emails/posts.
> > (Funny how the prospect of a vacation seems less attractive as time goes by.
> > Or is this just me.)
... Selçuk recommended Stanislaw Lem
I read "Bathtub" last year. I think you have to be an adult to stay awake
through that, and even then nothing makes sense on the first read! It's one of
Lem's puzzles of paranoid societies with no obvious reason for the insanity they
call a routine. Like Hospital of the Transfiguration (which is more normal, but
still senseless..)
Return From The Stars is ok, but it doesn't make much of its main idea
(astronauts return to Earth and find they are considered dangerous and bad-
mannered.) I think Ursula K. Le Guin's book City Of Illusions makes better use
of the idea.. but you still have to be a brave sf fan to read through that. I
may be confusing it with another story here... Uhoh...
Lem's most readable light work is "Tales of Pirx the Pilot" because they are
short, realistic, and funny. (See More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.) They are akin
to silly works like The Cyberiad (which is like Alice in Wonderland with
robots.)
Anyway, the most readable of Lem's serious works is _Fiasco_, first published in
English in 1986 (recently!!!) (I have met the translator, Michael Kandel, here
in New York, he is also a conspicuous Harry Potter fan.)
_Fiasco_ combines Lem's incredible skill at describing natural wonders, and his
hard-science space-travel premises, with his bent for paranoid societies. The
hero is actually Pirx, except he's not sure if he's Pirx or another guy. He's
the civilian observer among a crew of specialists bound for first contact with
an alien species. When they get there, they have trouble communicating (to say
the least.) It's like an alien species swooped down on the miserable residents
of the "Bathtub" world and couldn't make sense out of it either. Yet this book
is serious throughout (if not grim) and has much clarity. It contains several
fascinating stories within the story as well, such as an account of an explorer
who tries to unravel a legendary power of a termite queen.
Also among Lem's serious works (not all of which I have read--for instance The
Invincible I have not read) are: His Master's Voice, which is hard to read, most
like Bathtub but finer, also paranoid, also without any answers at the end.
Mortal Engines is a collection of short stories somewhere in the middle of Lem's
work but largely about robots.
I don't think Lem's "paranoid" works are much like Douglas Adams (they're
absurd, not comic), but his funny robot stories are quite close.
-Erik
> If you like his work, I also suggest some books from Stanislaw Lem. He
> has some serious SF novels(0) mostly, but two from him, "Futurology(?)
> Congress" and "Diary Found in The Bath Tub"(1) are close relatives(2) to
> HHGtTG series, considering the style. I also suggest "Starship
> Titanic"(4), although some DA fans don't like it.
>
> Selçuk
>
> (0) Solaris, Aden, Return Back from The Stars, The Invulnerable are my
> most favorite.
> (1) Or the like-I made up the titles since I read them in Turkish.
> (2) Especially the first one.
> (4) Not a book really from Douglas Adams, but he only written the
> preface. Since the publisher prints his name much bigger than the
> original author (I can't recall his name now) on the cover, I bought it
> as a DA book, and read it believing that..:-). Quite nice book
> otherwise.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Ford Prefect
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| (...) If you like his work, I also suggest some books from Stanislaw Lem. He has some serious SF novels(0) mostly, but two from him, "Futurology(?) Congress" and "Diary Found in The Bath Tub"(1) are close relatives(2) to HHGtTG series, considering (...) (24 years ago, 11-Jul-00, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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