Futurological Congress, The
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Description
"Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem."—Paris Review
Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure—a future whose strangeness exceeds anything the congress conjectured.
Translated by Michael Kandel.
"A vision of Earth's future where the authorities dose the population with 'psychemicals' to make life in a desperately over-populated world worth living."—Boston Globe
Book Information
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I don´t know what it is about Lem´s books, but they don´t manage to amaze me. Which is a shame because this books had really good ideas and wit. But the characters Lem writes are so bland, especially the protagonist, and the few main characters that have potential are merely stereotypes with not much to them. Maybe there was just no focus on that because it is more about the dystopian, as well as the ideas criticising the modern world and society, but it was the same in [b:Obłok Magellana|13412360|Obłok Magellana|Stanisław Lem|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361128533s/13412360.jpg|9916244], which I felt was supposed to be character driven. The main character also had few motivation and his actions are solely his reactions to other people. I should give the book a pass on that, because there were good things in it, but that was just the reason I needed relatively long to read such a short book. What I liked were the nice homor, especially in the beginning, the creativity behind it and the plot itself. I also enjoyed that the protagonist had to learn about the new world first before the reader can decide if it is a good or bad world. There is no too apparent dystopy, but a believable world. The author took his time to get to the future, very well explaining the exciting events that let to the main character getting there. I could criticise that there is a lot of action before, but very few going on in the future, but it makes sense for the protagonist to expierience every day life in the new society, so it´s only a nitpick. All in all, I can easily recommend this book to people who like classical science fiction, as long as they are not too upset about the lack of compelling character traits. I am glad I gave Lem another chance, but it will still be my last book by him.
Description
"Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem."—Paris Review
Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure—a future whose strangeness exceeds anything the congress conjectured.
Translated by Michael Kandel.
"A vision of Earth's future where the authorities dose the population with 'psychemicals' to make life in a desperately over-populated world worth living."—Boston Globe
Book Information
Posts
I don´t know what it is about Lem´s books, but they don´t manage to amaze me. Which is a shame because this books had really good ideas and wit. But the characters Lem writes are so bland, especially the protagonist, and the few main characters that have potential are merely stereotypes with not much to them. Maybe there was just no focus on that because it is more about the dystopian, as well as the ideas criticising the modern world and society, but it was the same in [b:Obłok Magellana|13412360|Obłok Magellana|Stanisław Lem|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361128533s/13412360.jpg|9916244], which I felt was supposed to be character driven. The main character also had few motivation and his actions are solely his reactions to other people. I should give the book a pass on that, because there were good things in it, but that was just the reason I needed relatively long to read such a short book. What I liked were the nice homor, especially in the beginning, the creativity behind it and the plot itself. I also enjoyed that the protagonist had to learn about the new world first before the reader can decide if it is a good or bad world. There is no too apparent dystopy, but a believable world. The author took his time to get to the future, very well explaining the exciting events that let to the main character getting there. I could criticise that there is a lot of action before, but very few going on in the future, but it makes sense for the protagonist to expierience every day life in the new society, so it´s only a nitpick. All in all, I can easily recommend this book to people who like classical science fiction, as long as they are not too upset about the lack of compelling character traits. I am glad I gave Lem another chance, but it will still be my last book by him.