Stanislaw Lem
Biographic Data
| ID | 3595402 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stanislaw Lem |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stanislaw |
| FAMILY NAME | Lem |
| SIGNATURE | LEM S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Krakow |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Summa Technologiae
To the Editors
In Response to Franz Rottensteiner
On Stapledon’s Star Maker
Stapledon’s Star Maker is a monumental work of cosmogonic SF. at once defining the boundaries of SF and attempting a modern theodicy. It attempts to depict the “universal history of the cosmos” through the mental journey of the narrator, from the discovery of other life-forms in a panpsychozoic universe, all the way to a glimpse of the universe’s creator, the Star Maker. Despite the unprecedented expansiveness of Stapledon’s vision, the book is a…
Metafuturology
Futurologists aspire to be experts “above the specialties,” constructing their predictions by correlating the information provided by other disciplines. But contemporary futurology, especially in the US, is seriously compromised by three related flaws. First, futurologists are insufficiently neutral with regard to their prophecies; they confuse their role as describers of objective tendencies with their role as advisers to agents of power. As a r…
On the Genesis of Wizja Lokalna (Eyewitness Account)
On Stapledon’s Last and First Men
Stapledon’s monumental novel creates a fantastic model for the future history of humanity. The originality and greatness of the book lie in Stapledon’s total design, in which the successive rises and declines of human civilizations are depicted as an aperiodic fluctuation governed by probability, not by an immanent law of historical evolution. Although it is filled with prescient technological predictions. Last and First Men rises far above most …
Zulawski’s Silver Globe
Jerzy Zulawski’s On the Silver Globe is one of those rare books that we read with enjoyment in childhood and rediscover with pleasant surprise in our maturer years. Concerned with an ill-fated expedition to the Moon, it celebrates the kind of heroism that Zulawski’s Swedish contemporary, the explorer Salomon August Andree, epitomized—the kind of heroism that eventually opens new regions of life experience for humanity. The book is not without its…
Remarks Occasioned by Antoni Slonimski’s The Torpedo of Time
A true “biography” of SF would read like the story of a fallen woman—say, Dostoyevsky’s Sonia. Born of learned and imaginative parents, the genre came into the world possessed of noble intelligence and wit. But it also had a fatal flaw: it was too attractive for its own good. It was its entertainment value which, in the context of the economic pressures and blandishments of modern book-marketing, led it into prostitution, demeaning to its rationa…
About the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic
The strategy theologians apply to their principal subject is not properly available to the writer of SF. The mystery of the Alien, unlike that of God, cannot be preserved by resorting to dogmatically imposed contradictions without betraying the true nature of science fiction. Yet presenting the Alien has its problems. H.G. Wells’s approach in making his Martians physically hideous left them mentally and socially unreconstructed; their motives for…
On Science, Pseudo-Science, and Some Science Fiction
In Response to Professor Benford
Looking Down on Science Fiction
Cosmology and Science Fiction
Philip K. Dick
In Response
Todorov’s Fantastic Theory of Literature
The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of SF Structuring
Remarks Occasioned by Dr. Plank’s Essay “Quixote’s Mills”
On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction
The Invincible
No prominent works on this page.
Remarks Occasioned by Dr. Plank’s Essay “Quixote’s Mills”
On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction
The Invincible
Todorov’s Fantastic Theory of Literature
The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of SF Structuring
Philip K. Dick
In Response
Looking Down on Science Fiction
Cosmology and Science Fiction
In Response to Professor Benford
On Science, Pseudo-Science, and Some Science Fiction
About the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic
The strategy theologians apply to their principal subject is not properly available to the writer of SF. The mystery of the Alien, unlike that of God, cannot be preserved by resorting to dogmatically imposed contradictions without betraying the true nature of science fiction. Yet presenting the Alien has its problems. H.G. Wells’s approach in making his Martians physically hideous left them mentally and socially unreconstructed; their motives for…
Remarks Occasioned by Antoni Slonimski’s The Torpedo of Time
A true “biography” of SF would read like the story of a fallen woman—say, Dostoyevsky’s Sonia. Born of learned and imaginative parents, the genre came into the world possessed of noble intelligence and wit. But it also had a fatal flaw: it was too attractive for its own good. It was its entertainment value which, in the context of the economic pressures and blandishments of modern book-marketing, led it into prostitution, demeaning to its rationa…
Zulawski’s Silver Globe
Jerzy Zulawski’s On the Silver Globe is one of those rare books that we read with enjoyment in childhood and rediscover with pleasant surprise in our maturer years. Concerned with an ill-fated expedition to the Moon, it celebrates the kind of heroism that Zulawski’s Swedish contemporary, the explorer Salomon August Andree, epitomized—the kind of heroism that eventually opens new regions of life experience for humanity. The book is not without its…
Metafuturology
Futurologists aspire to be experts “above the specialties,” constructing their predictions by correlating the information provided by other disciplines. But contemporary futurology, especially in the US, is seriously compromised by three related flaws. First, futurologists are insufficiently neutral with regard to their prophecies; they confuse their role as describers of objective tendencies with their role as advisers to agents of power. As a r…
On the Genesis of Wizja Lokalna (Eyewitness Account)
On Stapledon’s Last and First Men
Stapledon’s monumental novel creates a fantastic model for the future history of humanity. The originality and greatness of the book lie in Stapledon’s total design, in which the successive rises and declines of human civilizations are depicted as an aperiodic fluctuation governed by probability, not by an immanent law of historical evolution. Although it is filled with prescient technological predictions. Last and First Men rises far above most …
On Stapledon’s Star Maker
Stapledon’s Star Maker is a monumental work of cosmogonic SF. at once defining the boundaries of SF and attempting a modern theodicy. It attempts to depict the “universal history of the cosmos” through the mental journey of the narrator, from the discovery of other life-forms in a panpsychozoic universe, all the way to a glimpse of the universe’s creator, the Star Maker. Despite the unprecedented expansiveness of Stapledon’s vision, the book is a…
In Response to Franz Rottensteiner
To the Editors
Summa Technologiae
Art (15 works) · History (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Literature (3 works) · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life (3 works) · Art history (2 works) · Astronomy (2 works) · Central European Literary Studies (2 works) · Digital Games and Media (2 works) · European Cultural and National Identity (2 works)