Fiasco

by Stanisław Lem

Book Overview

The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding. Translated by Michael Kandel. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156306301
• ISBN13: 9780156306300
• Release Date: March 1988
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

What if alien life doesn't want to be contacted?

Almost all of Lem's science fiction centers around one or two variations of one theme. The theme is "What is intelligence?" and the two variations are "What would robotic life be like?" and "What would a truly alien intelligence be like?" "Fiasco" is in the latter category. An expedition from Earth approaches and attempts to contact an alien race that does everything it can to avoid being contacted. The humans use their technological advantage to slowly escalate their efforts with ultimately catastrophic results. "Fiasco" is a brilliant read on its own, and very approachable, but should really be considered part of Lem's larger set of works on this theme: "Solaris", "Eden" and "His Master's Voice" being the most obvious...with "Fiasco" being the most approachable, "Solaris" the best known and "His Master's Voice" the most challenging.

The best of the best with an excellent translation by Kandel

The cover art has nothing to do directly with the story. Simply the artist?s idea of what the story was about in a metaphorical way.What IS the story about? Set in a future when humankind finally acts on the basis of a scientific ideal not personal gain a planet is discovered in a distant solar system that has a high probability of supporting life. An expedition is sent and seemingly noble efforts are made to make contact with the inhabitants. The story illustrates, in my own opinion, that no matter how 'evolved' we think we are, no matter how noble and honorably we think we can be, our pride in ourselves and our accomplishments has a way of causing us to ultimately act in barbaric ways.The beginning of the story is astonishing and relates the re-animation of a man frozen on Titan a century earlier. The scene painted by Lem of this man?s technique in saving himself, his death, and his eventual return to the living are all astonishingly well-written and full of imagery. Lem is a master at getting the reader to imagine a very realistic and plausible scenario. All of this takes place in the first few chapters. This introductory story also serves to acquaint us with the 'evolved' and noble human of the distant future. The human we all hope our children?s children become.There is also a short description of man?s mastery of gravity and cybernetics. This is related in a short description of an ?smart? probe vehicle and the probe?s independently deduced attempts to avoid capture by the planet?s inhabitants.I?ve read other reader?s comments regarding Lem?s use of science as a tool only and that he is not a true science fiction writer. I completely disagree. Perhaps Lem does not display a firm understanding of science to some readers, but it is obvious to me that he not only understands the science behind his ideas he is capable of explaining that understanding in the way he can illustrate the possibilities and limitations of his machines.Lem's stories are unusual in that there is rarely a happy ending or any ending at all. When the message is delivered the story ends often without a climactic scene. Also, it is rare (except for Ijon Tichy or Kris Kelvin) for Lem to make any of his characters more important than any others in a particular story.I would love to see this story made into a movie. In fact I think this particular book is much better subject matter than Solaris for movie material. With the recent advances in CGI and special effects I think this could be done very well.Finally, Lem is a science fiction writer like no other. No one in the west comes close and Michael Kandle's translations are absolutely the best.

Hard science fiction

How hard can you take it? Fiasco is the fourth and most pessimistic of Lem's "contact" novels (after Eden, The Invincible and Solaris). Humanity undertakes its first interstellar voyage in the hope of making contact with the inhabitants of the planet Quinta, but the aliens won't play ball and all the scientists can do, as usual, is present various theories which achieve little, nothing, or worse than nothing. The basic problem is a simple one (and a recurrent Lem theme): how can human beings hope to recognize, let alone understand or talk to, creatures which are wholly different in their biological and technological heritage? There's a good deal of technical discussion, concerning both the possibilities of contact and the workings of interstellar travel, which might prove difficult going; but if you stick with it the paradoxes are delightful, though hardly encouraging; and the descriptive passages are as good as anything in Solaris. The opening chapter is a stunning jou!rney through a literally titanic landscape, and although it might at first seem rather loosely related to the rest of the book, its perspective on the "heroic" protagonist is vital to the ending - another set-piece in a beautifully evoked alien landscape, this time on Quinta. Heroism, even human-ness itself, when confronted with the alien, is not just an irrelevance (as it is to varying degrees in the three previous books) but a deadly liability. Even now that it can resurrect the dead and travel to the stars, humanity still can't see outside itself. The expedition, though a miracle of human endeavour, is a fiasco. But Fiasco is a hard, ironic, sometimes breathtaking triumph.

Vintage Lem

This is the only one of his books that I've ever read outside of Solaris and there are a lot of parallels in that book. Like that one, Lem discusses contact with an alien race and like Solaris, that contact goes against all previous sci-fi notions along those lines. Though in Solaris the alien was the planet and it was largely unreachable as an entity, which was the point, here the aliens even talk to the crewmembers though Lem still never shows what they look like. But this has some of his most interesting philosophical discussions, something we don't see a lot of in science-fiction today, or ever, for that matter. The reactions of the crew to a planet completely at war are fascinating, instead of staying out of it, they keep trying to show their strength and scare the inhabitants . . . so much for that Prime Directive. To me, the reactions of the crew were much more realistic than any other book I've read and if some people think they're extreme . . . well try to imagine yourself in the same situation. It's nearly impossible. It's a pity that this book is out of print when so many other lesser books are, but a dedicated fan can find it and if the number of reviews here inspires someone to go search it out, then hey, we've done our job.

Science as Sociology, Literature

The finest example of science fiction in the world. Kandel does his usual acrobatics in rendering Lem's Polish into English. Lem has obviously learned much from Olaf Stapeldon; if only other writers would do the same, sci-fi would not be such a disappointing genre. Instead, sadly, Fiasco and Stapeldon's sci-fi books seem to be out-of-print.Fiasco is simply astonishing: a meditation on the nature of intelligence, culture, technology. Lem often parodies science fiction while writing serious literature, but with this novel he and translator Michael Kandel outdid all previous efforts.While The Futurological Congress remains my favorite Lem book (personal taste), Fiasco is the best Lem book in English, followed closely by the 'lectures' of GOLEM the computer in Lem's Imaginary Magnitude.