- Paperback: 295 pages
- Publisher: Seabury Pr (March 1974)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 081649164X
- ISBN-13: 978-0816491643
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.4 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,252,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
About the Author
Stanislaw Lem is the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he is a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and he is the author of numerous works, including Solaris.
Daniel Mroz, a famous Polish artist, illustrated Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad and Mortal Engines. e-mail: l.mroz@krak.gazeta.pl --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Daniel Mroz, a famous Polish artist, illustrated Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad and Mortal Engines. e-mail: l.mroz@krak.gazeta.pl --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, so you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller, yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade, when there was not a speck of dust to be found in outer space, nor any nebular debris-in those good old days it was the custom for constructors, once they had received their Diploma of Perpetual Omnipotence with distinction, to sally forth ofttimes and bring to distant lands the benefit of their expertise. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, so you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller, yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade, when there was not a speck of dust to be found in outer space, nor any nebular debris-in those good old days it was the custom for constructors, once they had received their Diploma of Perpetual Omnipotence with distinction, to sally forth ofttimes and bring to distant lands the benefit of their expertise. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cybernetic Gulliver?,
By
This review is from: The Cyberiad (Paperback)
Lem constantly reminds me of Dean Swift, and "The Cyberiad" reminds me of "Gulliver's Travels". So 5 stars right off the bat. Then bear in mind that this is a translation from the Polish! Astonishing. Much, much kudos to Michael Kandel for such a graceful, sly, and very funny translation.Point to remember: Cyberiad was written in 1972 -- not a jolly time behind the Iron Curtain. The version of McCarthy-ism lasted decade after agonizing decade, with all the usual trappings: paranoia both official and social; social criticism frowned upon; political criticism stepped upon. But if you were cunning enough, you could get your message across with science fiction. Thus Pohl and Kornbluth and a host of others in North America; thus Stanislaw Lem in Poland. But Lem was smart enough to be much, much funnier. Sly! If you have been a very good person long enough you deserve this book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Fables for the cybernetic age",
By
This review is from: The Cyberiad (Paperback)
The Cyberiad is more than just "a brilliantly funny collection of stories for the next age," as the back cover claims. The tales within blend philosophy, mathematics, and computer science with cruel kings, pugnacious pirates, and improbable dragons. They chronicle the exploits of the robots Trurl and Klapaucius, renowned constructors who offer their services to the robot kings that rule the robot kingdoms comprising their universe. So great is their knowledge of the universe that they build a royal advisor that never errs, a perfect mechanical poet, a machine that can model anything in existence, and a machine that can fabricate anything beginning with the letter 'n'. Of course, their creations don't always work out quite the way they hope, but in edifying and entertaining ways. This combination of fanciful adventure and academia, often laced with delightfully clever wordplay, makes the Cyberiad well worth reading.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dazzling!,
By GeoX "GeoX" (Men...Of...The...Sea!) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Cyberiad (Paperback)
Imagine a mixture of Borges, Calvino, Saint-Exupéry, Pynchon, Douglas Adams, Samuel Beckett, L. Frank Baum, Dr. Seuss, Lewis Caroll, and perhaps a little Philip K. Dick. That's what this is like, sort of. It is a collection of stories, some profound, others 'merely' entertaining, written by a man who was clearly drunk on sheer linguistic exuberance. The sheer virtuosity of the language is breathtaking: the book is packed to the gills with puns, rhymes, nonsense words, and general verbal japery. Huge amounts of credit must of course go to the translator, Michael Kandel, on this score. I wish the book included translation notes; he must have had to rebuild innumerable language formations from scratch in order to make them work--and work dazzlingly well--in English. Particularly impressive in this regard are 'The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl's Prescription,' a delightful bit of frippery driven almost entirely by verbal dexterity; and an extraordinary mathematical love poem related in 'The First Sally (A), or Trurl's Electric Bard.' The centerpiece of the collection, however, must surely be the 'Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius,' which, as you would expect, includes a flurry of internal stories, some of which in turn have stories inside them. One of these internal stories, that of Mymosh the Self-Begotten, is in my opinion the book's highlight. If Sam Beckett had turned his hand to science fiction, this is what he would have written. It's as strange and unsettling as any of Sam's short novels. Finally, some mention must be made of the highly stylized illustrations by Daniel Mroz scattered throughout the book; they complement the action to perfection. Lem is clearly having fun with The Cyberiad, and it's contagious. I had tried, some time ago, to read Tales of Pirx the Pilot, but I found the first tale so mind-numbingly dull that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. This, on the other hand, is a truly excellent collection, and you can rest assured tha I'll be checking out more of Lem in the near future.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
