| Product Summary | | Format: Paperback | | ISBN: 9780156441803 | | Publisher: Harvest Books | | Publish Date: 4/10/2007 | | Buy.com Sku: 30020672 | | Item#: RWFJN9 | | Dimensions (in Inches) 7.75H x 5.25L x 0.5T |
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| | | These wickedly authentic introductions to twenty-first-century books preface tomes on teaching English to bacteria, using animated X-rays to create "pornograms," and analyzing computer-generated literature through the science of "bitistics." "Lem, a science fiction Bach, plays in this book a googleplex of variations on his basic themes" (New York Times Book Review). Translated by Marc E. Heine. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Annotation:
A collection of satirical "introductions" to the literary works of the twenty-first century.
| Author Bio| Stanislaw Lem | | Born in the small town of Lww, Poland (which is now part of Ukraine), Stanislaw Lem was the son of a wealthy doctor. Upon his graduation from secondary school, he followed in his father's footsteps, studying medicine during the Soviet occupation at the beginning of World War II. When German troops took the country from the Soviets in the early 1940s, Lem was sent to work at a German recycling plant. In 1944, when the Soviets reoccupied Poland, he returned to his medical studies but was once again interrupted by the annexing of Lww to the Soviet Union (where it was renamed Lvov). Moving to Krakow, he completed his studies in 1948, but refused to take the final exam for fear of being forced into a career as a military doctor. Around this time, he completed his debut novel, HOSPITAL OF THE TRANSFIGURATION, though due to various censorship issues, he was forced to rewrite it a number of times before it was eventually published in 1956. A chance conversation led to ASTRONAUT (1951), Lem's first science fiction novel; while attending a writers convention, he spoke to a man he assumed to be a fellow writer about the state of Polish science fiction (or rather, the lack thereof), with Lem asserting that he could write certainly write SF; when a contract subsequently arrived in the mail, Lem learned that the man in fact worked at a publishing house looking to promote Polish SF. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Lem continued to write science fiction and produced several of his best-known works during this period--SOLARIS (1961; adapted to film both in 1972 and 2002 ), MEMOIRS FOUND IN A BATHTUB (1961), and TALES OF PIRX THE PILOT (1968)--though most were not published in English until the 1970s. In 1973, he accepted an honorary membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America for his achievements, but was expelled three years later, due to his comments that most science fiction was little more than ill-conceived adventure stories. Though a protest about his expulsion by a number of prominent science fiction authors led to him being re-offered a membership, not surprisingly he declined. Lem wrote a number of works which were not explicitly science fiction, including everything from philosophical dialogues and experimental fiction to both real and mock memoirs. He also regularly contributed newspaper and magazine articles to various publications in Polish and other languages. Stanislaw Lem died March 27, 2006, of heart failure. |
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