Imaginary Magnitude

"Imaginary Magnitudes" is a forceful, blackly humorous introduction to the irreducible mystery that powers Stanislaw Lem's work. Composed of introductions to works of non-fiction and literature to appear sometime in the coming century, one can only marvel at the breadth of imagination involved as well as the smoothness and cleverness of the translation from the Polish. The lectures of GOLEM XIV are the diadem of this collection, adumbrating most of the earlier prefaces in one vast, misanthropic razz of humankind by a very advanced (but still very humanlike), very disillusioned defense-management computer -- sort of a HAL9000 without the homicidal (or genocidal) impulse. I never have a copy of this book because I always give it away to people -- it is that good. Like most of Lem's work, it is where literature and SF become indistinguishable. Lem ranks with Clarke, Asimov, Herbert and Dick in the SF pantheon.

Whereas with "A Perfect Vacuum" Lem wrote reviews of fictional books, here he writes introductions to different fictional books. You get some of his more straightforward philosophy with "Golem XIV," typical Lem cleverness with "Necrobes" and sheer, amazing, mind-blowing virtuosity with "Eruntics," probably his single most impressive piece of short fiction. This "story" alone is worth the price of admission. Ranking near the Tichy stories, with plenty of distance between "The Cyberiad" on one side and "Solaris" on the other, on the fun and ponderousnness scales. Among his best.

Though it wasn't the most entertaining book of Lem's, it definitely gives the best span of his talents of any that I've yet read. We get the simply goofy in the first couple bits, and the hard-core philosophical in the GOLEM lectures. This is an excellent survey of Lem's talent, but the individual parts are not his best. The humorous bits are certainly not "Cyberiad" or "Star Diaries" quality, but they are good nonetheless. The GOLEM stuff is a bit dry, but very intruiging. Overall quite good stuff, so it gets 4 stars. Mediocre Lem though.

This book was my introduction to Stanislaw Lem, which is ironic, because this is a book consisting only of introductions of other (imaginary) books. I found it completely by accident on the bargain rack, and I don't know why I bought it. But I did, and I'm certainly glad. When I started reading him, I said to myself, "What *is* this?" and found it all very bizarre. But Lem is one of those rare writers who makes you feel smarter just for having read him. For all that, this book is not only fascinating, but surprisingly funny at times. (How do you write an introduction to a book of introductions?) And for being so fanciful, Lem's discussions are surprisingly relevant.

-----I've been a fan of Stanislaw Lem ever since someone forced me to read something of his, and I found out what a unique and brilliant man he is. _Imaginary Magnitude_ is easily as original a work as anything he's written; If you're the type of person who skips Introductions(I am), you could easily become confused by this book unless you've read this warning; --the book /consists/ of introductions! ------------------------------------------------ -----_Imaginary Magnitude_ is a collection of excerpts of novels that have yet to be. Specifically, it's a collection of the /introductions/ of the to-be-written novels.. --and, the explanations of the subject matter of these books are both fascinating, philisophical, and ocassionally whimsical. From the introductions of the instantly-updated encyclopedia (if the words start to look blurry, close your eyes, pause a moment, and start over--it's being rewritten), to the methods for making intelligent microorganisms(if they can out-evolve our poisons, they can out-evolve our intelligence tests.), this book contains a lot of food for thought.. --this science-fiction isn't for preteens.. ..but, the effort spent in the reading is well rewarded.