Peace on Earth

Ever since I was introduced to Lem I've been nagged by the question "Why haven't more Americans been exposed to this master of SciFi?" Lem's writing is frequently hilarious, unbelievably imaginative, and always thoroughly engrossing. The biggest exposure his work has enjoyed in the States was probably S. Soderberghs 2002 film adaptation of Solaris (which flopped) starring George Clooney, which itself was a remake of a 1972 film by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. In Lem's vision of the future the great nations of Earth have tired of endless and financially ruinous arms races and therefore collectively agree to suspend arms development on Earth. Unwilling to leave themselves entirely defenseless, they divide the moon into autonomous sections where computers and nanomachines continue weapons research without human interference or oversight. The concept is ingenious. No nation has any idea whether their weapons are entirely inferior to those of another, or if they even have any weapons at all. Initiating an attack would be a perilous gamble, for no nation knows its own strength, much less that of the enemy. An uneasy peace falls over the Earth, and war is relocated to the moon, just within reach, should the fragile peace be broken. Peace on Earth is told from the vantage point of Ijon Tichy, who features in other works by Lem. When contact with the moon suddenly ceases everyone assumes the worst. Tichy is sent to the moon on a recon mission to ascertain the status of the war machines. His mission ends in failure when he returns with a bisected brain and little memory of his journey. As Tichy and the governments of Earth struggle to piece together the mystery the possibility of war draws ever closer. In addition, Tichy must contend with his bisected brain. The hemisphere that might remember what happened on the moon seems determined not to cooperate with the other hemisphere. To make things worse, the renegade brain halve has control of one of Tichy's hands, which does whatever it pleases, including punching Tichy repeatedly in the face. You have to read to book to appreciate the extent of Lem's talent for bringing the technology of the future to life. The chapters describing the technology on the moon are absolutely mind boggling, the work of brilliant mind. So get one of his books, and join the club already.

Even at this late stage of his career, Stanislaw Lem was still delivering sharp satire that skewered not just the human condition, but also the archetypes of science fiction. Here, the droll antihero Ijon Tichy is the victim an enemy attack that has severed the connection between the left and right sides of his brain, resulting in the weirdest behavior you'll ever see from a sci-fi secret agent. Meanwhile, Tichy is assigned by Earth authorities to dig up some dirt on what's happening with proxy warfare on the moon. In the most biting aspect of Lem's satire, the nations of the Earth are self-righteously proclaiming "Peace on Earth" when they have merely exported warfare to the Moon, where it is conducted by self-replicating robots and nanotechnology. It turns out that these tech gadgets have evolved on their own in ways their human creators could never comprehend, and some portions of this book are mindbendingly surreal as Tichy tries to infiltrate bizarre mutant technological landscapes. How these technologies end up threatening their Earthbound masters, who had designed them for falsely peaceful purposes, allows Lem to ruminate brutally on the fallacy of war and the pitfalls of technology. The master of sci-fi satire strikes again. [~doomsdayer520~]

This is another novel in a series of stories about Ijon Tichy, space traveller. Ijon Tichy' stories are always fun to read, no exception here - some kind of combination of absurd and science fiction genres (of course, Stanislaw Lem has so much more than this). This is the later work by this master and I do believe it's not his strongest - but even so it is very good. At the same time, for somebody new to Stanislaw Lem I wouldn't recommend to start his journey here - there are better starting points. This book will be better appreciated by somebody already familiar with Lem books in general and with Ijon Tichy stories, in particular.

Ijon Tichy, our favorite clutzy hero, who has been subjected to "benignimizers," time machines, insane robots and who was responsible for creating the universe, stays a little closer to home in this mind boggling little masterpiece. Lem, although unknowingly, created a strangely prophetic story for Y2K worry worts. The idea of our quest to become more advanced, no matter how idiotic the advancements, leads to our undoing; or for the optimist, a new beginning. I'm intentially being cryptic, as not to ruin the story, but this book is definitly worth its weight in LEM.