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Stanislaw Lem Microworlds (Paperback)
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eBay item number:315072036142
Item specifics
- Condition
- Book Title
- Microworlds
- Publication Name
- Microworlds
- Title
- Microworlds
- Subtitle
- Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- ISBN-10
- 0156594439
- EAN
- 9780156594431
- ISBN
- 9780156594431
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Genre
- Literary Criticism, Literary Collections
- Release Year
- 1986
- Release Date
- 31/12/1986
- Language
- English
- Country/Region of Manufacture
- GB
- Item Length
- 8in
- Publication Year
- 1986
- Item Height
- 0.8in
- Topic
- Science Fiction & Fantasy, Reference, Essays
- Item Width
- 5.3in
- Item Weight
- 9.9 Oz
- Number of Pages
- 312 Pages
About this product
Product Information
In this bold and controversial examination of the past, present, and future of science fiction, Lem informs the raging debate over the literary merit of the genre with ten arch, incisive, provocative essays. Edited and with an Introduction by Franz Rottensteiner. Translated by Rottensteiner and others. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Product Identifiers
Publisher
HarperCollins
ISBN-10
0156594439
ISBN-13
9780156594431
eBay Product ID (ePID)
74500
Product Key Features
Book Title
Microworlds
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Science Fiction & Fantasy, Reference, Essays
Publication Year
1986
Genre
Literary Criticism, Literary Collections
Number of Pages
312 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
8in
Item Height
0.8in
Item Width
5.3in
Item Weight
9.9 Oz
Additional Product Features
Reviews
Ten essays, 1971-83: ranging from autobiography through analyses of the underpinnings of sf to examinations of specific authors and works - delivered in thunderous yet calculated tones, and a welter of academic polysyllables. The autobiographical piece is most engaging and revealing - with Lem candidly discussing his upbringing, his Jewish heritage, the German and Russian occupations of Poland, his own sf. Elsewhere, he demonstrates his formidable intellect and his self-imposed conceptual limitations: he finds fiction without intellectual challenge boring (and has no patience with the notion of fiction as entertainment); in his view, sf works in which neither the objects nor the ideas have any basis in reality are merely "empty games." Later, however, Lem cogently discusses sf's various time-travel motifs - notwithstanding his previous denunciation of "empty games" where "impossible time-travel machines are used to point out impossible time-travel paradoxes." "The primary unsolved problem" of sf, he writes, is "the lack of a theoretical typology of its paradigmatic structures" - yet he fails to demonstrate why this lack is so damaging. On the incestuous nature of Western sf, he's devastating: "critiques are not produced independently, but are written by either the authors or the editors of anthologies, who evaluate each other's works." (He also blasts publishers and editors for camouflaging advertising as criticism.) For all these reasons, sf is trashy and apt to remain so. Moving on to specifics, Lem shows himself to be a penetrating but often arbitrary and petulant critic. Just about the only Western sf author he approves of (Ballard and Bradbury rate a maybe) is Philip K. Dick - who "tries to probe the neglected, latent, untouched, as-yet-unrealized potentialities of human existence." A. E. van Vogt's work is condemned as "stupid lies" without a shred of evidence or analysis; Borges, Lem determines, "has suffered from a lack of a free and rich imagination." He criticizes Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon for what Leto thinks Keyes' should have written; the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic - which Leto not only analyzes brilliantly, but finds enjoyable - comes in for similar treatment. Clearly, there's some ax-grinding going on. In sum: guaranteed to offend and provoke.
Copyright Date
1986
Dewey Decimal
809.3/876
Intended Audience
Trade
Dewey Edition
19
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