Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem has apparently died at age 84.

You most likely know Lem from Solaris (hate the new cover!)… he has a long history of writing literary, intellectual science fiction and strange conflict with the US science fiction community (and particularly Philip K. Dick).

To be honest, I haven’t read as much Lem as I’d like. Maybe this will kick me into reading more of his work. My favorite, by far, of his works that I have read is The Cyberiad, a sequence of short stories about Trurl and Klaupacious, a pair of “constructors” who compete with one another trying to solve problems around the universe… very, very funny, with a sharp edge. Given the amount of wordplay in the stories, I was amazed it was translated from Polish.

Lem’s most well-known work, Solaris, spawned both a Russian film by esteemed Russian directory Andrei Tarkovsky (though in all honesty the two times I’ve tried to watch the Russian Solaris, I’ve fallen asleep - I should not watch this film tired!) and the Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney film from 2002; a story about a lost man trying to communicate with an intelligent ocean on an alien world.

(For what it’s worth, Tarkovsky’s other films are also worth checking out - I really enjoyed Stalker)

Lem was very critical of the US science fiction community, accusing it of publishing poorly written, basically dumb stories… whether this was the result of him having access to bad translations or whether it was a valid complaint (and after all, it is difficult to defend much science fiction from this kind of complaint) will probably never be known. The Science Fiction an Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) kicked Lem out in 1976 after giving him an honorary membership in 1973. From what I’ve read this resulted in internal turmoil, with writers like Ursula K. LeGuin protesting the decision. Eventually the SFWA offered Lem a normal membership, which he refused.

Despite his criticisms, Lem singled out Philip K. Dick as a particularly good science fiction writer. Dick, on the other hand, decided that Lem was part of a communist conspiracy against him and wrote letters to the FBI about it. Some of them he actually sent to the FBI - some of them he apparently hid in a garbage can behind his house, deciding the appropriate entities would find them there (go Philip!).

If you’ve never read Lem, I highly recommend The Cyberiad. I also enjoyed the Clooney Solaris as an atmospheric, evocative piece of film-making.

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