**Thank you to NetGalley and MIT Press for the free copy of this collection in exchange for honest feedback**

Having never read anything from Stanislaw Lem, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The Truth and Other Stories was an amazing sampler of his work, and I can't wait to check out more of his previous writing. I definitely enjoyed the range across these stories - they were translated from writing dating back t0 the 1950's - crazy!

Sometimes with translations things can feel a bit clunky but I felt like every single story in this collection was well done and the writing was amazing. Being a sci-fi fan in general I found a lot of the themes and stories to be right up my alley.

If you like science fiction, definitely check this one out! I thought the stories being collected in chronological order over 40 years was a neat touch - the evolution of a science fiction writer in one collection!

These twelve stories from Stanislaw Lem were written between the 1950s and 1993, the date of the wonderful final story, “Enigma.” I have heard of Lem from time to time and decided that this collection would be a great way to learn a bit about his work. He obviously was a very forward thinking man, positing ideas during the mid 1950s that I imagine would have been ahead of their time. Science fiction with a strong emphasis on the science. I occasionally became a little lost in the scientific details before Lem opened each story up into the ramifications, and often weird events, that intrigued his characters. And each story does open up, so those who get confused/dazed or whatever when physics or computer connectivity issues, etc take over need not worry. The monsters, if there are any, are somewhere in the machine or the people or…or…or… The concept of aliens and other worlds is addressed in different ways. One thirty-seven seconds deals with the possible “other” capability of an IBM computer!

And you must read “Enigma” which I found a perfect way to end this collection.

The stories as a whole I rated 4 while Enigma rated 5 for its wit. Nine of these stories have not been published before.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I read this book a few months ago but with the reviewing break, I took, its review got pushed. I then wanted to talk about each short story briefly to give a better picture of the entire collection (as I usually do). This time, however, there was the slight issue that the stories were not hyperlinked in my review copy and I did not take notes. This late in the game, it would take me forever to produce the kind of review I was hoping to do. That is not to say that I have not tried. After a few attempts and a delay of yet another month, I realised I am not doing the book justice and decided to put forward the best compilation review I can.

I am not a big Sci-fi fan. I have read a few, even the older ones and the ones I like, I really enjoy. It thrills me to see that over decades and even a century, before the advent of science as we know it, people from all across the world were thinking along certain lines (with a few deviations) of what it would mean to have interplanetary movement or have scientific exploration be the centre of everything. How new improved inventions would control us (in myriad ways) is also a very well-explored territory. This book was fascinating for all the above reasons. I am rating it at a 3 because once again I really enjoyed one half and the other I struggled with. Not all the stories are of the same ilk but taken for the time they were written, and the translation being top-notch helps bring the excitement of it forward.

Each story tackles a different aspect of the Sci-fi genre. Many of them come under the broad strokes I mentioned in my brief summary above. The stories range from those written in 1950 to something closer. The foreword (as with books like these), provides a lot of information to put the entire future reading experience into perspective. I strongly encourage that it be read in its entirety before stepping into the actual book (in case one is not in the habit of doing so).

These stories stir a lot of talking/debating points and even if they took a while to get through, I am glad I gave them a shot. It widened my horizons in this genre. I would recommend it to fans of this genre who are yet to pick up anything written by the author.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

“The Truth and Other Stories” is a collection of 12 short stories by Polish sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem, a legend in the sci-fi community (in English he’s best known for “Solaris”). These are written from the 1950s though 1990s, covering a large swath of cold war and Eastern European modern history, which helps put some of these stories in context.

For the most part these are hard core science fiction stories, focusing on the science part of sci-fi. Mr. Lem throws out the notion of cuddly friendly aliens who are similar to us in any way whatsoever. Instead, he tends to focus on the otherness, the alien aspects of first contact. It is arrogant of us to think that aliens will be anything like us, that we could understand their motivations, their ways, their technology. For most of the stories, first contact does not go well, either for them or for us.

There’s an assortment here: two friends trapped on an alien spaceship, a creature being hunted through the woods, a man collecting parts for “a friend”, and many more. Some of them twist in unexpected directions, some of them will make you smile, all of them will make you think.

I really wanted to like these more than I did, but these are very dense and difficult stories to enjoy. I can understand why people love these, but I guess I’m not sci-fi enough to appreciate the intricacies.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from The MIT Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

An utterly fantastic introduction to the mostly untranslated short stories of Lem (with whom I'm only familiar due to Solaris film adaptations. The stories vary in quality from fantastic to very good and whet the appetite for more works by the author.

This collection (or if you ask P. K. Dick, “anthology” might be a better term) is being released at the right time for me, as I’m trying to read more classic sf. Of the twelve stories, only three have been previously released in English, so this volume is recommended for both long-time fans and for newbies alike.

It turns out, I haven’t read a whole lot of Stanislaw Lem. According to Wikipedia, 2021 is the year of Stanislaw Lem in Poland, and I’m glad to do my part catching up on as many SL novels I can find, albeit from the USA, and many thanks to NetGalley and MIT Press for access to this ARC in return for my opinion here.

This collection is organized chronologically by publication date, and these short stories show a wide variety of treatment—from horror to humor and always with a satisfying dollop of science—to a fairly unified set of themes around otherness, understanding others, artificial intelligence, and being, to mention a few.

I understand the Lem was quite the wordsmith playing with language, and after reading these and other stories, I feel it’s a shame that though he spoke English, he chose to never write in that language. It’s a shame to not have first-hand access to his work and a bitter shame his relations with American sf writers were like chalk and cheese. I don’t speak Polish, so much nuance is probably lost on me. Of course, translation may affect an inflection here, a word-choice there, but overall I got the impression of strong, well-written, clear and direct prose. The only inkling I had regarding translation was some British phraseology.

In “The Hunt” a figure runs through the woods away from the humans hunting him. As he runs, he thinks about life, about thinking (and not), about his overheated body, about escape—to the moon where humans can’t follow his metal footsteps, and all the while he suffers exhaustion, fear, and worst of all, the gullibility of unearned trust. And another story about perspective is “Rats in a Labyrinth.” Are we the makers of the maze … or are we the rats?

“Invasion from Alderbaran” was very funny. Two aliens on a reconnaissance trip to a takeover a planet suffer defeat due to language differences and their making completely wrong inferences. It’s a storyline and theme I’m learning was a favorite of Lem’s and one I’ve not seen pursued so thoroughly.

I read through all of these stories once without taking notes, and then before I knew it—the book was archived. This is the sort of book that if you like it now, you will like to read it over again later. I hope to read this book again in the future.

Brilliant, Frightening, Strange, Sometimes Funny

Stanislaw Lem, author of Solaris, The Investigation, and many other disturbing classics, has long been one of my favorite authors of science fiction, satire, and speculative fiction. This is my first experience of reading his short stories. Each gem in this collection is an unsettling, distinctive foray into the frontiers of imagination.

Despite the serious nature of some of his stories, there are others of a lighter nature. It's said that he had an active sense of humor and often inserted wordplay into his writing. That has likely added to the difficulty of translating his works into English, humor is the kind of thing that often escapes interpretation. Some of it came through clearly, but I'm pretty sure I didn't catch it all.

His writing style is by turns foreboding, compelling, and cerebral. This last aspect made reading the title story, The Truth, difficult for me. I like to believe I'm the biggest smarty-pants in the room, but sometimes lack of attention span gets in the way. It seems like it should be fascinating, it's about all of life's big questions, but I got stuck on it. It began to feel like endless contemplation of the collection of lint in life's bellybutton. I've disappointed myself, but every story isn't for everyone. I'll try it again another time.

Stanislaw Lem is one of the most highly regarded names in science fiction around the world. I'm very glad that translation of his works is still ongoing, and am grateful for the opportunity to read a free ARC, courtesy of the translator, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The MIT Press, and NetGalley. My highest recommendation comes freely and enthusiastically. I also recommend that you skip the films and read the book, Solaris.

The year 2021 is celebrated as the centenary of the birth of Stanisław Lem. It’s declared as the Year of Stanisław Lem (Lema Roku) in Poland, following the resolution passed by the Sejm, the lower house of the parliament of Poland on November 27, 2020. I think it’s a really nice decision for MIT Press to finally publish Lem’s stories coinciding with this moment. Lem is known to English-speaking audiences mainly through Solaris, which was first published in 1961 and stirred sensation both in Poland and outside Poland with its unorthodox view of interaction with extraterrestrial beings. Most science fiction from Lem’s era imagined aliens as intelligent creatures with features similar to human beings, something which could be said as too anthropocentric for lack of better terms. Solaris explores how aliens might or might not look like human beings, how communication might or might not work, and established Lem as a forerunner in the philosophical rethinking of technology.

The 12 stories included in this volume, 9 of which was previously inaccessible to the Anglophone world, also explore Lem’s thoughts in more recurring details. Some stories are merely okay to me, but there are also wonderfully-thought stories that changed the way I see technologies around me or amazed me with how precise Lem’s predictions of the future, despite the fact that most of the stories included are written in the 1950s and 1960s when Lem was most productive. The theme of the impossibility of communication with extraterrestrial beings in Solaris is also present in Rat in the Labyrinth (1956) and The Invasion (1959) in which the main characters tried to establish contact and communicate with the creatures which arrive on earth, something which is deemed impossible to understand by merely likening our modes of interactions with anthropomorphism.

Lem seemed to be fond of artificial intelligence as well and how it could affect our way of life. The Hammer (1959) pretty much summarizes how AI will behave and the logic behind it, something to be commended given the context it was written in 1959. In Lymphater’s Formula (1961), Lem discusses the evolutionary progress of humans, how human’s progress will eventually lead to a state of decay and ultimately to its own doom. Progress here is being likened to catalysts in chemical reactions. The use of catalysts indeed fastens the reaction, but the end of the chemical reaction itself will be something entirely different compared to the chemical substances that formed it. Ultimately human’s progress might end with something entirely different from our current state of beings.

Lem’s stories are intriguing and philosophical. While they don’t offer that much in terms of character developments or the usual conflicts in three-act structures, they bring many inquiries about technology that stay relevant up to date. As our reality has moved primarily online, it might be the right moment to question if we indeed prefer an omnipotent and omniscient state of being as opposed to the limitation set by our real-life situation in which we live inside the prison of flesh. Digital technology is pretty much present in our daily life, with close to an unlimited flow of information. If we think about it again, there is probably much more information available online than what we could digest in our lifetime. If you haven’t read any of Lem’s works, then I could guarantee that some of his stories will convince you to change the way you see technological inventions and how we should approach them.

I’d also like to praise the translation of Mrs Antonia Lloyd-Jones which always sounds good. Previously, I’ve read her translations of Olga Tokarczuk’s works and Profesorowa Szczupaczyńska crime fiction series which is written by Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczynski under the pseudonym Maryla Szymiczkowa. Seeing how precise Stanisław Lem’s words are in this volume, I’m convinced that Mrs Llyod-Jones would be able to handle any type of works. Whether you are a fan of science fiction or interested in works by Polish authors, this volume will be enjoyable to read and provide more insights related to the philosophical points of view on technologies.

I picked this up because, though I knew he was a prolific classic sci-fi author, I had never before read from Stanisław Lem, and often I like to start with short story collections for new to me authors if available so I can dip my toes into their writing.

This collection contains 12 never before published in English hard science fiction stories that Lem wrote between 1956 and 1996. As a whole, these were very much hard sci-fi and a lot of it was very dense, so there were several parts that required me to stop and reread. Also, I appreciated the inclusion of dates for each story because there were a couple times that I had to stop to remind myself that these were written decades ago and therefore the science or ideas of the future might be dated.

Like with most short story collections, there were some hits and some misses. I really enjoyed Darkness and Mildew and The Journal and on the whole enjoyed my time reading the collection but don't think many of the stories will stick with me. That being said, I think it was a great place to start with reading Lem's work and look forward to coming back to this collection after reading more of his work.

Thanks to NetGalley and The MIT Press for the digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Like in most short stories collections, this book has some stories that are better than others. In general it was a pretty consistent book, I didn't hate any of the stories. This was the first time I read anything by Stanislaw Lem and I was glad to do so, I definitely want to read more of his work.

My favorites were The Hunt, Rat in Labyrinth, The Friend, Darkness and Mildew, Lymphater's Formula, The Truth and One Hundred and Thirty Seven Seconds.

If you are a fan of sci fi, check this out.

I enjoyed this book, as an introduction to Stanislaw Lem. All the stories were good, but my favorite two were Lymphater's Formula and The Truth. These are hard science fiction stories, so you do need to pay attention, but they are very enjoyable. After reading, picked up Solaris to read, to start on some of his novels. Can't wait. #TheTruthandOtherStories #NetGalley

10/10 stars

My full review can be found on my blog (link attached).

Stanisław Lem is one of my absolutely favorite SF authors, as you probably already know from here and here. His brain really seems to have been wired differently, perceiving correlations and consequences and possible outcomes that not many others – or none – had seen. He’s also a very pessimistic writer, at least when it comes to humans and human cognitive and moral abilities – and reading Lem is a bit like gazing into a very unflattering mirror, one from Andersen’s tale The Snow Queen. In our times full of wilful denial and escapist pleasure, though, I contend that Lem’s passionate critique is something sorely needed.

This collection gathers stories from different periods of Lem’s life, from 1956 to 1996. Many of them have never been translated to English before. This anthology offers a great opportunity to acquaint oneself with the key themes and topics of Lem’s writing: artificial intelligence, first contact, human psychology and cognitive limitations, ethical problems inherent in human perception of the world. Even though some of these stories are nearing their seventieth year, apart from the odd outdated technological detail they seem as bold and fresh as written today by the greatest in the field. Lem was particularly preoccupied with the concept of Otherness – and this, maybe more than any other theme, makes his writing so enduring and important to his day.

As usual, I’ll present a short review of each story and offer a quick summary and rating of the collection at the conclusion of my post.

The Hunt 10/10

This is a very Lem story; and one so deeply rooted in his personal experiences that without the context might seem too pessimistic. Alas, for all its SF accoutrements it’s a WWII story about the meanings and definitions of “humanity.” The Hunt is one long exhalation, a violent gut punch, and its message is enhanced by a very visceral, visual and dynamic storytelling. It reminds me of Tales of Pirx the Pilot, both in terms of themes and execution, and I find it hard to believe this story is almost 70 years old – it feels so fresh and rabid and desperate. I knew what to expect, and yet I still hoped for a different ending.

A very strong opening to the collection.

Rat in the Labyrinth 7/10

A preparatory sketch to Solaris; interesting but not surprising, with Lem exploring various concepts that will later find their way into the novel. I appreciated the time loop twist, it was well done and lent the whole a suitably nightmarish feel, but the overarching metaphor was a bit too blunt.

Invasion from Aldebaran 7/10

Unfortunately, satire ages quickly; and here it wasn’t helped by the noticeably clunky translation. I must say that in general the translation of the stories in this collection is really good, so hats off to Antonia Lloyd-Jones – but here, she simply didn’t manage to catch the subtexts and contexts, and somehow lost the delicious irony of the tale. The premise and plot are funny, but their acerbic humor stems mainly from the utter believability of the situation – in fact, this story is a satire on Polish rural culture in the 50’s more than anything else. It avoided censorship because it was clad in an iridescent SF cloak, but really, it’s a viciously accurate reportage from Polish boondocks. It’s still spot on, actually.

The Friend 10/10

Wondrously creepy, twisty and dark, The Friend is one of the highlights of the collection. A feeling of constant oppression, infiltration, and fear permeates this tale that starts like a noir detective story, turns into a morality tale, and switches gears again to become a tour the force in empathy and imagination, with a finishing touch of body horror. Once again, this story seems as if it was written today, not in the 50’s. Perfect.

[...]

The Truth 10/10

Wonderfully imaginative, vividly descriptive – a fascinating account of unacceptable knowledge born from tragedy. It’s also absolutely, unapologetically crazy, in that rabbit hole way that hooks you in and drags you ever deeper. Mad scientists feature heavily in this collection; for a lot of reasons. Censorship, be it political or academical, is usually born out of fear and personal/institutional interest, and Lem was well acquainted with political censorship in 1950s and ‘60s in Poland. But he also points out to Kuhn’s concept of the structure of scientific revolutions, where new knowledge is usually rejected at first only to be accepted later on under the weight of new evidence and growing consensus.

One Hundred and Thirty Seven Seconds 10/10

All right, Lem did it again.Led me on a merry chase through physics, macro and quantum, the nature of time, the nature of consciousness, only to end with a gallows humor and a knowing wink to the audience. A lovely story, much in the style of The Saragossa Manuscript or Decameron, or other oral tales fit to be told by the campfire, it showcases the strengths of both Lem’s writing skill and his amazing capacity for applying knowledge.

An Enigma 8/10

A wonderfully ironic trifle, a perfect lightweight dessert at the end of a very filling eleven-course meal. It shows Lem’s other face, that of a wise jester, inviting us to laugh wholeheartedly with him at our own expense. Reminiscent of Cyberiad, this tiny story makes a perfect conclusion to the collection, imploring us to keep an open mind and be curious, always.


All in all, this was a real pleasure. Not all stories are equally wonderful, as usual with anthologies, but there’s an unusually high percentage of great stories in this collection. They are all thought-provoking, bold, unapologetic, and ruthless in their unrelenting seriousness with which Lem approached everything, and which KSR so aptly describes in his foreword. A word about the foreword: I think that it should rather be read as an afterword – Robinson not only shares his appreciation for Lem’s work in general and the influence it had on his own writing, but also discusses some of the stories from this collection.

I will be coming back to some of these stories. Their superb quality, their clinical poetry of structure and image, is haunting. While I obviously prefer the original Polish version of Lem’s works, I am surprised, really, to have enjoyed them so much in translation – which is a testament to both Lem’s enduring skill and breadth of vision, and to the faithful translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Very highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher MIT Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

The majority of the stories in this book are fantastic. I normally have a hard time reviewing books of short stories but not this time. I read the whole thing in a day because I just could not stop.

While this is definitely "classic science fiction" there are some very modern themes. AI, aliens, all the good stuff! Mr. Lem's imagination was ahead of his time.

I recommend The Truth and Other Stories to all science fiction readers. There's something for everyone!

Containing twelve hard science fiction stories, The Truth and Other Stories is like peering into the future through the lens of the past. Most of the stories were written in the late 1950s to mid-1960s with one from 1976 and another from 1993. Many are amazingly prescient with their guesses of what will exist in the future (with many already extant today).

Nine of these stories are newly translated from the original Polish of Stanislaw Lem, the author of Solaris. The translations are done well.

All of the tales focus on humans meeting other sentient beings for the first time. Despite the unifying theme, the stories vary tremendously. My personal favorites are The Friend and One Hundred and Thirty-Seven Seconds, which both contain unusual adversaries. I also enjoyed the humor within Invasion from Aldebaran.

If you want to turn back the clock several decades to a simpler time, The Truth and Other Stories is an excellent way to do it. It contains many thought-provoking tales. 4 stars!

Thanks to MIT Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

A very good collection of stories, the majority of which are incredibly well-written. This is my first time reading Stanislaw Lem and I am really impressed with his talent. This collection is a perfect introduction to his work. Highly recommended!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing an ARC for review. I do want to point out that it was difficult to read because the Kindle edition that was provided has many formatting problems.

Stanisław Lem is one of the great philosophers in the worlds of classic science fiction, and this new collection is a truly intriguing glimpse into the mental worlds of a rather unique thinker. His worldview--that of an irreverent iconoclast, a wildly creative nonconformist, and a fantastically satirical humorist--is handily showcased by the twelve stories included here.

As in much of Lem's work, themes of artificial and alien intelligence have a strong presence in many of these stories. The emotional tension and tragedy of stories such as "The Hunt" and "Rat in the Labyrinth" is underscored by their inhuman casualties, while the comedy of "Invasion from Aldebaran" is made acerbic by the fact that no one human in the story even really knows the truth of what did and did not happen. The questions Lem asks about what it means to be human, alive, or aware remain timelessly relevant, and this running thread ties the collection together in a relatively cohesive way I might not have expected from a set of stories spanning nearly four decades of the author's life.

While I cannot read Polish and am therefore unable to comment on the accuracy of Antonia Lloyd-Jones's translation, the prose in this book has the feeling of a translation that largely stands aside and lets the author's voice shine through--an impressive feat, given the specificity of Lem's voice and his propensity for neologisms.

Overall, this is an excellent collection, and one I look forward to recommending to the existing Lem fans in my life as well as to anyone looking for interesting and intellectually provocative science fiction.

I received a free e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If I wasn't already aware how good a writer Stanislaw Lem was before, this truly excellent collection would've easily persuaded me. Twelve stories, of which only three have been translated into English before, spanning a wide range of Lem's life (1956 to 1993), offered chronologically.

Only a couple of stories are merely okay, most are either excellent or truly excellent. My favourite story is probably The Friend, where a man keeps borrowing electrical parts and equipment for.. a friend. What truly impressed me was how this story quite suddenly changes perspective, in an almost post-modern way. To me it shows a storyteller in complete control.

Another of my favourites is about a hermit having a chance encounter with a self-replicating bit of matter. The story includes a short prologue, basically explaining what the self-replicating thing is, and I do feel the story didn't really need it. That said, the story is still quite claustrophobic and threatening, in the way nature can be threatening.

Lem tries his hand at humour in some stories, and succeeds mostly, to my surprise (which is up to me - I think I cultivated an image of Lem in my mind as a surly East-European writer, based on nothing).

Whether you've read Lem before or not, this is an excellent place to start. Highly recommended.

As compared to other books by Lem I've read before this one is significantly weaker. I'd read Solaris and Cyberiad before, I loved both, so I was excited to read this new collection of short stories. Where Cyberiad had a sort of a thread running through the entire collection and making the stories more impactful, this one is your basic short story collection. As always, Lem's imagination is immense, but the execution this time is lacking. There is a lot of "empty walk" as we would say in Croatia - paragraphs of nothing that might serve to paint a richer picture of what is going on, but in fact they are just a bit offputting.
Was a bit disappointed, but would still recommend it to people who want to read something different, SF that is not Anglo-centric.

Thank you to NetGalley and to MIT Press for this ARC.

A dense but fascinating read. Properly classic science fiction, it leans towards hard sci-fi, with long passages explaining real and imagined concepts. Some of the author's concepts are amazing though, something I don't often encounter in classic sci-fi (which has dated really quickly, I've found). I kept reading through the sometimes bewildering philosophical treatises because there were some prescient ideas (always the best part of sci-fi); and, also, a thread of humour runs through Lem's writing, which is really pleasant.

Recommend reading over a much longer period of time than I gave myself (a few days!), and only if you don't mind intellectual challenges (--if, for example, you read and enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson, who provides the Foreword for this). Also, this did not feel at all like a translation, so much credit to Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

So many of these stories had elements that will stick with me. The older stories are still relevant and the newer ones are still classics. I found the first story, The Hunt, particularly thought-provoking.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for this advance copy to read and review. All opinions are my own.