
The Invincible – 1964 novel - tosh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible
======
briga
Lem had a seemingly inexhaustible imagination, and this was one of his most
fascinating books. If you like his more serious sci-fi books it's definitely
worth a read. He always seems like he was operating on an entirely different
plane than the science fiction writers of the USA, and even today his books
feel fresh and insightful. Truly one of the greats.

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johngossman
Like many Lem books this one explores how difficult it may be to understand
truly alien life (albeit machine life)...Solaris and Fiasco being other
examples. Good read, though not peak Lem for me

~~~
mistrial9
+1 for Solaris, the anti-Star Trek

~~~
Shorel
Why anti Star Trek ?

I remember several episodes in TOS where the crew got easily overpowered by
the aliens, and they were cryptic and truly alien.

It was in TNG where the 'guy in a mask' alien became commonplace.

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wazoox
What's interesting in Lem, as well as the Strugatsky, is first how alien their
aliens are; then how powerless humans are. In contrast to the too common US
trope of "everything is possible, and if you want it you can make it", their
heroes are constantly sent back to their limitations and deep powerlessness.

~~~
cpeterso
Lem's "His Master's Voice" is a great example of this. The novel is all about
humans trying to decipher an alien transmission. There was a 2018 film
adaptation, but I haven't been able to find it yet.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_\(novel\))

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4795062](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4795062)

~~~
toddgruben
[https://mubi.com/films/his-master-s-voice-2017](https://mubi.com/films/his-
master-s-voice-2017)

~~~
cpeterso
Wow. I know films take liberties when translating novels to the screen, but
the story shown in that trailer contains only a few hints of Lem's original
novel (the scientist father's research and he isn't a father in the novel).

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aasasd
I've just yesterday discovered that there was this thing called ‘New Wave
science fiction’, which corresponded closely to Lem's position on SF―though
his is a mix of this New Wave's social topics and more technicky hard-SF.

The Wikipedia article is curiously full of original motivation and sentiments
of the ‘New Wave’:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_science_fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_science_fiction)

> _With negligible exceptions (Wells, Stapledon and who?), nearly every
> science-fiction writer up to a very few years ago made one very hidden—and
> indefensible—assumption. They assumed that science changed; that the world
> changed; that everything you could imagine changed, except one thing. They
> assumed that the human race did not change at all._

— Frederik Pohl, 1965

Wells and Stapledon happen to be exactly the two whom Lem cited as his primary
idols, and he lamented that later authors didn't live up to that impressive
start of the genre.

(Personally I keep getting irked by the term ‘science fiction’ for writings
that predominantly have nothing to do with science and everything to do with
space cowboys and dramatic robotics―such that people had to invent the
qualifier of ‘hard SF’. Russian, and possibly other Slavic languages, call it
simply ‘fantastica’, which IMO describes the genre much more accurately.)

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60654
This is a great novel just as a sci-fi book.

But if you read it through the lens of 1960s communist-era Poland, it adds a
layer of poignant political and philosophical commentary.

TLDR: under post-WW2 communism there was a huge emphasis on the superiority of
socialism, and a narrative of evolution and conflict that will inevitably
bring the advancement of society and the victory of communism - and that this
struggle was a necessary crucible to forge this victory (e.g. dialectical
materialism [0], etc).

But _The Invincible_ throws a different light on it. Yes, you can have
evolution, you can have wars, but all this doesn't have to lead to anything
better. It can just produce a swarm of automatons that do their thing
thoughtlessly, just following simple rules that have been programmed into
them, and reflexively harming anything that gets in their way.

And the only way for a human being to survive in those conditions is to shield
their thoughts, and pretend to just go with the flow, in order to avoid being
targeted by the swarm.

This is a striking metaphor of life under communism, and what it takes for a
human being to survive in it - the kind of a metaphor of which Lem was a
master.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Currents_of_Marxism#Summa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Currents_of_Marxism#Summary)

~~~
monomyth
>This is a striking metaphor of life under communism, and what it takes for a
human being to survive in it

Or any large capitalist corporation. Survival is a stretched term in both
cases. (We should not confuse the general idea of communism with periods of
brutal purges, that many/most "communist" countries went through). If you
stand against any large system, guess who is likely to win.

~~~
antisemiotic
"Memoirs found in a bathtub" worked the "life under a surreal bureaucracy"
angle much more directly (this time with an alternative history Pentagon as
the setting).

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bsmitty5000
Can anyone speak to the different translations? My local library doesn't have
this book and the cheapest Amazon version is the 1973 translation of the
German translation of the Polish original. But I wonder if it's worth getting
the direct Polish translation from 2006.

~~~
pwdisswordfish2
If you can get your hands on a translation by Michael Kandel, you should read
that. He translated directly from Polish, sometimes even spoke directly with
Lem regarding his translation, and I'm told he did a pretty good job with
Lem's books.

~~~
DonHopkins
Agreed! Michael Kandel is an astoundingly great translator. He translated
Cyberiad, including these poems by the electronic bard:

[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lem/WonderfulPoems.html](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lem/WonderfulPoems.html)

[http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lem/HorriblePoems.html](http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/lem/HorriblePoems.html)

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0-_-0
Stanisław Lem is my favourite sci-fi writer, and this is one of his best
books!

~~~
falsedan
I feel like this book was more in line with the _Pirx the Pilot_ stories &
remixed Asimov's robot puzzle stories too much to be his best. _Cyberiad_ is
the most fun, _The Chain of Chance_ & _The Investigation_ are better
mysteries, _Fiasco_ is a better veilled critique of Soviet groupthink
(collective decision making) & alien encounters.

 _A Perfect Vacuum_ is my pick for his best, as it's heavily inspired by Jorge
Luis Borges' works.

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lmilcin
This was one of first books I red and my first SF book followed by Peace on
Earth. I found both on my father's bookshelf even though I was expressly told
not to touch it (they didn't think at 7 I would use it for reading and also
there were much more adult positions on same shelf...) After that I devoured
everything from Lem I could find and it started my love of SF which continues
to this day.

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jacobush
_" In the face of defeat and imminent withdrawal of the Invincible, Rohan, the
spaceship's first navigator, undertakes a trip into the "enemy area" in search
of four crew members who went missing in action – an attempt which he and the
Invincible's commander Horpach see as certainly futile, but necessary for
moral reasons. Rohan wanders into canyons covered by metallic "shrubs" and
"insects" and finds some of the missing crewmen dead. He gathers some evidence
and returns to the ship unharmed thanks partially to a device which somewhat
cloaks the electrical activity of his brain, and partially to his calm and
unthreatening behavior."_

This is almost exactly like a Star Trek episode where they search for crew
members abducted by the borg. I see shades of the Matrix in there too.

No doubt a great influence!

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stiff
This is one of Lem's most approachable, fun to read books.

I also much recommend his books starring Ijon Tichy, the only books that make
me laugh out loud - "The Star Diaries" and "The Futurological Congress":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijon_Tichy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijon_Tichy)

~~~
rasz
German broadcaster ZDF made pretty fun loosely based TV series 'Ijon Tichy:
Space Pilot'/'Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot' out of it. You can find couple episodes
on YT with eng. subtitles.

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gambiting
It's incredible to see this book mentioned on HN's front page. This is
literally my favourite book of all time. The only issue is that there's a lack
of decent English translation so it's very hard to recommend it to my English-
speaking friends.

~~~
rejschaap
The direct translation by Johnston from 2006 is not good? The more negative
reviews on Amazon don't seem to mention the translation much.

~~~
gambiting
There is a newer translation than the ancient Polish->German->English
translation? I wasn't aware!

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ageofwant
Such great timeless stuff from the old Polish and Russian SF masters. I do
sometimes wonder what gets lost in translation though. I'm kinda envious of
native speakers who I suspect has a even higher appreciation for these bedrock
SF classics.

~~~
jagrsw
Indeed. Esp. Cyberiad and Robot's tales are full of wordplays, including the
famous Elektrybałt's (Electro-poet's?) poem. Comparing the Polish (my native
tongue) version end the English one (not a native speaker myself), I think
that the Polish version is a bit better, using better-fitting rhymes and
bigger amount of wordplay, but Michael Kandel (the translator) did an amazing
job with the translation anyway:

\-- _" Have it compose a poem — a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble,
tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the
face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning
with the letter S!!"

\--“And why not throw in a full exposition of the general theory of nonlinear
automata while you’re at it?” growled Trurl. “You can’t give it such idiotic —
”

But he didn’t finish. A melodious voice filled the hall with the following:

    
    
      “Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
      She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
      Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
      Silently scheming,
      Sightlessly seeking
      Some savage, spectacular suicide.”*

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raintrees
Thanks for this. I have read "Code of the Lifemaker" multiple times for
enjoyment, I will now get a copy of this one.

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pmlnr
I love this book. Swarm robotics evolution in 1964.

~~~
jagrsw
Also:

Singularity/AGI from early 80's (computer AIs improving themselves):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV)

Ebook readers from the 60's predicted stunningly -
[http://i.imgur.com/e1x76Nz.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/e1x76Nz.jpg)

Summa Technologiae from 60's (SETI, AIs, Virtual Realities, Machine Learning):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae)

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shmerl
One of my favorite sci-fi novels.

