A Condor's Quill

I just finished Stanislaw Lem’s novel, The Invincible (1964) and thought it might be interesting to compare it briefly to his better-known Solaris (1961). This is not a book review. Nor is it an academic essay. What follows are simply some (hopefully) coherent thoughts on the nature of – and the relationship between – the two works … On one level, the two books have much in common. Both begin with human beings encountering an alien intelligence that they are ultimately unable to fathom. In both texts, Lem is interested in the limitations of the human mind; particularly in the perils of anthropomorphism. Humans have a tendency to interpret the unknown in terms that are familiar. That tendency is, however, often an impediment to genuine understanding. In Solaris , the alien in question is actually the titular planet’s living ocean; an intelligence so radically different than anything human beings have ever encountered that a century of scientific study and exploration has produced litt...

  I mentioned a few posts ago how exciting it was to have one's work published in a particular venue for the first time. Well, it's even more exciting when your work is selected for the inaugural issue of an entirely new publication. My story, A World of Wonder , appears this month in the first-ever issue of Top Shelf Literary Magazine . I must say, the magazine itself looks great. As for my contribution ... it's a Don Quixote inspired tale that plays with the idea that the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance may have been right after all. His neighbors, maybe, are the ones deluded about the nature of the world around them. Check it out and enjoy the other stories as well. There are some very, very good ones. 

Jorge Luis Borges famously stated that it was far better to pretend that long books already existed than it was to actually write them. In his classic 1961 novel, Solaris , Sci-Fi author Stanislaw Lem seems to have taken Borges’ advice. In the book, the psychologist Kris Kelvin spends a great deal of time in the station library consulting texts and notes in an effort to understand – and perhaps even communicate with – the titular ocean planet. Tracking those materials is, to me, one of the most entertaining elements about the novel.  (The world-building in the novel is not accomplished by narrating physical exploration of Solaris but rather by citing -- fictional -- texts which detail the findings of such exploration. An interesting, even post-modern, idea.) I thought it might be amusing, therefore, to start a bibliography of materials consulted and/or referenced by Kelvin in his research. I’m sure that I haven’t managed to list all of them so … anyone reading this is welcome to ...