History Creator / STANISLAWLEM

* LostInTranslation: Lem's love of puns and wordplay often make him a daunting task for a translator. For example, his SF whodunnit ''Katar'' is translated into English as ''The Chain of Chance'', but is often dubbed ''The Cold'', from its Polish title. Unfortunately the Polish word "katar" ''does not'' mean "cold", it just means "runny nose": the hero didn't have a cold, but a hay fever ("katar sienny") -- which was an important plot point, but was lost on the translator. ''The Cyberiad'' and ''Mortal Engines'' are regarded as particularly difficult to translate, since they are written in an idiosyncratic style that relies on the Polish rules of word coinage to create archaic-sounding neologisms.

* ''Literature/The Futurological Congress'' (Kongres futurologiczny, 1971)

* AltumVidetur: More frequently in his non-fictional works. Arguably, that was less a personal trait of Lem than it was common for the educated Poles as a whole. Due the immense influence the CatholicChurch and its liturgical language, Latin, had in Polish culture and history, literary Polish itself became heavily Latinized, and it shows.

* AuthorTract: Some of the Ijon Tichy stories arguably qualify; but it's usually subtle and well-written.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Ijon Tichy experiences this in ''Literature/TheFuturologicalCongress'' after he and his colleagues are dosed with powerful hallucinogenic drugs by a terrorist group.

* CreatorBacklash: Against his first published novel ''The Astronauts'' and his even earlier short story "Man from Mars".

* ExecutiveMeddling: And they were [[BigBrotherIsWatching party executives]]! He was forced into [[{{Sequelitis}} creating two sequels of]] ''Hospital of the Transfiguration'', because [[HappyEnding happy endings]] were mandatory at the time. A few paragraphs praising communism in ''The Astronauts'' also qualify.

* OldShame: He said that ''The Astronauts'' (his first sci-fi novel) lacks any value.
** To the point [[OrwellianEditor he sometimes prohibited re-publishing books he didn't like]].

* GreyGoo: The nanoparticles in ''The Invincible''.

->''"These days no one ever reads anything. If they read, they don't understand. If they read and understand - they forget immediately."''
-->-- attributed to Lem in an interview

->''"These days no one ever reads anything. [[ViewersAreMorons If they read, they don't understand. If they read and understand - they forget immediately.]]"''

* ''HisMastersVoice'' (Głos Pana, 1968, trans. 1983)

* ''The Futurological Congress'' (Kongres futurologiczny, 1971)

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Ijon Tichy experiences this in ''TheFuturologicalCongress'' after he and his colleagues are dosed with powerful hallucinogenic drugs by a terrorist group.

Stanisław Lem (12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish novelist, most credited for his ScienceFiction writings. His works range from philosophical books and analyses to "tall tales", to light and [[BlackHumor darkly comic]] satire; and he enjoyed subverting many common genre tropes. He is one of the most recognized and respected Polish writers, as well as one of the most prolific science-fiction writers; and was named a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.

[[PungeonMaster He loved word-plays]], making up new words and divining the future of civilisation from them; it was one of the many ways in which he subjected plot to paradoxical associations rather than to the straight and narrowly reasonable prognoses. He was particularly fond of satirizing religion, technology, and human foibles; typically with a sharp and incisive wit. Later in his career, he grew increasingly critical of technology, particularly the Internet, which he considered little more than a gathering of idiots. Many of his works, both novels and short stories, feature the recurring character Ijon Tichy; an intelligent, accident-prone, adventurer who varies between being the OnlySaneMan, and an UnreliableNarrator, occasionally veering into ParodySue.

Lem had [[SturgeonsLaw a low opinion of most of science fiction]], and thought that the existence of the SciFiGhetto was justified, not because the genre is inherently worthless, but because the authors haven't used the possibilities in it. The only contemporary author he considered worthwhile was Creator/PhilipKDick; Dick did not return his respect, and considered Lem's attacks on American science fiction to be unjustified and insulting. At the same time, he also became a target of Dick's increasing paranoia.[[note]]It stemmed from a series of publishings of foreign science-fiction in communist Poland, signatured by Lem - Dick received payment, but in Polish złotys, which he couldn't exchange to dollars. He was already super paranoid, so it added fuel to the fire.[[/note]] Despite Lem's views, he was defended by [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula LeGuin]] in his conflict with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Lem had [[SturgeonsLaw a low opinion of most of science fiction]], and thought that the existence of the SciFiGhetto was justified, not because the genre is inherently worthless, but because the authors haven't used the possibilities in it. The only contemporary author he considered worthwhile was Creator/PhilipKDick; Dick did not return his respect, but considered Lem's attacks on American science fiction to be unjustified and insulting. At the same time, he also became a target of Dick's increasing paranoia.[[note]]It stemmed from a series of publishings of foreign science-fiction in communist Poland, signatured by Lem - Dick received payment, but in Polish złotys, which he couldn't exchange to dollars. He was already super paranoid, so it added fuel to the fire.[[/note]] Despite Lem's views, he was defended by [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula LeGuin]] in his conflict with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

* AltumVidetur: more frequently in his non-fictional works. Arguably, that was less a personal trait of Lem than it was common for the educated Poles as a whole. Due the immense influence the CatholicChurch and its liturgical language, Latin, had in Polish culture and history, literary Polish itself became heavily latinized, and it shows.

* CrazyCulturalComparison: ''Wizja Lokalna'' (''Observation on the Spot'') is a veritable fest of complex and multilevel cultural jokes and comparisons. Craziest of which is the discussion of the mating rituals during his visit to some university -- both sides are thorougly baffled by the experience: locals by the closed and intimate nature of Earthlings reproduction (for them it's [[BizarreAlienBiology the most public thing possible]]), and Tichy by the outlandish theories they invent to give this behavior a logical explanation.

Lem had [[SturgeonsLaw a low opinion of most of science fiction]], and thought that the existence of the SciFiGhetto was justified, not because the genre is inherently worthless, but because the authors haven't used the possibilities in it. The only contemporary author he considered worthwhile was Creator/PhilipKDick; Dick did not return his respect, but considered Lem's attacks on American science fiction to be unjustified and insulting. At the same time, he also became a target of Dick's increasing paranoia.[[hottip:*:It stemmed from a series of publishings of foreign science-fiction in communist Poland, signatured by Lem - Dick received payment, but in Polish złotys, which he couldn't exchange to dollars. He was already super paranoid, so it added fuel to the fire.]] Despite Lem's views, he was defended by [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula LeGuin]] in his conflict with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

* HumansAreCthulhu: ''Robot Tales'' treats humans like this.

* LostInTranslation: Lem's love of puns and wordplay often make him a daunting task for a translator. For example his SF whodunnit ''Katar'' is translated into English as ''The Chain of Chance'', but is often dubbed ''The Cold'', from its Polish title. Unfortunately the Polish word "katar" ''does not'' mean "cold", it just means "runny nose": the hero didn't have a cold, but a hay fever ("katar sienny") -- which was an important plot point, but was lost on the translator.

-->-- PhilipKDick's [[http://www.lem.pl/english/faq#P.K.Dick letter to FBI]]

* HumansAreBastards: A recurring theme in his work.
** "It's comforting to know, when you think about it, that only man can be a bastard."

* ''ReturnFromTheStars'' (Powrót z gwiazd, 1961; trans. 1980)

* AWorldwidePunomenon: Quite a lot in his less serious works. Especially ''Literature/TheStarDiaries''.

* SceneryPorn: The description of the spaceport given in ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot''.

* UsedFuture: in ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot''.

Lem had [[SturgeonsLaw a low opinion of most of science fiction]], and thought that the existence of the SciFiGhetto was justified, not because the genre is inherently worthless, but because the authors haven't used the possibilities in it. The only contemporary author he considered worthwhile was PhilipKDick; Dick did not return his respect, but considered Lem's attacks on American science fiction to be unjustified and insulting. At the same time, he also became a target of Dick's increasing paranoia.[[hottip:*:It stemmed from a series of publishings of foreign science-fiction in communist Poland, signatured by Lem - Dick received payment, but in Polish złotys, which he couldn't exchange to dollars. He was already super paranoid, so it added fuel to the fire.]] Despite Lem's views, he was defended by [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula LeGuin]] in his conflict with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

* ColdSleepColdFuture: In ''Return from the Stars'', astronauts who have completed a century-long interstellar exploration mission return to an Earth where violence and risk-taking is so foreign to the population that the returning astronauts are regarded as dangerous beasts.

* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: The HPLD civilization (meaning ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Highest Possible Level of Development]]'') encountered by Klapaucius in ''Literature/TheCyberiad''.

* ContinuityNod: In the first chapter of ''Fiasco'', the protagonist goes on a mission to rescue the titular character of ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot''.

* GenreShift : In ''Fiasco'' the sci-fi story suddenly switches to some extracts of an adventure novel the main character is reading in the story.

* MinovskyPhysics:
** The properties of black holes in ''Fiasco''. Human ability to grasp them [[ChekhovsSkill turns out to be a major plot device.]]

* ShootTheShaggyDog: ''Fiasco''. With a title like that, it's pretty much unavoidable.
** The novel can be described as an in-depth exploration of the concept of "epic fail" -- so many completely avoidable and generally meaningless failures happen there.

* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: Humans do that with the planet Quinta in ''Fiasco''.

* HumansAreUgly: In ''Literature/TheCyberiad'', robots see humans (whom they call "palefaces") as the most disgusting creatures in the universe.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: In ''Literature/TheCyberiad'', intentionally.

* BatmanGambit: In ''The Star Diaries'' it's paired with a literal [[ParanoiaGambit Paranoia Gambit]]. On an alien planet, [[AIIsACrapshoot an uber-computer creatively interprets its directives and turns most of the population into black disks]]. The survivors forbid him to kill any more people, thus he proposes that he will only do so with people who he is told to carry off. Guess what, in the next morning there a lot more disks...

* CasualInterstellarTravel: Exaggerated: Ijon Tichy once turned his rocket around and headed back several parsec because he had left his pocket knife in a spaceport cafeteria.[[hottip:*:Turns out it was in his pocket all along.]]

* FunWithAcronyms: Especially the twentieth and the twenty-first voyage of ''Literature/TheStarDiaries''.

* HumanAliens: Averted in most of his serious works. Played with a few times in ''The Star Diaries'':
** In the twenty-first voyage, Lem creates an alien species having the exact appearance of humans for speculating on the future of bioengineering; throughout the story, [[LampshadeHanging he even calls them humans "for convenience"]].
** At the end of the twenty-fifth voyage [[spoiler: a group of StarfishAliens living on an extremely hot planet discuss a possibility of an intelligent species living in a lower temperature; the oldest one explains that the existence of such creatures is impossible, and any other sapient species must be exactly like them.]]

* MoodWhiplash: The stories in ''The Star Diaries''. Purely satirical stories are followed by completely serious ones, about hard themes like the creation of a truly independent mechanical intelligence, or the horror of having an immortal soul without a body. Justified in that it's a collection of short stories featuring the same main character, written over a period of about twenty years.
** Also in ''Peace on Earth''. Actually plot-advancing fragments are interchanged with Ijon Tichy describing his [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain split-brain condition]].

* TheMunchausen: ''The Star Diaries'' play with this trope, when it is repeatedly alluded to that certain "critics" of the book's narrator, Ijon Tichy, the great pioneer of space exploration, who knows the galaxy like the back of his hand, think that he is exactly that. And though Tichy repeatedly and indignantly rejects such insolent reproaches, it is sometimes lampshaded that he has not a bit of evidence for all his outrageously wacky adventures. (The later Ijon Tichy books however drop this aspect and everybody seems to take the factuality of his travelogues for granted.)

* ReligiousRobot: ''The Star Diaries'' has robot monks. They are aware that if they connected to a robot with all the facts on religion they would become atheists, so they choose not to connect to other robots out of religious principle.

* SexIsEvil: One of Ijon Tichy's ancestors created a substance that made sex painful, so humanity wouldn't be controlled by carnal desires anymore. When he put it into the water supply of his city, he was lynched.

* SpacePirates: Ijon Tichy mentions that [[BlackSheep his grandfather made a committed attempt]], but it didn't pay off.

* TimeTravel: Ijon Tichy gets handed the TimeyWimeyBall several times, the most amusing instance probably being the episode when Tichy, [[TemporalParadox caught in a time loop]], is [[AmusingInjuries banged on the head with a saucepan]] wielded by a [[MyFutureSelfAndMe future version of himself]] ([[ForegoneConclusion then goes on to bang a saucepan on the head of a past version of himself]]). For ''a week''.
--> [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "You dog!" I cried. "Tricking your own self - that's really low!"]]
** A much darker example has a hapless inventor test his prototype time machine in Tichy's living room by a casual trip 50 years into the future - realizing too late that the trip actually ''will'' take him 50 years. [[BuriedAlive And the machine has no emergency brake.]]

* ''The Astronauts'' (Astronauci, 1951)

Lem had [[SturgeonsLaw a low opinion of most of science fiction]], and thought that the existence of the SciFiGhetto was justified, not because the genre is inherently worthless, but because the authors haven't used the possibilities in it. The only contemporary author he considered worthwhile was PhilipKDick; Dick did not return his respect, but considered Lem's attacks on American science fiction to be unjustified and insulting. At the same time, he also became a target of Dick's increasing paranoia. Despite Lem's views, he was defended by [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula LeGuin]] in his conflict with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.