[Erfael]

It's December, so time to open discussion on The Cyberiad. What was your favorite story? Did you like the collection overall? Were there any ideas you thought were the greatest thing since sliced bread, the corniest since candy corn? Tell all.

[Archren]

I finished reading this last night. I don't know how it will strike others, but I quite liked it. It had a sense of whimsy that really charmed me. I can't quite put my finger on why, but sometimes it reminded me of the middle OZ books by L. Frank Baum. It could simply be that my edition had illustrations in a similar style to my editions of the OZ books, but I think it also had to do with that whimsy.

I liked the fact that the characters are all robots, but that that wasn't belabored. I liked how it showed all sorts of decisions going quite wrong. The last few stories were a little heavy-handed in their morals (can't force everyone to be happy, etc.), but were still inventive.

I liked the strongly secular viewpoints, but that is probably simply because it synchs up with my own personal philosophy so well.

The early stories were funnier, and must have given the translator absolute migraines trying to capture the rhythm and jokes with all the scientific language. He does know his stuff: sometimes he uses science and math words just because of the sound, but often he uses them in a correct but twisted application.

Mostly I really appreciated the Golden Age feel of "Presenting the Amazing Adventures of These Engineers and the Scrapes They Get Into and Out Of!" And I appreciated how they also felt a bit like fairy tales and Arabian Nights-style stories. (Espcially the one with the story-telling machines. Also, it has some Meta-fictional elements way before that came into vogue, it seems.)

[Zeratul]

I absolutely love this book. It has everything I am looking for in Sci-Fi: it's chock-full of original and interesting ideas, some of them profound, some of them mostly entertaining. It shows the amazing creative talent of Lem in his approach to the language - he must've made up like 500 new words for this book alone, and even when translated most of them sound impressive and just right. And of course, some of the short stories are just hillarious, especially the one about the quantum dragons. It's also a great satire of opressive political regimes at times ( I wonder how Lem managed to publish a few of the stories given that they were written in communist Poland..).

The stories aren't just funny though. There's an awful lot to think about while reading them, especially the later ones (which I am not sure of the names, because i would guess they are much different in the English translation), the ones about how to make everyone happy using miraculous technology and how to make the most happy being in the Universe.

My favourite story is probably "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", it's so full of amazing ideas, it has a very clever and imaginative use of narrative folding and it's just excellently written.

All in all, I just love this book.

[Paladin]

I was a little disappointed to say the least. One thing I liked about these stories is that they use a lot of vivid imagination to them, almost to a child-like quality. There is also a sort of a no-limits feeling to them, where there are no physical limitations. The writing quality and style is pretty straightforward. The stories are almost always, short in length and straight and to the point. The characters of Trurl and Klaupacius are developed throughout the stories. Lem gives the characters depth from their constant feuding. Although at times though, some of these stories tend to be pointless and can be a little boring. I did find some of the book tedious. Overall the reading was good and it offered a fresh and unique look into different situations. I have never read any of his other work so I can not base this on anything else. I have heard that some of his other works are good such as Solaris or Fiasco. I am willing to give it a chance and read some of his other work though.

[Erfael]

Well, we're a little slow this month so far. I was going to wait until a few more people chimed in before I did, but I've grown impatient.

I haven't finished this book. What Archren describes as whimsical I only saw as goofy. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the book. I think if I had read it in the summer when I have a lot of free time I would probably like it. And there wasn't anything that I didn't like about it, but I just kept getting bored in the stories. I'd think they were interesting ideas, but then the sustained goofiness would get to me a little bit and I would just be bored by the end. There were spots that had me laughing and spots that I thought had very interesting ideas, but there wasn't one story (I've only read the first third so far) that kept my interest all the way through.

I honestly wasn't sure how people would take this one. So even if you're not sure you liked it, be sure to chime in. I'm really curious to hear from everybody (especially those who were keen on it from the beginning -- Ropie, clong).

[Ropie]

I am still waiting for my copy to arrive from the US (the one with the right cover!) - sorry. I can predict that I will rave about it though - I loved Eden and The Investigation.

I agree with Zeratul's comments about Lem's use of language. He is a real inventor.

[clong]

Yeah, I know I owe everyone some comments on this one. I too am awaiting my copy from amazon.

[ArthurFrayn]

I liked it, didn't love it,I respect it, he's a big talent, but I was doing what Erf did (is it OK to call you Erf?:confused: ), hang back and let someone else lead in. Now of course I'm too ******* busy with work to write something considered.


"I shall return..." *echoes into the distance*

[odo]

I'm beginning to think I have a problem with Lem. In the last months I've read "The futurological congress", "Return from the stars" and "The cyberiad" and I didn't like any of them. In fact, I only forced myself to finishing them because they were all for reading clubs... I should read "Fiasco" also for another reading club, but I don't dare...

I agree with Erfael about the goofiness of the stories. Most situations seemed ridiculous to me. And I couldn't stand those endless lists of invented words. I just couldn't see the point of it.

There were some interesting ideas scattered all around the book, and I was certainly surprised by some very accurate uses of deep mathematical concepts. But the general tone was of absurdness and it ruined the reading experience for me.

It will take a while till I give Lem another try :(

[Archren]

But most of the words weren't invented! Most of them were scientific/mathematical terms being used in <whimsical/silly/stupid> ways, but almost always in the correct context.

For instance, he was talking about a statistical process and started listing lots of statistics-specific words, such as "Markov chained". Now, you'd never use that as a verb, but Markov chains are a standard statistical tool (that I'm learning about this semester). I found it clever. :o

I just liked that Golden Age feel where engineers were the center of everything. It's fun to be loved. :D