Solaris

Solaris is a science fiction novel published in 1961 [later turned into movies in 1972 and 2002] by eastern [Polish] European science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. It's a very thoughtful and philosophical novel in the SF genre. I would go so far as to say that this is one of the best science fiction novels I've read this year [so far]. 

The story starts with a psychologist named Kelvin. He goes up to the Solaris space station. Solaris is this planet with two suns, a red sun, and a blue sun. Scientists have been studying the place for years, coming up with all kinds of theories, that are all mostly speculation. 

It turns out that the entire planet's ocean is alive and may or may not be sentient. There's a sense of mysticism when Kelvin starts to see and experience strange phenomena on the space station. This possibly sentient ocean affects the human psyche to the extreme. For example, when he first gets there he meets his co-worker, Snow, and the guy looks like he's scared shitless most of the time, mad as a hatter. Kelvin goes into his room and becomes fearful when he sees a big black woman roaming around. Where did she come from? Who knows.

It turns out that although these scientists might be studying the sentient ocean, it is actually the sentient ocean that is studying them. The other character's experiences are mostly just alluded to. However, our main character Kelvin's experience is told first hand. 

Somehow the ocean creates a human simulacrum of Kelvin's long-dead wife, who committed suicide. He blames himself for the suicide and he can't handle the situation at all. He tries his best but by the end, the psychological trauma has changed him for the worst, forever. But perhaps it is only bad if seen in that one-dimensional view.  Racked by psychological trauma, Kelvin tries to do his job by observation and working with Snow. 

One of the main themes I picked up from Solaris is that no matter what you did in the past and what you're doing now, anything that happened in between can and may come back to haunt you in some form or another. It's basically a classic gothic horror theme in a science fiction skin. However, to just call it as such would be a disservice to Stanislaw Lem. After all, Lem amazes here. What amazes me is how he uses the idea of 'first contact', the alien being a benign ocean, and somehow turning into a thoughtful understanding of the human experience. It's very difficult to explain but Lem pulls that off in this novel.

There are other more philosophical themes as well. In the end, we have a dialogue about an imperfect god. Could this ocean be an imperfect God? After all, the God of the Old Testament was an imperfect God. He must've been because he got jealous of golden calves and demanded sacrifices when he wanted it. The dialogue mentions this. 

The great thing about this novel is that you're expecting some kind of resolution to all this madness and philosophical SF ideas. But in the end all we get is a guy who is sort of in shell shock, not unlike a soldier who experiences war for the first time. Yes, he could go back home and live a happy, normal life, but can he really? Perhaps he'll always be longing for his long-dead wife, even if his dead wife on Solaris was just an alien ghost. It will haunt him forever.  Maybe not.

My favorite thing about this novel is that it sort of reads like a madhouse. Not much really happens. Kelvin only leaves the space station to check out the ocean at the very end. It's a pure adrenaline rush in terms of the fear within the characters. I was sitting at the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next, only to find that not much happened throughout the entire thing. However, Lem makes it a rewarding experience because the way he explains everything is quite wonderful. He's a much more thoughtful science fiction writer, capable of interesting philosophical ideas. This is literary science fiction. Something like Ursula K LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness is literary science fiction as well. I could compare it to something like that. 

The English translation I read was a very smooth read. The book reads fast, moving along with action and dialogue. It isn't until perhaps the last 50 pages that the book is littered with tons of fancy science fiction exposition. The exposition is highly enjoyable but I found it to be my least favorite part of the book. However, I do think it was necessary to fully explain Solaris itself. Plus every great science fiction novel has to have some great exposition [imho]. The way Lem uses the end of the book for exposition is interesting. I would compare it to when a book is over but the author wants to add more information to help resolve things, an afterword if you will. This is commonplace in classic science fiction so I'm used to seeing it. 

This was the best Lem novel I've ever read and I plan on reading more of his work. Definitely read this book if you're a serious science fiction fan. Also make sure to check out the 1972 Tarkovsky movie Solaris, as its one of the best science fiction movies I've ever seen. 

Check out my review for Stanislaw Lem's novel Eden below:
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/02/eden.html

Eden

Eden is an early science fiction novel written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, in 1959. However, it wasn't translated into English until 1989-way, way later.

The characters here don't have names, rather the crew are called the Doctor, the Chemist, the Captain, etc. The story starts with a crew landing on an alien planet called Eden. The ship gets damaged, but its repairable. So the crew works on fixing the ship as well as exploring the planet. 

What they see sort of reads like a horror story. They find spider-like plants, mass graves of dead aliens with amorphous shapes and faces all over the place, a bio-factory of aliens, flying, spinning discs, etc. All of which makes the whole experience look like an alien concentration camp. The crew keeps trying to make sense out of everything but at the end of all the debate they realize that nothing makes sense no matter how much they keep learning. 

Most of the book is the crew repairing the ship, exploring, and explanations of what they see, in their jeep with their giant robot. At one point they get attacked by aliens [whom they call doublers], and they retaliate using an atomic weapon! 

Nothing is really known the longer the novel goes on until the last chapters. In fact, there's no character development nor is there any clear plot or story line. At the end the crew finds an alien [a doubler] that's wearing clothes [a rag-like thing]. They find out through the doubler's star maps that he is a man of learning and science. They figure out a way to get the ship's computer to translate the doubler's gurgling cough language. 

From here we learn that the alien civilization here is highly stratified. There used to be a tyrannical government in place in the beginning. Then there were leaders who led anonymously. There's jails set in place where the aliens serve voluntarily, sent there for punishments from the higher ups of the planet, perhaps for doing wrong, perhaps not, we don't know as the computer is iffy with the doubler's translation. The higher ups also control who gets to distribute information, an Orwellian influence. Basically a concentration camp without any guards, designed so that prisoners stay inside on their own free will. I still don't quite get it, but I'm not sure if I'm suppose to nor do I think its that important. Its an interesting concept nonetheless. 

We also learn that although the doublers have no sense of nuclear power, they did once conduct a mass experiment to enhance the species. The experiment failed, which resulted in deformed doublers, who are ostracized from the main society. The doubler tells them that because information gets you killed here, that when he found out that a ship with aliens crash landed, he took this as the chance of a life time, which the humans empathized with.

The crew realizes that they've been exploring something of a prison planet, that sort of thing. The two doublers that the crew found during their stay decided to stay behind the ship's exhaust and die, rather than go back to their oppressive society.  

Before the crew leaves the planet the Captain and the Doctor have a debate. Should they intervene? This is the book's philosophical angle. In the end the Captain decides they shouldn't interfere with these aliens and their society, which makes sense especially because this book was written under Soviet-style regime. However, it also makes the case against having an influence upon another society, another civilization. Sometimes its best to leave things be, which they decide to do. 

Although the prose here isn't anything grand, this book kept my attention. I finished the novel in three days because I was so curious about what was happening on the planet. The book was sort of terrifying in a way, what with the whole prison concentration camp vibe. However, I think that horror element keeps the story exciting, as the prose is sort of dry. 

When the crew is flying off they look back at Eden and see that its a beautiful violet sphere. They realize that it was because of its beauty that they accidentally flew too close and entered its atmosphere. Because of this beauty, that's the reason its called Eden.

I would definitely read more Stanislaw Lem, he's one of the only modern European science fiction writers I've read. I've seen the movie version of his book Solaris, a terrific 1970s sci-fi flick. I would be interested in reading that.