Scientists studying the phenomenon of neutrino radiation suddenly realize that the cosmic emissions are conveying a message for humanity, and the race is on to decode the alien transmission. A novel from the author of "The Star Diaries", "The Cyberiad" and "Return From the Stars".
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
If you're familiar with Lem, you know he can dash off deep insights as asides. Now imagine his intellect focused on what it means to be human trying to understand the universe. A masterpiece.
This is not his best science fiction (Fiasco gets that honor) nor his most revealing psychological work (ironically that's Cyberiad). It doesn't explore technology to the greatest extent (try the Golem lectures). However, it may stand as simply the most important work of fiction of the information age.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book needs desperately to be reprinted. Though not as overtly humorous as many of Lem's other books, or as other scientific satires (Arrowsmith, The Black Cloud), it is nonetheless supreme in its genre. Its humor resides in the blindness of its characters; only one person in the book recognizes this, and his commentary probes concepts that are as disturbing as those revealed by Galileo and Darwin. Namely, that human intellect has fundamental limitations, and is more than likely to be utterly unable to comprehend the product of truly alien intelligence. Lem explores these themes in other books as well, but in not nearly as robust a manner.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an insightful and provoking book, whose theme goes hand in hand with many of the greatest Russian SF works. Unlike his Western contempories, who mostly speculated about the unending future acheivements of man, Lem wrote about our fundemental limits, particularly in understanding the universe, and other people. In some ways, it bears a resemblence to the "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky (sp?) brothers.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deep and inspiring, with a dose of cold war angst.
This is a book I read first when I was very young, and which has somehow influenced and haunted me all of my life. Read more
Published on 13 April 2011 by Christian Wendt
5.0 out of 5 stars
Impossibility
His Masters Voice is the perfect antidote to all those mainstream Hollywood movies that have cannibalised the literary science fiction of the last 100 years. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2011 by HHD
3.0 out of 5 stars
not is necessarily what you think
What other reviewers forget is that this is a political/philosophical work (in marxist terms there is no difference between the two). Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2010 by Mr. P. J. Stokes
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the 'must be read' books
Knowledge can be a powerful tools for good as well as evil. Lem offers an excellent and profound analysis of the relationship between human knowledge, psychology and environment-... Read more
Published on 28 Sep 2010 by K. Gryszkiewicz
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Genuine Alienness
A highly recommended exploration of genuine alienness. Incommunicable, unfathomable, the kind of encounter that refuses to conform to the frameworks and paradigms that we attempt... Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2009 by Pablo K
5.0 out of 5 stars
an entertaining exercise for the mind
I had to read this novel twice to be sure I 'got it'. This I was glad to do, for upon finishing it the first time, I felt that my mind (the rational portion of it) had experienced... Read more
Published on 8 April 1997
5.0 out of 5 stars
An irritating but rewarding SETI novel
A synthetic signal from outer space is detected.
In Sagan's "Contact", the signal
encodes plans for a spaceship; here it's not so simple. Read more
In Sagan's "Contact", the signal
encodes plans for a spaceship; here it's not so simple. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 1996
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