'The Cyberiad' by Stanisław Lem
'The Cyberiad' by Stanisław Lem

The good

  • A fun collection of short stories that explore of a number of themes, mostly around seeking happiness through technology. The stories feature two fun repeating characters, Trurl and Klapaucius, who are “constructors” that can build nearly anything using technology.

  • The book doesn’t take itself seriously. In fact, this is an interesting blend of SciFi, whimsical children’s stories, and fables, complete with silly characters, rhymes, wordplay, jokes, and so on.

  • Lots of wordplay, even poetry, some of which is extremely clever and entertaining… Perhaps even more amazingly, it’s all translated from Polish! An incredible feat to pull off. Arguably, the best translation I’ve ever read.

  • The stories explore some interesting ideas. Examples: the random motion of particles will, every now and then, result in coherent information—in fact, all possible information, given how many particles there are—so you could build a bot to extract that information; discovering the H.P.L.D. or the civilization that has attained the “Highest Possible Level of Development”; what would happen if everyone could feel everyone else’s emotions; a device that swaps your mind into the body of another person, and their mind into your body; a machine that can create poetry, but to make it work, it must first simulate the history of the entire universe; a machine that can create dreams, and what happens when you get stuck in a loop where you can’t tell apart dreams from reality.

The not so good

  • The stories can feel a little too childish / silly at times.

  • As is often the case with short stories, few of them go deep enough to leave a lasting impression, so by the time you’re done with the book, you forget much of what you read.

Rating: 4 stars