New Releases by Stanislaw LEM

A message from another civilization in the universe is received on Mount Palomar. Upon deciphering it scientists learn that there are multiple meanings, some of them are dangerous.

The Franz Kafka Prize-winning author invites you to a doped-up dystopia. " Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem. " — The Paris Review Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Polish author Stanislaw Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress in Costa Rica to discuss the overpopulation problem. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a cure. But when he awakens in 2039, he is faced with a future unlike any that the Congress could have ever imagined. Translated by Michael Kandel. "A vision of Earth''s future where the authorities dose the population with ''psychemicals'' to make life in a desperately over-populated world worth living." — The Boston Globe "Lem''s view of the overcrowded future is original and disturbing. A pessimistic, mordantly funny book." — Kirkus Reviews "Lem writes with a humor underlined by his commentary on the way the world is." —SF Site

An ex-astronaut investigates a string of potential murders in this novel by the Kafka Prize–winning author of Solaris. Vacation is supposed to be relaxing. But while traveling in Naples, several American tourists die in a most macabre and unusual way: committing suicide in a fit of madness. The cases are too similar to be coincidental, and the prevailing theory soon assumes that a serial poisoner is on the loose. Called in to investigate, and stem the rash of death before it becomes an epidemic, is a former astronaut from the States. As he follows the path of the last victim, he is confronted with a mystery that proves the truth is always stranger than fiction—and that we are all casualties of fortune in the end. Called "a Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age, who plays in earnest with every concept of philosophy and physics, from free will to probability theory," Stanislaw Lem now tackles the suspense genre with his famed intensity and intelligence, weaving a taut and enigmatic tale as only a great novelist can ( The New York Times Book Review).