New Releases by Stanislaw Lem

A six-man crew crash-lands on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. The men find a strange world that grows ever stranger, and everywhere there are images of death. The crew''s attempt to communicate with this civilization leads to violence and to a cruel truth-cruel precisely because it is so human. Translated by Marc E. Heine. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Brilliant stories of a bumbling astronaut, and the human desire to discover the unknown, by the much-loved author of Solaris. Set in the not-too-distant future, when space flight has evolved to the point where humanity is ready to colonize the solar system, Tales of Pirx the Pilot follows one somewhat-hapless explorer as he struggles though his training as a cadet, his career as a pilot, and his tenure as captain of a merchant ship. In these collected stories, Pirx stumbles his way through various exploits: traveling to the moon; battling mechanical malfunctions; encountering robots; and confronting questions of ambition, evolution, exploration, experimentation, and the nature of humanity itself. And in classic Pirx fashion, he faces down each dilemma with charm, curiosity, courage, and intuition. These early works by revered speculative fiction author Stanislaw Lem are filled with both the sharp insight for which he is known and a childlike innocence, making them an entertaining and thought-provoking read for science fiction fans of all ages.

The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet''s written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community. Translated by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose.

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

Navigator Rohan and the crew of the Invincible travel to the planet Regis III to search for a missing space cruiser