In A Perfect Vacuum (1979), Leto offered a collection of reviews of nonexistent books. Here, in a companion book of sorts, he concocts introductions to nonexistent books, complete with sample pages, plus an introduction to introductions in general. (It first appeared in Polish in 1973.) And each entry displays a different facet of the formidable Lem talent. The first introduction concerns a bizarre volume of pornographic soft-focus X-ray plates. Next, with deadpan glee, Lem presents a scientist breeding bacteria that communicate in Morse code and foretell the future. A treatise on computer-generated literature includes machine-neologisms like "horseman" (centaur) and "piglet" (a filthy rooming house). There's a wildly funny sales pitch for Vestrand's Extelopedia in 44 Magnetomes: a "Prognostic-Aim Encyclopedia with Maximal Forereach in Time" which "contains information on History as it is going to happen"; not only that, but "at the sound of your voice, the appropriate Magnetome slips off the shelf, TURNS its own pages, and STOPS at the desired entry." Lastly, at his most challenging, Lem describes Golem XIV, a super-computer commissioned by the Pentagon to handle all military matters. Golem decides it doesn't want the job ("the best guarantee of peace is universal disarmament"), and instead settles down at MIT to deliver a set of devastating lectures on humanity's shortcomings; finally, then, its intelligence having progressed beyond human comprehension, Golem destroys itself. Don't look for stories, here, or fiction in any orthodox sense—but this is weirdly satisfying entertainment, with the remarkable Lem variously at his profound, provocative, or comic best.
Pub Date: Aug. 24, 1984
ISBN: 0156441802
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1984
Entertaining, though not in the league of J.K. Rowling—or even Anne Rice. But please, people: no more vamps and wizards, OK?
Harry Potter meets Lestat de Lioncourt. Throw in a time machine, and you’ve got just about everything you need for a full-kit fantasy.
The protagonist is a witch. Her beau is a vampire. If you accept the argument that we’ve seen entirely too many of both kinds of characters in contemporary fiction, then you’re not alone. Yet, though Harkness seems to be arriving very late to a party that one hopes will soon break up, her debut novel has its merits; she writes well, for one thing, and, as a historian at the University of Southern California, she has a scholarly bent that plays out effectively here. Indeed, her tale opens in a library—and not just any library, but the Bodleian at Oxford, pride of England and the world. Diana Bishop is both tenured scholar and witch, and when her book-fetcher hauls up a medieval treatise on alchemy with “a faint, iridescent shimmer that seemed to be escaping from between the pages,” she knows what to do with it. Unfortunately, the library is crammed with other witches, some of malevolent intent, and Diana soon finds that books can be dangerous propositions. She’s a bit of a geek, and not shy of bragging, either, as when she trumpets the fact that she has “a prodigious, photographic memory” and could read and write before any of the other children of the coven could. Yet she blossoms, as befits a bodice-ripper no matter how learned, once neckbiter and renowned geneticist Matthew Clairmont enters the scene. He’s a smoothy, that one, “used to being the only active participant in a conversation,” smart and goal-oriented, and a valuable ally in the great mantomachy that follows—and besides, he’s a pretty good kisser, too. “It’s a vampire thing,” he modestly avers.
Entertaining, though not in the league of J.K. Rowling—or even Anne Rice. But please, people: no more vamps and wizards, OK?Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02241-0
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
First of a three-book series covering the world of remote tomorrows, the effectiveness of this first volume is curtailed by its attempt to cover more than a century in time with its many generations of characters. Psychohistorian Seldon senses the coming crash of the galactic empire, prepares a chosen corps of his best students to colonize a remote planet where war cannot impede his work. The story of this colony's survival and eventual command of the broken empire sustains the narrative which is- this time-better science than fiction.
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1951
ISBN: 0553382578
Page Count: -
Publisher: Gnome Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1951
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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