The graphic is inspired by Daniel Mróz, the author of the Cyberiad illustrations (Click the "?" at the beginning.) The puzzles contain some motives from the Cyberiad (2+2=7, the machine that can do everything that starts with "N".)
Stanislaw Lem is probably my most favorite sci-fi author. He's very popular in Europe, but not so much in the US it seems. His works are hilariously funny, philosophical and have a certain magic to them. When I saw the robot I was almost certain that it had to be about him.
I don't know about the quality of the English translations of his books, but in German, they are fabulous. There are a lot of word plays that are hard to translate.
By the way, many will recommend Solaris in here because there were two films based on it, one by Tarkovsky and one by Soderbergh. While it's not a bad book it's probably not his best and not entirely exemplary of his other books.
Lem is awesome, but avoid the ones that have come to english via a multihop route. Books translated by Kandel are fabulous.
Trurl invents an electronic bard. Klaupacius challenges it:
"Have it compose a poem -- a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!"
A funny story - how I got my first Stanislaw Lem book from a Washington Square park bookseller..
Guy had a table with a wide range of second hand books mostly sci fi. I carefully picked over the pile and chose some of my favorite authors - some that were quite hard to get.
When I went to purchase about three books, the guy said "OK since you are obviously a man with taste in SF I'm gonna let you see my other 'special' stock" - and out came a small tray of books from under the table. Not previously on sale. Maybe it was just a clever marketing ploy - but this is how I found my first Stanislaw Lem book (which he recommended).
Since then I've always tried to buy Lem at SF second hand stores but actually very hard to come by (in English). I did buy a brand new copy of 'His Master's Voice' the other day and was not disappointed.
Don't think he actually wrote that many SF books - I think I have them all now but maybe I'm mistaken.
Don't think he actually wrote that many SF books - I think I have them all now but maybe I'm mistaken.
In my opinion, he wrote quite a lot of them -- almost 30 fiction books, half of them being novels, and other half collections of stories. Apart of that, he published over 20 non-fiction books, but they were rarely translated to English.
> Stanislaw Lem is probably my most favorite sci-fi author. He's very popular in Europe, but not so much in the US it seems. His works are hilariously funny, philosophical and have a certain magic to them.
I last read Lem 15 years ago, when I was in high-school, but it had such a huge effect on me that this doodle gave me goose-bumps when it first started, I cannot explain exactly why.
> I don't know about the quality of the English translations of his books
I don't know about the quality of the original Polish, but ... some of his heavier works are well, heavy in the English version. I'm thinking of "Solaris", "His Master's Voice", "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". They are good books - but so are Dickens, Tolstoy etc. which require a bit of effort from the modern reader.
However the Cyberiad is an absolute pleasure to read. I read it when I was in my early teens and I ate it up - it challenged my mind, made me laugh and was very easy to read. Other lighter ones - "Tales of Pirx the Pilot", "The Futurological Congress", "A Perfect Vacuum" are easy to read too.
I remember, years ago, reading him in German. A Polish medical student loaned/"foisted" Solaris on me. I rather enjoyed it.
Thanks about the "heads up" with regard to the issues with some of the English translations. I'd been thinking I should revisit it, but these days an English language text would be far more accessible.
For the curious: the doodle is for Stanislaw Lem, one of my favorite science fiction authors.
For those who haven't read any of his books, I personally recommend Solaris and Fiasco, although most of the other books I've read by him are also great.
Edit: Oh yeah, for something a little bit more funny, read Tales of Pirx the Pilot.
The Cyberiad is a great book for kids too. I must have read it when I was about 8 or 9 and it set me off on a life-long journey through Science Fiction...
Just a warning: if you've made it almost all the way through, don't be a moron like me and bump a key on your keyboard, you'll get immediately bounced to an actual Google instant search, and you'll have to start over from the beginning...
Machinarium is great. I'm happy it was included with the original Humble Bundle.
Which reminds me, everyone should go check out the recently released Humble Introversion Bundle. Pay what you want for 5+ great cross-platform games by independent developers, and choose who your money goes to.. charity or the developers.
I'm getting it on google.de as well as on google.com (with country redirection turned off); the same was true last night. You never know what kind of localisation you get with google, and I'm not just talking about the doodle, but everything else.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 97.7 ms ] threadThe baby cannon. Hehehehe ...
Great book, 60 years old today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/23/google-dood...
Edit: After going through all of them, I got redirected to search term "Stanisław Lem"
Edit: Yup, can confirm this - Klapaucius asks the robot that create anything beginning with "N" to create "nothing" causing it to implode.
I don't know about the quality of the English translations of his books, but in German, they are fabulous. There are a lot of word plays that are hard to translate.
By the way, many will recommend Solaris in here because there were two films based on it, one by Tarkovsky and one by Soderbergh. While it's not a bad book it's probably not his best and not entirely exemplary of his other books.
This is a good introduction to his work: http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/vitrifaxintro.html
Trurl invents an electronic bard. Klaupacius challenges it:
The electronic bard's response:If one wishes to see another excerpt indicating how amazing Lem was via Kandel, i posted one of my favorite poems of all time, also from the same short story here: http://blog.knowtheory.net/post/88490831/the-best-poem-ever-...
The poem has only one blemish, which is the assumption that "Euler" rhymes with "ruler".
Guy had a table with a wide range of second hand books mostly sci fi. I carefully picked over the pile and chose some of my favorite authors - some that were quite hard to get.
When I went to purchase about three books, the guy said "OK since you are obviously a man with taste in SF I'm gonna let you see my other 'special' stock" - and out came a small tray of books from under the table. Not previously on sale. Maybe it was just a clever marketing ploy - but this is how I found my first Stanislaw Lem book (which he recommended).
Since then I've always tried to buy Lem at SF second hand stores but actually very hard to come by (in English). I did buy a brand new copy of 'His Master's Voice' the other day and was not disappointed.
Don't think he actually wrote that many SF books - I think I have them all now but maybe I'm mistaken.
In my opinion, he wrote quite a lot of them -- almost 30 fiction books, half of them being novels, and other half collections of stories. Apart of that, he published over 20 non-fiction books, but they were rarely translated to English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisław_Lem#Works
I last read Lem 15 years ago, when I was in high-school, but it had such a huge effect on me that this doodle gave me goose-bumps when it first started, I cannot explain exactly why.
Update: Actually Solaris is not available either. I was misled because there is a Solaris 'Study Guide' available for Kindle.
I don't know about the quality of the original Polish, but ... some of his heavier works are well, heavy in the English version. I'm thinking of "Solaris", "His Master's Voice", "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". They are good books - but so are Dickens, Tolstoy etc. which require a bit of effort from the modern reader.
However the Cyberiad is an absolute pleasure to read. I read it when I was in my early teens and I ate it up - it challenged my mind, made me laugh and was very easy to read. Other lighter ones - "Tales of Pirx the Pilot", "The Futurological Congress", "A Perfect Vacuum" are easy to read too.
A case of bad translations. Those books are quite readable in the original language.
Thanks about the "heads up" with regard to the issues with some of the English translations. I'd been thinking I should revisit it, but these days an English language text would be far more accessible.
For those who haven't read any of his books, I personally recommend Solaris and Fiasco, although most of the other books I've read by him are also great.
Edit: Oh yeah, for something a little bit more funny, read Tales of Pirx the Pilot.
Truly amazing and timeless books. :)
Which reminds me, everyone should go check out the recently released Humble Introversion Bundle. Pay what you want for 5+ great cross-platform games by independent developers, and choose who your money goes to.. charity or the developers.
http://www.humblebundle.com/
The owl reminds me of Bubo, the golden mechanical owl from the original Clash of the Titans.
Great tribute.
My first look at the doodle popped up "Trurl and Klapaucius" in my head - and it's been many years. Queue one Cyberiad for re-read ...
Site already lags, be patient.
English: http://english.lem.pl/home/bookshelf/how-the-word-was-saved
Polish: http://www.wattpad.com/133117-stanislaw-lem-cyberiada
Well worth the 5 mins it takes to read!