Solaris

Stanisław Lem

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002 - Fiction - 204 pages

"A fantastic book." --Steven Soderbergh

When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?

Long considered a classic, Solaris asks the question: Can we understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?

"A novel that makes you reevaluate the nature of intelligence itself." --Anne McCaffrey

Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) is the author of many works bearing the broad label of "science fiction" and others ranging in genre and style from satire to philosophy. Lem's books have been translated into forty-one languages and have sold over forty-five million copies.

Contents

• The Arrival: 1
• The Visitors: 29
• Rheya: 52
• The Little Apocrypha: 66
• The Conference: 90
• The Monsters: 106
• The Liquid Oxygen: 132
• Conversation: 147
• The Dreams: 176
• The Old Mimoid: 195

About the author

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem was born on September 12, 1921. A medical graduate of Cracow University, he is at home both in the sciences and in philosophy, and this broad erudition gives his writings genuine depth. He has published extensively, not only fiction, but also theoretical studies. His books have been translated into 41 languages and sold over 27 million copies. He gained international acclaim for The Cyberiad, a series of short stories, which was first published in 1974. A trend toward increasingly serious philosophical speculation is found in his later works, such as Solaris (1961), which was made into a Soviet film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. He died on March 27, 2006 in Krakow at the age of 84.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Solaris; Harvest book
• Author: Stanisław Lem
• Translated by: Joanna Kilmartin, Steve Cox
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002
• ISBN: 0156027607, 9780156027601
• Length: 204 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary; Fiction / Fantasy / Epic; Fiction / Media Tie-In; Fiction / Science Fiction / General; Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Exploration; Fiction / World Literature / Russia / 20th Century