Stanisław Lem, illustrations for "The Invincible"

[K. A. Pital]

Awesome!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible

http://bvi.rusf.ru/lem/l_ad.htm
http://bvi.rusf.ru/lem/l_nead01.htm
http://bvi.rusf.ru/lem/l_nead02.htm
http://bvi.rusf.ru/lem/l_nead03.htm
http://bvi.rusf.ru/lem/l_nead04.htm

A note: "Invincible" is from Lem's early period and it's a genuine classic of science fiction. While certainly not the only story with such themes, at it's time it was one of the more realistic "space operas", combining realistic challenges with moderately hard sci-fi.

These illustrations do an awesome job of conveying many scenes in the novel, not to mention just being cool

[PeZook]

Holy shit! Pure awesome!

The book wasn't really about the ship and the battles, though, they were just a backdrop to Lem's favorite questions themes about technology and machine evolution. Incidentally, he himself doesn't think the book was all that great

[K. A. Pital]

Fairly simple storyline for Lem and quite action-heavy. But then, he often used action in his Pirx books which are a favorite of many people. For example, the battle with the Cyclops and the adventures of explorer groups are rather similar to the Pirx story that involved hunting a rogue robot on the moon w/lasers. "Invincible" is a nice treat to machine evolution though and it's description of the "grey goo" is surprisingly realistic. I liked that the question of whether macro-formations of these machines are sentient or not despite the "dumb" nature of individual cells, was left open after the hero observes phenomena in the last chapter.

Many motives here are key to understanding Lem's relation to technology as a separate form of life: humans shouldn't be cheering that, neither actively exterminating that. Machine life is displeasant and alien to humanity, unlikely to ever coexist with it in harmony.

[Bounty]

For those who don't read Russians, are these fan illustrations or part of an official project? Are they directly based on descriptions in the book or a free interpretation?

[K. A. Pital]

Pretty directly if you ask me; I don't know what for did the author make them, they may be just fan illustrations. But they are damn accurate to the book. As for Russian, just run them through autotranslation to get descriptions.

[PeZook]

The ship itself looks odd, though. I always imagined it to be stockier, more rugged-looking, the gear on those pictures looks a little startreky. I love the one with the ship's commander at the control console - this was always my favorite scene.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, Lem did have a couple of descriptions where the ship's height was mentioned as being roughly equal to 18 story building and the ship "sticking out like a steel needle" or something. I guess that's what the illustrator was thinking about.

Edit: found the author's journal, and he actually is a huge fan of Lem; he made illustrations to "Eden" as well
http://alexandreev.livejournal.com/56349.html#cutid1
http://alexandreev.livejournal.com/55870.html#cutid1
And many other things... a talented guy.

[RedImperator]

I've been needing to read Lem. Is there a recommended translation?

[PeZook]

Well, Lem did have a couple of descriptions where the ship's height was mentioned as being roughly equal to 18 story building and the ship "sticking out like a steel needle" or something. I guess that's what the illustrator was thinking about.

Yeah, I suppose that command post on top is what I have the biggest problem with. Of course, that's just my imagination, there's nothing wrong per se with the pictures. Hell, future tech is probably gonna look totally alien and weird

I've been needing to read Lem. Is there a recommended translation?

I heard Figuth did some Lem translations, and they're supposed to be quite good. I wouldn't know for sure, though.