Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006)

by Liberty and Power

One of the world's leading science fiction writers, Polish author Stanislaw Lem, died on Monday in Krakow. During World War II, Lem was a resistance fighter against the Nazis; he used science fiction because he felt he could communicate his controversial ideas more freely through the genre, often under the radar of the communist regime of the People's Republic of Poland (though he did face censorship at times). His stories - nearly 30,000,000 copies in all - have been published in over 40 languages.

Additional information on Lem:
Wikipedia
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Lem's Website
CNN
Reuters

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Amy H. Sturgis - 3/31/2006

That's remarkable! Something in the water, indeed...

Amy H. Sturgis - 3/31/2006

You're most welcome. And you're right - that's a lot of books!

Aeon J. Skoble - 3/29/2006

Wow! Also, Lukasiewicz, Emanuel Ax, Wiesenthal... fascinating.

Roderick T. Long - 3/29/2006

Interestingly, Stanislaw Lem shares with Ludwig von Mises, theologian Martin Buber, actor Paul Muni, Leopold Sacher-Masoch (from whom the term "masochism" comes), Alexius Meinong (famous among philosophers if not otherwise), and a number of other famous people, the distinction of either being born in or having resided in the same town, a place variously called Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lviv, and variously located in Austria-Hungary, Poland, and the Ukraine, as borders shifted around it. Must be something in the water there ....

Tom G Palmer - 3/29/2006

Thanks for the info, Amy. I also enjoyed reading Lem as a youth. Thirty million books....whew.

Amy H. Sturgis - 3/29/2006

Beautifully put!

Kenneth R. Gregg - 3/29/2006

I loved Lem's magisterial vision of humanity and the universe in his novels when I was a teenager, and he would take me in directions that no other SF writer dared to, or could.

Where there were boundaries, he would take me through them. Many of the fans (and writers) in my generation took their cues from Harlan Ellison, Norton and Heinlein. Lem was more to my liking.

Cheers!
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/