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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8537
EAN num: 9780156306300
ISBN number: 0156306301
Label: Harvest/HBJ Book
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: 1988-03
Publishing house: Harvest/HBJ Book
Sale Popularity Level: 167300
Studio: Harvest/HBJ Book
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The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding. Translated by Michael Kandel. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
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Rated by buyers 
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Judged strictly within the realm of science fiction, I would have given this novel five stars. It operates at a higher by far intellectual level than most science fiction. First, let it be said that Lem didn't just write a parable or morality play with science fiction trappings. There is speculative hard science aplenty to give a very realistic feel of plausibility to this future world of incredibly sophisticated machines and interstellar space travel. But, within this framework of technology, the main focus of the book is the moral and philosophical dimension. This primarily has to do with trying to make contact with an alien life-form, but there are many strange and interesting subordinate topics packed into this dense book. Without trying to be a spoiler, just a word about the ending. Although there is a definite conclusion I found it still to be somewhat ambiguous,so don't expect all of your questions to be answered.
Rated by buyers 
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READER BE WARNED: HEREIN BE SPOILERS!
Sometimes ratings don't actually match true reception of the book. My rating of six feels like a bookmark of the somewhat difficult time I had reading this novel, and I fully intend to return to it at some later date with the expectation that my rating will rise at that point. But for now, I found this movie really good whereas not very "enjoyable" in the sense that I feel that rating is asking for. If that makes any sense at all (eh, numeric ratings are arbitrary anyway).
Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco is definitely a strong justification for anyone who likes to call science fiction "speculative fiction", mostly because it's made up almost entirely of speculations. Following a long introductory chapter that helps to set the mood in terms of humanity's process of stretching across the stars, the main plot begins as a small crew of people endeavor to establish contact with an alien civilization for the very first time. As they approach, every conceivable result is debated and cross-analyzed, whereas the precise nature of the civilization they're journeying too is rendered just as controversial. Most of the dialog and description from there is a process of opening up the reader to the different possibilities, whereas the action itself is a constant specification of what actually ends up happening within the narrative. It actually makes the book somewhat schizophrenic: the book is one part philosophical text examining the multi-faceted possibilities of the Universe (which are, ultimately, infinite, but Lem does manage to break it down into what are the primary issues), combined with a series of increasingly specific incidents, plot-wise. Part of my difficulty in reading this book (and I didn't really have the energy most of the time to read it as close as I usually do) is the fact that I was for the most part more interested in the speculative aspects of it over the plot, meaning the process behind the actions of the characters and the decisions of the author weren't always all that clear to me.
I mean, "every single line means something." Each individual speculation on the philosophical part of this text could have easily branched off to become its own science fiction book entire. That was wonderful. But I had to re-read and re-read to try to figure out how the characters thought it could really be a good idea to blow up the Quintan's moon as a show of strength, and I'm still not satisfied. In a situation where a spaceship has that kind of power, you'd think the users would come up with some different action to provide the same psychological effect with less damage to the mission. A lot of the actual plot of the book felt, to me, like Lem was understanding that he couldn't just keep the book so loose and speculative, that he'd actually have to make decisions as to what happens, so he almost literally made the decisions based on what he just felt like happening.
However, I might be wrong, and that's why I have to read the book again. Fiasco reminded me of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, only in space--and with explosions. One thing I do understand is Lem's motive behind having the Quintan civilization in constant warfare... the Cold War focus of this book is actually one of its stronger points, though it may make it seem dated. I also rather enjoyed what the Quintans ultimately turned out to be, because--well, let me go back a bit.
The beginning of the book is almost stand-alone. It features a rescue mission on Titan gone awry, but is used mainly as a sort of visual display to the book. The most important aspect to it in terms of the themes of the book is the moment where the pilot has to struggle with his own psychological tendency to animate and anthropomorphize a world distinctly unformed by biological life. When the main narrative starts, it is introduced in the form of a story-within-a-story, and that story has what I would call a graphic match to the ending of Fiasco (a "graphic match" is a term used in cinema theory to describe two similar-looking images used subsequent to each other to create a visual analogy or "rhyme". I do not remember the literature equivalent, so this will do for now). The man standing in the maze of termite mounds ultimately becomes the pilot standing in the maze of Quintan fungus-forms, and the theme enacted by that comparison is reflective of the theme created by the pilot's psychological dealings with the landscape of Titan.
All of that I found magnificent; and as an instructive text towards looking towards the future and the potential conflicts we'll run into if we ever endeavor communication with an alien life, we could almost consider this book a manual for later ages. I'm just still not clear what the actual contact gained had to do with anything. All of the more concrete details in the book seem like they could have easily been replaced with anything else Lem or others may have ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Almost all of Lem's science fiction centers around one or two variations of one theme. The theme is "What is intelligence?" and the two variations are "What would robotic life be like?" and "What would a truly alien intelligence be like?" "Fiasco" is in the latter category. An expedition from Earth approaches and attempts to contact an alien race that does everything it can to avoid being contacted. The humans use their technological advantage to slowly escalate their efforts with ultimately catastrophic results.
"Fiasco" is a brilliant read on its own, and very approachable, but should really be considered part of Lem's larger set of works on this theme: "Solaris", "Eden" and "His Master's Voice" being the most obvious...with "Fiasco" being the most approachable, "Solaris" the best known and "His Master's Voice" the most challenging.
Rated by buyers -
Contrary to an impassioned and misplaced review Lem isn't arguing against space-travel, nor is he being morbidly sensitive about the death of traditional cultures. Lem is holding up a mirror of introspection about the human race and our technological future - the aliens the expedition sets out to contact are in many ways us, at least the collectivised Communo-Capitalist version of ourselves. The key to understanding is the "mini-novel" cleverly embedded in the main-story as a bit of VR entertainment for the crew. An expedition into an inhospitable African desert to find the control centre of the kingdom of the termites. And a centre that, in the end, doesn't exist. Lem has frequently pitted massive hulking machinery against techno-biological collectives, and usually the big machines fail. Bottom-up collective action defeats top-down command-decision hierarchies. But the collective doesn't make right either - Quinta's collectives are engaged in apocalyptic Cold-War, countering each other's espionage efforts so violently that the EM spectrum from the planet is full of noise and all space-vehicles are autonomous AIs. The planet is ruined and the populace seemingly enslaved to the war effort. The expedition is attacked by the machines, but instead of retaliation more vocal contact efforts are attempted. When contact is made the Quintans are too distracted to care about the newcomers. All that matters is countering the enemy, or so it seems. That's where the whole thing unravels. SETI and CETI become a fiasco when we don't fit in the mental space of the aliens. Yet Lem is really telling us about the futility of war, hot or cold, and the dangers of the collective, the hive, and technology that enslaves. He's written a book packed with ideas and new ones will stick in your head with each re-read.
Rated by buyers -
In my opinion, Fiasco is an even more damning statement of the folly and pretense behind space exploration than Solaris is, and thank God for that. I believe Stanislaw Lem is one of the most aware authors in the whole field of science fiction. What some readers seem to perceive as his cynicism is, I believe, nothing more than the deep disappointment of a sensitive and truly optimistic man who is sick to death of the evil that men do to each other through the agency of science. Yes, he appreciates scientific inquiry, but he also understands fully how the emotional coldness of scientific inquiry has had the undesirable consequence of freezing our hearts dead, doorknob-stiff.
Furthermore, I think that what righteously enrages Mr. Lem is his ruthless recognition of the fact that for mankind, the primary benefit of technological advancement has been the acquisition of power, and we sure can't get enough of THAT. The indisputable proof of his sensible, knowledgeable, and historically validated cynicism as regards man's rush to technological godhood is written in the blood-splattered pages of the history of this planet.
Christopher Columbus' expeditions to the New World were followed up by a holocaust that engulfed the North and South American continents in a firestorm of genocidal warfare and deliberately introduced disease, resulting in the near-extinction of the peaceful, innocently welcoming Indians that he `discovered' in 1492. In 1853-54, Commodore Perry on three visits to the Ryukyu and Bonin islands before going to Japan and while waiting for a reply from Japan, arrogantly dismissed the native's desire to be left the hell alone and made a naval demonstration by way of a volley of cannon-fire and landed his Marines twice. Of course, all of this preemptive violence was only to secure facilities for commerce, henceforth known as the "opening of Japan." Hurrah! So much for `free' trade. Makes you think about the attack on Pearl Harbor in a new and interesting light, doesn't it?
In Fiasco, Mr. Lem has the courage to state plainly the true reason why we want to run out to the stars: to conquer them, to steal them, and claim them as our property. Listen, just listen, will you, to the thoughts of Tempe, the main protagonist in Fiasco who, after landing his capsule on the planet Quinta, wanders over a landscape utterly devastated by the cataclysmic assault that was launched from the orbiting mothership, Hermes, to punish the Quintans for not welcoming contact with the Earth-men:
"It was not his belief that communication with the Quintans was senseless, based on false assumptions---it was not that which oppressed him, but the fact that they had entered into a game of contact where violence was the highest suit. This thought he kept to himself, because more than anything he wanted to see the Quintans. How could he, despite all his reservations and doubts, turn his back on such an opportunity? Arago (the priest onboard the mothership) had taken a dim view of their policy even before the phrase "show of strength" came up (and) had called a lie a lie, had repeated that they were entering into a contest of deceit; that they were pushing so forcibly toward communication that they were actually abandoning it; that they were covering themselves with masks and stratagems---safer thereby, perhaps, but more and more removed from any genuine opening up of a view into an Alien Intelligence. They jumped upon Quinta's subterfuges, struck at Quinta's every refusal, and made the goal of the expedition less attainable the more brutal the blows they used in its attainment."
The way I see it, if we ever get as far out into this universe as some of us would like, and if we ever encounter any form of life that could respond in any way to our presence, I hope to God almighty that they are advanced enough, powerful enough, and angry enough at our uninvited intrusion into their space to send us back here with the quickness, with our tails between our rocket exhausts, humbled and ready to look into the mirrors that Stanislaw Lem advises us to look deeply into, before we go slinging our slop all over the cosmos again.
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