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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8537
EAN num: 9780156441803
ISBN number: 0156441802
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 264
Printing Date: October 28, 1985
Publishing house: Harvest Books
Sale Popularity Level: 510382
Studio: Harvest Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
These wickedly authentic introductions to twenty-first-century books preface tomes on teaching English to bacteria, using animated X-rays to create 'pornograms,' and analyzing computer-generated literature through the science of 'bitistics.' 'Lem, a science fiction Bach, plays in this book a googleplex of variations on his basic themes' (New York Times Book Review). Translated by Marc E. Heine. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
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Rated by buyers 
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No so good as A Perfect Vacuum, Imaginary Magnitude is nevertheless a very interesting books. I love comments on imaginary books, an in this field Stanislaw Lem is a master. The difference with Borges reviews on imaginary books (see Fictions) is that Stanislaw Lem recurs to science and locate most of his visionary plots into the future, where humankind is often not human and sometimes not kind.
I recommend this book but also recommend the reader to very first (or afterwards) read A Perfect Vacuum.
Rated by buyers 
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"Imaginary Magnitudes" is a forceful, blackly humorous introduction to the irreducible mystery that powers Stanislaw Lem's work. Composed of introductions to works of non-fiction and literature to appear sometime in the coming century, one can only marvel at the breadth of imagination involved as well as the smoothness and cleverness of the translation from the Polish. The lectures of GOLEM XIV are the diadem of this collection, adumbrating most of the earlier prefaces in one vast, misanthropic razz of humankind by a very advanced (but still very humanlike), very disillusioned defense-management computer -- sort of a HAL9000 without the homicidal (or genocidal) impulse. I never have a copy of this book because I always give it away to people -- it is that good. Like most of Lem's work, it is where literature and SF become indistinguishable. Lem ranks with Clarke, Asimov, Herbert and Dick in the SF pantheon.
Rated by buyers -
"Imaginary Magnitude"'s value as entertaining literature is essentially nil. Only occasionally does it lapse into readability - otherwise it is an undiluted philosophical treatise. To be sure, this is Lem at his most intellectual - it just doesn't lend the writing the same measure of livelihood his more straightforward pieces do. The format is quite something conceptually - a set of introductions to not-yet-written books. "Imaginary Magnitude" showcases four - plus "GOLEM XIV", which, being a separate piece of literature altogether, is included only for the sake of its similar spirit.
The short pieces themselves aren't particularly exciting. This is Lem's chance to preach his views, and he does so extensively. "Necrobes" piqued my interest with its laconic treatment of creatively-posed x-ray nudes as art. "Eruntics" was even partially plausible - it deals with evolving a genome which is, basically, word-processing software. And then the bateria begin predicting the future. The "Extelopedia" lacked any sort of real structure - it is an encyclopedic dictionary of purely prognosticated words. The introduction includes a "Proffertinc" - a prognosticated offer, and a sample page of words that begin with "prog-". The following introduction to a treatise on bitic literature - that is, books written by non-human authors - is an excellent piece of short fiction dealing with epistemological topics. The summary traces the development of artificial thinkers through several stages - from cladogenesis, where computers generate random meaningless words, through mimesis, where a computer formulates the mathematical basis of books, allowing perfect translations, and even creating entirely new works in the author's exact style, and to transhuman apostasy - works generally incoprehensible to humans - from incredibly complicated math to elaborate works on cosmogony.
Then the reader gets to "GOLEM XIV", and the book takes a nosedive. Even despite the warning, the superhuman, impersonal intelligence within the computer seems snobbish, patronizing, and the text of its lectures - overly elaborate and peppered with metaphors. Likewise, the leading points of the two lectures - on man and on itself - coincide: the evolution is an asymptotic blunder; it has reached the maximum level of complication in its creations, and further random "progress" is impossible; man has reached his potential ceiling and is drowning in his civilization, etc. Like most of Lem, taken piece by piece this is profound theorizing, but as a work of creative, non-academic literature it is ornate and unreadable.
Rated by buyers -
Whereas with "A Perfect Vacuum" Lem wrote reviews of fictional books, here he writes introductions to different fictional books. You get some of his more straightforward philosophy with "Golem XIV," typical Lem cleverness with "Necrobes" and sheer, amazing, mind-blowing virtuosity with "Eruntics," probably his single most impressive piece of short fiction. This "story" alone is worth the price of admission. Ranking near the Tichy stories, with plenty of distance between "The Cyberiad" on one side and "Solaris" on the other, on the fun and ponderousnness scales. Among his best.
Rated by buyers -
Though it wasn't the most entertaining book of Lem's, it definitely gives the best span of his talents of any that I've yet read. We get the simply goofy in the very first couple bits, and the hard-core philosophical in the GOLEM lectures. This is an excellent survey of Lem's talent, but the individual parts are not his best. The humorous bits are certainly not "Cyberiad" or "Star Diaries" quality, but they are good nonetheless. The GOLEM stuff is a bit dry, but very intruiging. Overall quite good stuff, so it gets 4 stars. Mediocre Lem though.
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