Fiasco is the second novel by Stanislaw Lem I have read and overall the third work of his to which I have been exposed. The first was the US film version of Solaris, and while that was not particularly great, I have to assume the book is something special since it has been adapted into two films, one television series and a BBC radio drama. Reading it is high on my list of things to do.
The second work of Lem’s I encountered was His Master’s Voice, which I bought and read based on a trusted recommendation, but found to be a very dense, complex, and difficult (IMHO) read filled with mystery deliberately and dissatisfyingly left mysterious in the novel’s outcome. The book is infused with Cold War concerns, which in this day and age involves thinking and motivations that do not resonate so much anymore. I’ve been told that reading His Master’s Voice a second or third time is a sure way to appreciate its deeper riches, but as yet I’ve not had the time or motivation to make another go at it.
Solaris, His Master’s Voice and Fiasco, while completely unique works, all have at their core one of Lem’s most consistent themes. Generally, any aliens humanity ever came into contact with would be so alien that understandstanding between the two species would be impossible and the contact would have a good chance for disastrous results. Each story’s fundamental problem is the unresolvable inability to understand the “other.” Lem expertly uses this theme to create engaging scenarios of mystery that draw the reader in, but as likely as not, the mystery is never resolved and the scenario ends with fairly pessimistic results.
In Fiasco the humans were technologically superior alien visitors and the Quintans the more or less helpless, if tenaciously belligerent, victims. The plot unfolds with the seemingly enlightened and compassionate far future humans first resorting to intimidation, then to deliberate and brutal violence against the civilization they had traveled to, at great expense and risk, with hopes of gretings and mutually beneficial information exchanges. Whatever the reason, cost, pride, duty, or something else, failure was no option, even as genocidal attacks were.
Such extreme action simply because the locals were less than welcoming and refused to have a two way conversation? Sounds crazy, I know. But Lem renders the decision making process, itself a deelply devisive moral conflict, in very thoughtful detail lending the outcome a strong air of plausibility. I don’t know what lies beneath Lem’s apparent pessimistic view of humanity, maybe it’s the mere fact of growing up in post World War 2 Poland behind the Iron Curtain. That would fit with a scene in His Master’s Voice that involved a Nazi army unit exterminating Jews behind the lines on the Eastern Front. Or maybe Lem was simply lashing out a bit at the Star Trekish optimism of a future humanity with great moral refinement. He reportedly held Western science fiction in low regard all around, so that would not be surprising. Or maybe it’s both or more.
All in all every aspect of the story, humanity’s great technological achievements, the alien worlds, the scenes of catastrophic destruction, the conflicts within the crew, were written with artful and fascinating scope and detail. I cannot praise the book enough. It was one of the best sci-fi reads I’ve had in a long time and I very highly recommend it.
4.5/5.0 stars