Favorites

The quintessential tortured artist, Vincent Spinetti falls prey to poverty, illness, alienation, parental neglect, alcoholism, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love, unaware that these torments are caused by the secret manipulations of New Renaissance, an organization testing the idea that art results from suffering. By the author of Anomalies.

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure. Translated by Michael Kandel.