The Invincible

I Don't read Polish at all, so I can't speak of accuracy. That said, Bill Johnston's translation was beautiful, suspenseful, and thought provoking. (I would be wary of earlier translations). You feel man confronting the unknowable immensities in this book. Invincible is the perfectly ironic name of a military spaceship sent to investigate a world on which her sister ship has been destroyed. The plot is solid hard SF, but the conclusion, which pits our hero alone against the ruthless and mysterious ecology of the cosmos, feels like something out of Camus.

Lem the visionary. sometimes reading his work i forget how long ago he wrote and confuse it with more modern writings. he has many times foreshadowed or even possibly inspired concepts and technologies we now think of casually, like they always existed.

some time in the distant future, humans have spread throughout the galaxy and continue to do so, finding new planets to support our version of life. one such planet, Regis III, presents a mystery. the class II cruiser Invincible arrives to investigate the loss of contact of its sister ship the Condor some 8 years earlier. the conditions on the planet initially baffle the crew of the Invincible but humans do not send ships like this unprepared. arrayed with force field generating show more turtle-like “energobots,” “arctan” androids, a panoply of satellites for all occasions (eg tv transmission, photogrammetry, radio relay, etc.), and many other automata, vehicles, and weapons that help them survey and survive unknown planets. much like expeditions of old to the arctic or distant jungles, the crew relies on empirical sampling and deductions made by an adaptable and eclectically trained crew of scientists and engineering experts. like the Star Fleet personnel of Star Trek, they also embody an adventuring mindset, ready for anything, eager for new experiences. or, at least, unafraid of them.

this crew then explores and begins piecing together what happened to the crew of their sister ship. at this point, Lem departs into truly visionary territory. he posits a different kind of evolutionary process for machine intelligences separate from those of biological origin. he also addresses what astrobiologists often refer to as the “christmas tree lights” problem. civilizations living on planets throughout the galaxy may come and go at separate times, missing each other by hundreds of millions of years - just like blinking lights on christmas trees. the scientists on board the Invincible speculate that some near-mythical non-human civilization known as the Lyrans lived long ago and within striking distance of Regis III. they might have come to the planet in hopes of saving themselves from their sun going nova but failed, leaving behind only their automata that then survived and underwent the process of evolution. in doing so, he gives us one of the first glimpses of nanotechnology, of tiny, simple, self-replicable machines that can join together to create more complex structures and devices - even ones that possibly think. but do they possess sentience? Lem comes to no hard conclusions but teases this near the end of the book.

Lem wrote what i call a “hard-boiled” scifi story, centering on the realistic logistical considerations of humans walking and breathing and exploring on other planets. the crew takes every precaution for their safety but the commander, at one point, remarks that they cannot ensure their safety too much or they will never find out what happened or continue to have the ability to do their jobs. in the end, Rohan, arguably the main character, returns to the ship after a solo rescue mission thinking how invincible the Invincible looks to him as a bastion and haven of humanity and its representative - and having just seen how mistaken that belief. but within that “hard-boiled” story shell, Lem poses some very interesting ideas that lead the mind down unexpected paths. show less

Excellent science fiction from a master of the craft -- introspective without being ponderous, reflective without navel gazing, mysterious and grasping at the ineffable, as with the best science-fiction of Lem's era. A very fast read, and a worthwhile meditation on what it means to encounter a truly alien universe.

My personal introduction to science-fiction and I loved. The mistery behind the story is fascinating and you can really see how Lem calls himself a philosopher not a science-fiction author by trade. The story itself is good but the message behind it - what to we actually consider a living organism, what do we consider a threat and how do we cope with phenomenons that we have never experienced before - is well framed by the story.

This is the 9th novel I've read from Mr. Lem and it was definitely a departure from his usual insane, insanely enjoyable, ramblings. There was much more action, and it was much more "standard sci-fi". Not mind blowing but definitely interesting and just the right length for this kind of thing at about 180 pages.

By today's standards, the lack of 200-300 pages of character development may prevent it from becoming a retro, come-back, success story, but it would definitely make a cool movie. Would definitely need to add at least 1 female, a couple deeper characters, but I'm ready to watch it.

This was very interesting book.

Subject is the one we come across in every SF exploration story - if we are capable to land on remote planets does it mean we are supposed to establish the colony on those planets? Do we, as human species need to conquer everything we gaze at or are we prudent enough to identify situations where some things are better left as is and then move to more friendly territories?

After contact with the first colony ship (Condor) is lost, second colony ship (Invincible) lands on the remote planet that seems to be devoid of life. Only things that are present on the planet surface are strange metallic constructions whose signature seems to be all over the place, including the remains of the first colony ship. Seas show more harbor some of the life forms but also remains of above-mentioned metallic structures.

Rest is something that we had opportunity to see in the many SF movies like Aliens, Forbidden planet etc. Humanity encounters alien creatures that seem to outmatch everything humanity can throw at them. Fight for the very survival begins.

I wont go into more details in order not to spoil anything. Story is very fast, with lots of action and very reasonable moves by the human expedition - people are armed, are walking under the protection, drones are used to reconnoiter and attack, armed groups covering the others, huge machines, semi-and-fully-autonomous and heavily armed provide support, nobody walks alone through tunnels after first incidents are recorded. Entire process is very realistic and alive. Science is clear and understandable, sometimes gets into the more specialized terms and discussions (but again nothing that cannot be corrected by Internet or encyclopedias) but in general it remains in domain of popular science. Lots of things to be learned.

Presentation of automata life forms and the application of evolutionary process to non-alive/non-biological organisms is truly magnificent (especially with the description of possible origin of artificial organisms and how they developed further when their masters were gone). Aside from the ecstatic comments like awww nanobots, ain't it cool etc, I think people should ask themselves what does creation of artificial life (artificial as in non evolved on its own, but created) brings with the very act of creation? Something that would very much find other life forms as possible opposition. And when you provide such highly adaptable organisms into any eco system, disaster will definitely happen.

All in all I enjoyed the book .... except the ending. Ending was for me a little bit letdown. Barely escaping alive, Rohan manages to get to the Invincible and then he is saved.It is visible from his internal monologue that he is fascinated with the world and that he thinks it should be kept unspoiled, but there is no closure here. We are just given last few scenes where Rohan is loaded into Invincible after being carried by rescue team through the perimeter and that is it. As I said, for me ...... a letdown.

All in all interesting book, with some very interesting forecasts especially in terms of drones, satellite control and reconnaissance, use of energy weapons and of course discourse on advantages of swarm organisms.

Recommended to all fans of SF adventure. show less

"I absolutely hated the first half of this book, but it was partially redeemed by the second half. The first part of the book is a Manly Adventure Story about a ship that lands on an alien planet in order to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a previous ship in the region. An inimical situation makes it very clear that it would be better to just leave, but stubbornness, bravado and machismo mean that they stay. However, the second part of the book makes it very clear that much of the idiocy and arrogance of the characters at the beginning was intentional, on the author's part, and to make a point ABOUT man's idiocy and arrogance... but it was still very flawed.
A lot of it just didn't make sense. I had a hard time believing, for show more example, that if manned space flight to other planets was achieved, that technology would be unable to do something like analyze a planet's atmospheric content from within the spaceship, without going outside with no protective gear, holding a manual gadget. I also don't think that, no matter how cooped up a crew was feeling, that they would want to go outside (unprotected) into a totally untested alien environment, knowing that another crew had never returned from the same place...
What I also felt was a flaw is that, although this IS a book about Men, there is no acknowledgment anywhere in the book that females even EXIST, which was just weird.
However, I'm going to give the book a free pass on the language and writing style, because the translation was just awful - the phrasing was consistently awkward, and there were definitely examples of the wrong word completely being used - like "Alarmed" instead of "Alerted." A note at the front of the book says that this edition was translated from German. The book was written in Polish. Why one would translate from a translation is a little mystifying to me, and after this literary game of 'telephone' I really can't say even if what I read resembled the original story much at all!

I'll remain open to giving another of Lem's books a try! show less