Introductions

"Return from the Stars" tells the story of an Astronaut returning to Earth after a long flight. Because of Einstein's time paradox one and a half centuries have passed on Earth. The Astronaut tries to understand and accept the unfamiliar Earthly civilization that gave up risk for the sake of safety and prosperity.  We are presented with a fascinating vision of "Earth as an alien planet" - in order to live there, the protagonist has to experience anew the problems of the meaning of existence, good and evil, freedom and captivity, aggression and love.

The last voluminous book about the adventures of Ijon Tichy tells a story that takes place in a near future. Earthly superpowers send their arsenals and arms factories to the Moon, so that they can evolve there by themselves, leaving the Earth in a state of peace and welfare. The fear of what had been born from these arsenals forces international organizations to send Ijon Tichy in a secret mission to the Moon.  Once there, the protagonist suffers from a strange accident:  his brain becomes callotomized, i.e. the two hemispheres of his brain are separated. Tichy – in his psychical duality – becomes a puzzle to himself and his environment;  he is also a deponent of a mystery he remains unaware of, desired by all intelligence services of the world.

"Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" is one of the most intriguing books by Lem.  The ostensibly funny satire of contemporary intelligence, scarred by betrayal of trust, in reality is – as is the case with everything in spies' world – an encrypted text. Attentive reader will discover critique of a totalitarian state, but also a parable of a man lost in the cosmos of signs generated by society, culture, literature, the physical world and biology. Hence grotesque softly turns to philosophy.

"Tales of Pirx the Pilot" one of the most favored books by Lem, is a series of adventures of a lovable Pilot-Astronaut.  Pirx grows with problems he faces – the Pilot has to prove the worth of an imperfect man confronted with the world of machines and machine thinking.