Like the Perfect Vacuum of the title, the books that seem to be reviewed in this book do not exist.  neither, in an odd way, does "Lem" as a reviewer;  in the first chapter, someone reviews the book in reference to his Introduction, but that has not been written, either, and must be deduced from its review.  Within the reviews, Lem speaks as the author:  in the review of  his book, he speaks as reviewer of himself as author.  The "I" cannot be finally located.

Literary considerations have expanded to encompass world criticism and the condition of man.  Lem has penetrated existentialism with wry humor and a paradoxical emphasis on the emotional needs of the human organism.

M.A. Bartter, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

„Golem XIV” is one of Lem's most far-fetched intellectual adventures:  for the purpose of this book Lem constructs the character of a supercomputer of the future that infinitely overshadows human intelligence.  Golem, whose history we follow from its birth until his inexplicable departure from the human world, not only mercilessly criticizes humanity, claims of our culture and delusions about allegedly refining mechanisms of evolution, but also creates a breathtaking vision of further development of artificial intelligence – beyond our cosmos and cognition available within its limits.

A Perfect Vacuum was a collection of humorous reviews of nonexistent books, satirizing trends and fads in literature, criticism, academia, and popular science.  Imaginary Magniture is really a companion piece, being a collection of introductions to books of the next century.  The introductions are parodies, satires, and miscellaneous bits of speculative whimsy, and Lem shows signposts along the way to tell us in what spirit we should take the introductions:  two of the authors are named Rambellais and Gulliver, reminding us that the shadows of Rabelais and Swift cannot be far away.

Joseph Francavilla, American Book Review

One Human Minute (...) is a review of a book of statistical tables, a compilation that includes everything that happens to human life on the planet within any given 60 second period.  One of Lem's most diverting and thought-provoking abilities is his gift for taking mundane realities, paradoxes and horrors and flying with them to heights of imaginative, logical absurdity.  There are occasional flashes of such wit in this piece (...)

Lynn Harnett, Portsmouth Herald

This brilliant analysis of a totalitarian system and the way it lead to genocide is not limited to the diagnosis only. Lem describes this process in most shocking detail sometimes in a seemingly iconoclastic way.

Wiktor Grotowicz

NOTE:  Prowokacja has not been translated to English.