Lem at Amazon
„Roly-poly” is a volume containing stage works, television and cinema screenplays by Lem. Two of them, written jointly with Jan Jozef Szczepanski, are adaptations of „Memoirs Found in a Bathtub” and „The Chain of Chance” - were published for the first time. The TV shows, especially the ones with Professor Tarantoga, are grotesque and witty, which is also the case with „Roly-poly”, on which the excellent film by Andrzej Wajda was based. The reader may judge for himself how exceptional „filmy” Lem's works are. Yet for directors he may be a very dire experience – maybe this is the reason why so few of them managed to present Lem's ideas on the big screen.
When a few years ago I gave the West German Television permission for a production of a spectacle based on "The Expedition of Professor Tarantoga" I demanded a very high author's fee. The Germans protested there is no such rate so I explained this isn't a rate - but a schmerzgeld since I was sure they would botch this story.