Polish author Stanislaw Lem is probably best known for his 1960’s science fiction masterpiece Solaris which has been adapted into a couple of films, in 1972 there was a Russian version and then fifty years later in 2002 James Cameron produced another in America. The Russian original is generally regarded as the better film although the latter is supposedly closer to the original book. This collection produced as part of Penguin Books 90th birthday celebrations consists of the short story ‘The Seventh Voyage’ (27 pages) along with a couple of short novellas, or longer short stories depending on how you define the categories, ‘Terminus’ (63 pages) and ‘The Mask’ (68 pages). I’ll review each one separately.

The Seventh Voyage

Well that was great fun, the story comes from a 1957 collection entitled The Star Diaries and despite being called The Seventh Voyage it is the first one in the collection which are different numbered journeys through space by Ijon Tichy as told by the equally fictional Professor Tarantoga. In this one Tichy encounters time loops after his spaceship is damaged and needing two people to effect the repairs decides to team up with one of his alternate selves to do the work. However all the various versions of himself seem to be a cross purposes and start fighting amongst themselves over who should have the one spacesuit to ensure that a future version can also have a suit on and also who can eat which bits of the limited rations.

Terminus

From Lem’s Book of Robots this story from 1961 is much more a ghost story rather than the humour of the first story although it is also clearly a work of science fiction. Pirx has just received command of an old spaceship and on first arrival at the spaceport was less than impressed with his ship with it’s visible rust internally and obvious patch jobs all over the place. Intrigued as to its history he searches for the ship’s log and finds out that the agent was not kidding when he said it was historic. In fact notorious would be closer to the mark as the ship was originally called Coriolanus and every space traveller knew that name and the disaster that befell it when it was caught in a meteor storm and so badly damaged that the crew were trapped in separate sections as the oxygen slowly ran out. All nineteen crew members died and the ship was assumed to be scrapped, but it was here, with its slapdash repairs to save money and barely capable of the run to Mars that Pirx had been assigned to do. Whilst exploring the ship after take-off Pirx notices that a pipe is vibrating and what is more it is doing so in Morse code and passing messages between the now dead crew calling for help as they slowly suffocate…

The Mask

This 1974 story can originally be found in the collection of Lem’s stories entitled Mortal Engines and we are this time in the realm of science fiction horror and it is a very strange but engaging tale. It is however very difficult to review without giving away the twists in the story, which is what the Wikipedia entry does within the first paragraph, you have been warned. The story starts with a nightmarish sequence where our first person narrator has no real idea what is going on or even who they are. This very quickly segues into what appears to be a regency royal ball, all crinolines and lace, but our narrator has no idea as to why she is there and still no clue as to their identity, is she recovering from amnesia, is she mad, or is there some other explanation? She is drawn to a mysterious stranger sitting alone in a window, but why and how can she know him better when she doesn’t even know herself? The explanation to these various questions is slowly revealed and the true horror of both their situations is a total surprise, unless that is you have sneaked a peek at Wikipedia, which I’m glad to say I only did to verify when this was first published after completing the story.

Although I knew the name Stanislaw Lem I have to admit that I hadn’t read any of his work before this book which was the main reason I bought a copy from this anniversary collection. I’m definitely going to read more, starting with Solaris of which I have seen the original Russian film version but never read the book.