
Fiasco
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Narrated by:
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Oliver Wyman
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By:
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Stanislaw Lem
About this listen
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Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure.
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Good story, but maybe better ingested visually.
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Performance
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Story
A witty and inventive satire of "men of science" and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. "I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament...we as the posthumous heirs of Them...."
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Story
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- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 05-27-14
By: Stanislaw Lem
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- By: Stanislaw Lem, Barbara Marszal - translator, Frank Simpson - translator
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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-
-
Starts well but...
- By Gregory on 01-06-15
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
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- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
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Good story, but maybe better ingested visually.
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Ijon Tichy is the only human who knows for sure whether the self-programming robots on the moon are plotting a terrestrial invasion. But a highly focused ray severs his corpus collosum. Now his left brain can’t remember the secret and his uncooperative right brain won’t tell. Tichy struggles for control of the lost memory and of his own two warring sides.
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People who viewed this also viewed...
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The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet's written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Performance
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who can listen too this?
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By: Stanislaw Lem
-
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- By: Stanislaw Lem, Elinor Ford - translator, Michael Kandel - translator
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ijon Tichy is the only human who knows for sure whether the self-programming robots on the moon are plotting a terrestrial invasion. But a highly focused ray severs his corpus collosum. Now his left brain can’t remember the secret and his uncooperative right brain won’t tell. Tichy struggles for control of the lost memory and of his own two warring sides.
-
-
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By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
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- By: Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani ( Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.
-
-
A comment on negative reviews
- By Burns on 09-20-11
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
-
His Master's Voice
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A witty and inventive satire of "men of science" and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. "I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament...we as the posthumous heirs of Them...."
-
-
Excelent and entertaining
- By Jakub on 01-10-12
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight-papyralysis-has obliterated much of the planet's written history. However, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community.
-
-
Better Read then Heard
- By Kenny on 01-16-12
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
The Cyberiad
- Fables for the Cybernetic Age
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each other. Over the course of their adventures in The Cyberiad, they travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their unsuspecting employers.
-
-
If Dr. Suess Wrote Science Fiction...
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 05-27-14
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
Mortal Engines
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These fourteen science fiction stories reveal Lem’s fascination with artificial intelligence and demonstrate just how surprisingly human sentient machines can be.
-
-
who can listen too this?
- By Amazon Customer on 07-19-17
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
Peace on Earth
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Elinor Ford - translator, Michael Kandel - translator
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ijon Tichy is the only human who knows for sure whether the self-programming robots on the moon are plotting a terrestrial invasion. But a highly focused ray severs his corpus collosum. Now his left brain can’t remember the secret and his uncooperative right brain won’t tell. Tichy struggles for control of the lost memory and of his own two warring sides.
-
-
Very thoughtful and entertaining
- By Vitaly on 09-14-16
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
-
Solaris
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani ( Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.
-
-
A comment on negative reviews
- By Burns on 09-20-11
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
-
Return from the Stars
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Barbara Marszal - translator, Frank Simpson - translator
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Bregg is an astronaut who returns from a space mission in which only 10 biological years have passed for him, while 127 years have elapsed on Earth. He finds that the Earth has changed beyond recognition, filled with human beings who have been medically neutralized. How does an astronaut join a civilization that shuns risk?
-
-
Starts well but...
- By Gregory on 01-06-15
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
-
The Star Diaries
- Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ijon Tichy, Lem's Candide of the Cosmos, encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in space that serve to satirize science, the rational mind, theology, and other icons of human pride.
-
-
Gulliver in Space
- By Joe Kraus on 12-29-18
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
The Futurological Congress
- From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure.
-
-
Good story, but maybe better ingested visually.
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-13
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
The Truth and Other Stories
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve stories by science-fiction master Stanislaw Lem, nine of them never before published in English.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Diogenes on 06-29-22
By: Stanislaw Lem
-
Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.
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Short and fun!
- By Andrew on 10-04-24
By: John Scalzi
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Alien Clay
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go?
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Super good!
- By Jessi on 11-26-24
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- E. S.
- 11-11-24
The last farewell form Lem.
This was the last farewell from Stanisław Lem—one of the greatest masters of the genre. A good deal of hard sci-fi, where deep technical and scientific introspections are entangled with heavy moral dilemmas. Recommended to all sci-fi devotees.
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- Fredrik
- 03-29-21
Simply nothing like it
Stanislaw Lem is one of my favorite sci fi authors and this book does not disappoint. A strange, though provoking story that kept a sense of wonder throughout the book. Certainly not a book for everyone but for people who love sci fi filled with ideas that stick long after the book is done, this surely is a book to read.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Ole Hippie
- 01-02-10
Not standard Sci-Fi fare ...
It's OK. There were certainly passages that made me stop and think, especially concerning the paths civilizations may take when it comes to war, self-destruction and so on. Lem must be brilliant but Fiasco seems to be mostly comprised of long expositions on these subjects and the story itself moves very slowly. And I really couldn't understand the ending at all. It just sort of fell off the cliff. All in all, it was worth it.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Tad A.
- 05-18-17
Sublime tale
Lem's wild and relentlessly logical imagination crafts a multi-layered tale of male desires probing and engaging nature. A delightful intellectual ride and a wise caution to grand ambitions combined with grand technical power.
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- Patrick Barney
- 08-18-19
interesting, but not as good as solaris
not a bad book at all really. fairly characteristic of lem. long passages that read like hard science, minimal characterization, extreme skepticism about interpersonal communication. just feels like he's only got this one note, though. you get essentially the same experience reading his other novels.
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- Vitaly
- 01-19-18
A true masterpiece
Lem at his finset. the novel is a pinaccle of Lem's literary talent. a must read for any fan of hard SciFi
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- Sally Jones
- 12-19-22
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong
Its a great book and an interesting take flipping the space invader narrative on its head and depicting the difficulties of interacting with extra terrestrials. it's one of the only sci-fi books I've ever read where Humans were the more advanced species.
The only problem I had is that Lem had a habit of inserting essays in his text. and you end up with 15 minute discussions on moral philosophy, or the fictional semeral technology. while he flys through the actual plot. it does make for good action though.
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- GREGORY
- 12-26-16
Sci-fi for the Hard of Core
This book is short on action but full of aha and hmm moments. In the form of a novel the author shares his thoughts and ideas about alien life and what an encounter with it look like as well as some ideas about advanced forms of artificial intelligence. The book uses scientific language and advanced concepts but it's not necessary to be familiar with them to follow the thoughts and get the ideas. If you ever wondered about what other forms of intelligence laws of nature can produce this is a book for you.
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4 people found this helpful
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- ely
- 03-26-10
Maybe it reads better than it listens
I decided to give up after I nearly fell asleep and drove off the road. This was during an endless and repetitive description of the rock formations Lem imagined to be on Saturn's moon Titan. I was already a bit sleepy from a 20-minute passage that served to convey little more than the fact that the main character put on a mech-suit.
Short vivid descriptions stimulate the imagination. These long repetitive descriptions stifled mine. If I had been reading the book instead of listening to it, I could have skimmed them or skipped ahead to the good stuff. The narrator is quite good, but I nonetheless recommend reading this book rather than listening to it.
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- justagirl
- 05-13-24
Did not enjoy this book
I had a really hard time staying focused on this book. I don't know if it's the long, boring passages or the narrator's relaxing voice, but I constantly found myself thinking about something else entirely. This book just couldn't keep my attention. The entire first chapter is basically irrelevant to the rest of the story. It does, unfortunately, set the stage for what the rest of the book will be like. He spends no less than an hour describing the character walking across a moon in a mech suit. That sounds fine in theory, but it's really nothing more than drawn-out descriptions of terrain mixed in with philosophical musings that I couldn't keep focused on. You could literally skip the first chapter and not miss anything important for the rest of the book. I keep seeing people online saying this is the author's best work, and that they thought it was so inspired and interesting. There are certainly some good ideas, but I had a difficult time getting over the truly awful choices the characters keep making once they arrive at their destination. These are supposed to be people from a unified planet, the smartest in their fields, and they just keep making one truly bad choice after another, with no real voice of reason to try to talk them down. They enact plans without any thought given to what might happen if something goes wrong or changes. They make huge leaps of logic and then act like they've thought things through. When it inevitably goes badly, they don't stop and think before the next bad decision, they just plow ahead, consequences be damned. It feels like the author keeps putting them in situations where they can either take a level-headed, thoughtful approach, or make assumptions and act immediately on them. They always do the latter. I just can't recommend this book.
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