Holy smokes I just read maybe the best #SciFi short story ever. Written in 1959 by Stanislaw Lem, "The Friend" (newly translated into English) seamlessly moves from human to AI narration and back in a dizzying, psychedelic explosion of language, imagery, and metaphor that breaks all narrative convention and feels a century ahead of its time.
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@aram Stanisław Lem is one of my favourite authors, and I feel he deserves way more attention these days – his short stories and novels are eerily relevant today I think.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@aram Stanisław Lem is one of my favourite authors, and I feel he deserves way more attention these days – his short stories and novels are eerily relevant today I think.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@rysiek @aram My all time favorite is, How the World was Saved. https://archive.org/details/howtheworldwassaved #StanislawLem
@rysiek thanks! Yeah I was a massive Lem fan in middle school, starting when I first discovered a paperback of "The Star Diaries" in my laundry room. But I hadn't read him for decades until these newly translated stories were published this year.
> Yeah I was a massive Lem fan in middle school
That tracks! I think Lem has a peculiar way of generating a certain type of approach to technology in a reader, one that centers the human experience and demands empathy, regardless of all the technological riff-raff.
> Yeah I was a massive Lem fan in middle school
That tracks! I think Lem has a peculiar way of generating a certain type of approach to technology in a reader, one that centers the human experience and demands empathy, regardless of all the technological riff-raff.