I've got an...odd relationship with how I came to trying out the science fiction works of Polish author Stanislaw Lem. I first became aware of Solaris, principally its two most notable film adaptations from 1972 (Russian, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky) and 2002 (American, directed by Steven Soderbergh). I didn't really get the story through these adaptations. I then found out about a video game called The Invincible, which was apparently an adaptation of Lem's novel of the same name. Having gone through it and now reading the book, it's more of a prequel but the ideas seemed fun. It wasn't until I heard some of an audiobook reading that featured a new translation directly from the Polish that I got it. Then when I learned that The Invincible had a translation by the same person (Bill Johnston), I decided to keep an eye out for it. And eventually, I got a copy.
The premise of The Invincible is fairly simple. The titular ship is sent to investigate the fate of its sibling ship Condor on Regis III, a planet with land dominated by ice and deserts while the ocean is teaming with life. As the crew land and investigate, they find increasingly disturbing signs of something existing on the planet that not only doomed the Condor, but has destroyed all life on land. The unfolding story, told principally through the perspective of the Invincible's navigator Rohan, is by turns fascinating and terrifying.
Fair warning for anyone going into this; The Invincible is HARD science fiction. It likes to explain itself, and grounds itself within the probable. It's also written from a collectivist cultural perspective that is noticeably different from other notable sci-fi works from the time. While Rohan emerges as the 'lead', the omniscient narration focuses far more on the crew as a body. It's also in an older style of writing where you get vast blocks of text and run-on sentences that detail events and paint scenes. That's not to say there aren't many effective moments; exploring the Condor, discovering an unknown structure, the deployment of a large automated weapon, and Rohan's final exploration beyond the ship. It is also a book of its time in that there are no women on board. At all. Zip. Nil. Nada.
Part of the reason I went for this edition and this translator specifically is that his translation of Solaris is really good, and his work shows here too. Johnston worked on the translation in collaboration with Lem's family, and it is the first direct-from-Polish translation as previous versions were translated via German. From my limited experience with Sapkowski's Witcher series, Polish is a tricky language to translate from; while the first two Witcher titles from one translator were eminently readable, all the rest from another are extremely clunky and put me off the entire series. If the Solaris translation had been similarly clunky, I'd have avoided The Invincible. But it isn't.Both Solaris and The Invincible have really good translations that make what are very technically dense books into engaging reads.
Lem's work isn't easily digested or adapted, because he approaches familiar sci-fi concepts (facing the unknown, the limits of humanity) from an unfamiliar angle. I now see why the adaptations of his work don't land; they all miss a key point. The height of human rationalism can appear childish before something that refuses to conform to our anthropomorphic view of reality. But UNLIKE a lot of modern fiction that takes this approach and adds soap opera levels of stupidity and drama, Lem continues to tackle the issue with cold rationalism. The mystery of Regis III is a subject of horror, but also a thought experiment where the participants of the book approach it with rationality and caution, all while their limited view of the world is violently challenged.
This book, specifically this version of the book, is a must-read for any sci-fi fan. Yes, it's of its time in characters and aspects of its representation, and some paragraphs are a slog to get through. But otherwise it's a brilliant exploration of human contact with something truly alien.
8.9/10
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