Perfect Vacuum

斯塔尼斯瓦夫·莱姆 / 孙伟峰 / 赵刚Henan Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaMar 2022

Rating 4.5
Word count
129K words
Chapters
19
ISBN
9787555913054

Tags

Foreign Literature Philosophical ReflectionScience Fiction ClassicCosmic GameLiterary MastersThought ExperimentRational ReflectionSatirical StyleAlien CivilizationFuture ImaginationCross-Cultural View

Summary

Why have we never found aliens? Because we were found long ago. Forty years before The Three-Body Problem, this book reveals a deeper cosmic game. Humanity has gazed at the stars in solitude; among 250 billion suns, we have never found a single alien. Because they have been watching us from the dark all along. The universe is a vast chessboard, Earth merely a pawn; the advanced civilizations who are the players have long since taken their seats, monitoring the silent cosmos. Why must the universe stay silent? Why are we, the weak, still alive?

Lem has been called "the Borges of science fiction." He wrote reviews of sixteen books that do not exist, using absurd, satirical jokes to tackle humanity's real question—existence—on the border between science fiction and philosophy. Open The Perfect Vacuum, become an idiot, a philosopher, a madman, a god, and play a mind-bending game of thought!

Editor's review

Through sixteen reviews of books that do not exist, Lem turns the classic Fermi paradox question of "why the universe is silent" into an intellectual game. The book advances not by plot but by using the frame of fake reviews to contain philosophical speculation and absurd satire: readers shift perspectives among imagined authors—idiot, philosopher, madman, god—and experience the power of science fiction as thought experiment. Its value lies in breaking grand propositions into playable textual devices, letting readers reexamine humanity's place in the universe amid a bibliography where true and false are hard to tell apart. Best read slowly in a quiet setting; each piece stands alone, so you can pull out one, read it, and close the book to muse. Readers used to linear narrative need a little patience to enter its ironic tone.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. After each review, close the book and ask yourself: what is this "book" actually arguing against?
  2. Read in order or skip around; the pieces need not be continuous
  3. Keep a pen handy to mark passages that confuse you and compare them on rereading
  4. After several pieces, revisit the general preface to grasp Lem's purpose in setting up the frame

About the publisher

Henan Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1996

Founded in 1996, Henan Literature and Art Publishing House mainly publishes books on literature and art, social sciences and broadly cultural subjects, and also edits and publishes the journal Celebrity Biography, gradually forming a publishing style characterized by full-length historical novels and biographical literature. Judging from the 269 titles in the database, its publishing scope also covers mystery and detective fiction, foreign literature, classic works and world classics. Representative books include Ellery Queen's four tragedies, Slaughterhouse-Five, Blindness, The Siege of Lisbon, The History of the Siege of Lisbon, the ten-volume Collected Works of Wang Zengqi, Old Tales Retold and the two-volume Classic Short Stories of Stanisław Lem, the God of Science Fiction. In terms of authors, it includes foreign masters such as Kurt Vonnegut, José Saramago and Ellery Queen, as well as translators such as Yang Xi, Yu Jianhua and Fan Weixin.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 论杜撰
  3. 《完美的真空》
  4. 《鲁滨逊家族》
  5. 《吉伽美什》
  6. 《性爆发》
  7. 《小队长路易十六》
  8. 《一无所有，或曰后果》
  9. 《类启示录》
  10. 《白痴》
  11. “自制图书”
  12. 《伊塔卡的奥德修》
  13. 《你》
  14. 《生命股份有限公司》
  15. 《文化是错误》
  16. 《生命的不可能性》《预测的不可能性》
  17. 《恕不伺候》
  18. 《宇宙演化新论》
  19. 莱姆对人类社会和宇宙文明的深度思考——《完美的真空》中文版导读

FAQ

Can I read this directly if I haven't read Lem? Yes. The book consists of sixteen independent reviews with no continuous plot between them; any one can be entered on its own. But its pleasure lies in speculation and irony. If you rarely read this kind of writing, start with one or two short pieces to get used to the tone before deciding whether to read it all.
Are these reviews of books that actually exist? No. All the books reviewed here are invented by Lem, including authors, titles, and contents. Readers need not search for the originals; treat each piece as an independent thought experiment and focus on the questions it raises and how it argues.
Why is it said to relate to the Fermi paradox? Several pieces revolve around "why the universe is silent," imagining a situation in which humanity has long been observed by a more advanced civilization without knowing it. Lem thus turns the Fermi paradox from an astronomical question into a philosophical and ethical one. Notice how different pieces give contradictory answers from different angles.
Is it suitable as an introduction to science fiction? Not really. It lacks the adventure plots and character development of traditional science fiction and is closer to essayistic speculation. To get familiar with Lem, start with works that have complete storylines, then return to this book for its stylistic experiments.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

斯塔尼斯瓦夫·莱姆 Author

Stanisław Lem is a science fiction author included in this Chinese book database; confirmed public information about his nationality, birth and death years is limited, so no exact details can be added here. The database currently holds four of his works: The Futurological Congress, The Science Fiction God Lem's Classic Short Stories (2 volumes), Lem's Rhapsodies, and A Perfect Vacuum, commonly classified under science fiction, classic works, and foreign literature. These titles suggest that Lem's writing often unfolds through imagined conferences, short-story collections, rhapsodic narratives, and fictional reviews, focusing on thought experiments and visions of future society, with a style that combines satire, philosophical reflection, and formal experimentation, giving him a distinctive place in science fiction and making his work suitable for readers interested in classic science fiction and foreign literature.

孙伟峰 Author · Chinese

Sun Weifeng is a lecturer in Polish at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He graduated from the Faculty of Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw and focuses on Polish language and literature. As a translator, he has worked on the Chinese rendering of Polish literature, translating works such as Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and Perfect Vacuum, and participating in the translation of the two-volume collection of classic short stories by Stanisław Lem. His translations fall mainly under classic works and foreign literature, spanning science fiction and fiction and reflecting a grasp of different facets of Polish literature. Public information about him is limited, and little is known about his life, but his existing translations show sustained engagement with Polish literary translation and offer Chinese readers useful versions of Polish literature.

赵刚 Author

Public information about Zhao Gang is limited, and details of his life remain unclear. Judging only from the seventeen works included in the library, however, his reading and editorial interests are notably broad. He has paid attention to foreign poetry, especially the translation of Milosz's middle and late verse, while also engaging with Lem's science-fiction stories and a speculative novel such as The Perfect Vacuum. In academic and intellectual history he extends to the late-imperial shift from learning of principle to evidential scholarship, and touches on classical works such as Dream of the Red Chamber. He has also compiled books on Chinese-English translation techniques and addressed management topics such as the digital-intelligent transformation of organizations. Spanning literature, history, and management, his works commonly fall under classical poetry, classic works, foreign literature, and history reading, reflecting an eclectic editorial taste.