Tuesday, 28th of March, 2006

Sad news: Stanislaw Lem has died, aged 84. His science fiction, which was hugely philosophical, was a great inspiration to me in my school years, and I’ve been collecting second-hand editions of his various fictions recently.
His Cyberiad, bits of which were used by Hofstadter & Dennett in their mind-blowing collection of philosophy texts and short stories The Mind’s Eye, was no doubt one of the works which helped push me towards cognitive science (not that I ended up working in that area), and also gave me an idea of the power of science fiction (and how much fun can be had on the way).
Meanwhile, anyone who loves the sortof meta- and intertextual games Jorge Luis Borges played would love Lem’s reviews of, and introductions to, imaginary books.

He hadn’t written science fiction for many years (since the dissolution of Eastern-bloc communism apparently) but his legacy is huge. Chris Lawson has a beautiful obit post at his newly-minted Talking Squid group blog, which I recommend sticking on your blogroll post haste.

Comments are closed.