Lem's book about humanity's attempt at contacting extra terrestrial life is a fantastic meditation on mankind's own limitations. The opening of this book is one of my all time favorites for a science fiction book and Lem perfectly sets up the rest of the novel. His hard sci fi approach and technical but efficient prose creates a book that is full of wonderful space age imagery populated by a cast of scientists and astronauts from all walks of life. Lem has a keen grasp of drama and catharsis and this book is a thoroughly enjoyable story, very hard to put down

‘Fiasco’, or ‘The Ethics of, and Problems with, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ as I like to think of it, has rocketed up to be quite easily one of my all time favourite SciFi novels. My goodness what a book!I have recently become entirely enamoured with the works of the great Polish SciFi master Stanislaw Lem and can’t quite believe how incredibly philosophical they are.Fiasco was Lem’s penultimate novel and seemingly his most critical tuck into humankind’s lust for the colonialisation of the stars and the inherent issues and dangers of ‘contact’ with alien life forms. The book is a pretty thinly veiled critique of the Cold War mentality of Mutually Assured Destruction and human instincts of suspicion, fear and paranoia but he really does hit the nail on the head regarding the sheer absurdity of it all.It would perhaps by no means be the first Lem novel I would recommend to people due to its density but by god it is a book every SciFi lover should make time to read at some point. Good grief though what a gem of a book! Hungry for more of Lem’s work, as ever.