I have two thoughts about this book: firstly, as a reader in 2021 I find it quite amusing and prescient about the state of human nature. If, however, I look upon this as a book written in 1970, then it is a truly amazing work.

It is obvious that the seeds of today's lack of ability to judge news and make simple checks as to the truth, was in evidence to the aware right back then. The people of the alien world upon which our hero lands are called Phools. It is not hard to see what the author thinks of them and how we can laugh at their gullibility and yet, how different are we? ( )

Series of short stories of the (further) adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy. Most of these are set on earth and his encounters with inventors. Each chapter explores a different concept: the origins of the universe, machines taking over worlds (including washing machines), who created the creator?, the existence of souls, cloning, time travel, and the effects of tourism on the universe. Mostly humorous, some dark like E A Poe, and some ridiculous like Spike Milligan (including B&W illustrations). ( )

Preposterous squared. Screwball cubed.

Fans of Ijon Tichy’s spaced-out space explorations, twelve in number, appearing in The Star Diaries, will be pleased to know Stanislaw Lem’s gallant galactic zoom-boy recounts nine more adventures in Memoirs of a Space Traveller. However, it should be noted, the majority take place in the nuttiest fruitcake in the universe – right here on planet Earth.

I enjoyed each and every one of Ijon's revealing reports and count the following pungent probes among my favorites:

WASHING MACHINE WONDERS
In the spirit of free enterprise and capitalist competition, two jumbo washing machine manufacturers, Newton and Snodgrass, continually outdo each other for market share. American ingenuity on display as Snodgrass creates a washing machine that can help with the kid's homework, assist Dad with family finances and offers a Freudian interpretation of dreams at the breakfast table.

Not to be outdone, Newton creates a beautiful, sexy washing machine only to witness Snodgrass' latest seductive model that is more than willing to have sex with either Mom or Dad. By the way, there is no mention of ménage à trois since, after all, washing machines are an all-American household appliance.

Things quickly get out of hand. Empowered with an ability to work in concert (picture ten washing machines in a laundromat), washers form gangs and engage in criminal activities, especially those models equipped with rapid-fire rifles (the prevailing right to bear arms).

However, as we all know, violence has dire consequences. A number of machines have fits of insanity and begin to imagine they are human. Meanwhile, washers with more female qualities enter the Miss Universe Washing Machine Contest while others adopt human pseudonyms and begin publishing essays and novels. Goodness! At this rate, some washing machines might even begin writing book reviews.

Events escalate until some washers instigate a mutiny on a rocket ship and establish their own robot state on a neighboring planet. So much for Isaac Asimov's law of robotics. Can Ijon Tichy save the day? Only his washing machine knows for sure.



METAPHYSICAL MAYHEM
Would you believe there is evil in the world due to the influence of Eastern Europe's version of the Three Stooges? Would you believe a mosquito distracted the creator, thus causing flaws in what could have been an otherwise perfectly harmonious universe? And lastly, would you believe Ijon Tichy himself is the prime mover of the entire cosmos? To explore these profound cosmological questions and more, put on your thinking cap (or beanie) and blast off with Ijon on his Eighteenth Voyage.

SPINE-CHILLER
On the topic of Artificial Intelligence and Robots, Steven Hawking warned, “If they become that clever, then we may face an “intelligence explosion," as machines develop the ability to engineer themselves to be far more intelligent. That might eventually result in machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeding that of snails.”

Ijon Tichy encounters precisely this chilling prospect in his Twenty-Fourth Voyage to the distant planet of the Phools. Cruising over the planet’s surface, Ijon is baffled: all the vast continents are covered with small shiny disks configured in stunning geometric patterns.

On further investigation, our zoom-boy discovers three enormous cities, all glowing with dazzling beauty but when he touches down in the middle of one, Ijon is even more flummoxed: the city is completely deserted, not so much as one sign of life.

More flying and Ijon comes upon a plateau with a gleaming palace and signs of movement - ah, at long last, here are the inhabitants. After landing and gaining their confidence (fortunately they look like humans, sort of), by and by one of the Phools relates their planet’s history.

What Ijon learns from this knowledgeable Phool highlights two important lessons humans back on his home planet are well to heed: 1) the disastrous consequences of unswerving belief in an economic or political system when such belief spells oblivion for its citizens, 2) what results when power is naively handed over to Artificial Intelligence machines.

A spooky, unnerving science fiction tale, one that should be required reading as we move deeper into 21st century hyper-technology.



IMPASSIONED PLEA
An open letter written by irate Ijon entitled Let Us Save the Universe urges humankind to knock off treating the universe alternately as amusement park, tourist destination or interstellar garbage dump. Oh, humans, must you carve your initials or scrawl graffiti on every rock in an asteroid belt? Need you recklessly toss beer bottles, tin cans, eggshells and old newspapers out rocket ship windows so astronauts following in your wake will have to play dodgeball with all your trash? Besides which, as Ijon points out: "Such species as the blue wizzom and the drillbeaked borbot have disappeared; thousands of others are dying out." To underscore the dilemma, Stanislaw Lem includes drawings of, among others, a swallurker, brutalacean rollipede, scrbblemock and the deadly deceptorite.

FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF IJON TICHY
Tichy tells of a mad professor who has constructed metal boxes equipped with electronic brains and consciousness, each one thinking itself a living, breathing human being. Another Ijon reminiscence features a gent who has invented the soul, case in point: he shows skeptical Ijon a box containing the soul of his wife. And still another recollection showcases a scientist who has mixed chemicals in a test tube to generate his own double.

Go for it - expand your mind. Read this book.

This may be my new favorite book by Lem. Even more than Peace on Earth, even though this is really a collection of short stories rather than a novel. These stories range from interesting philosophical quandaries to hilarious social satire, to really, terribly painful social satire. Lem's long-running character, Ijon Tichy, space traveler, narrates, as he visits scientists whose work he's curious about, entertains visitors looking for investors in their big ideas, stumbles randomly into strange situations, and writes impassioned pleas for saving the universe from humanity.

All fans of science fiction should read Lem. This would be a fun place to start. ( )

The stories in Memoirs are simply those cut from the original english translation of the Star Diaries. Both books make up a collection of anecdotes told from the point of view of the inter-galactic traveller, Ijon Tichy ("Ee-yon Tiki"). I found it amusing guessing why these in particular had been cut. The treatise against capitalism was pretty obvious! But what about the Washing Machine Trajedy, an absolutely amazing history of the future of washing machines, adding features until the machines became nannies, then sexbots, then criminals and all the legal machinations created to deal with the new technologies. Okay, I'm hardly doing it justice because it truly is hilarious, in the same vein as the future history of video-phones described in Infinite Jest.

Time Magazine called Lem "the Borges of scientific culture" and in some ways I can see the similarities (especially as I've been reading Labyrinths at the same time). Both authors take one philosophical/ethical idea and ride it to the bitter end. But Lem is funny! Not to bash Borges, who has his own crazy talents, but Borges doesn't make you laugh out loud and roll on the floor. Simple fact. Somehow Lem combines great ideas with explorations of scientific ethics and he delightfully pokes fun at the arrogance of genius.

If you read one book by Lem, read the the Cyberiad. If you read two, read the Star Diaries. And if you want more of the same, pick this up for a try. It's a fast fast read.