The Star Diaries – Crazily Imaginative Short Stories from the Masterful Sci-fi Satirist

“…..Notwithstanding all the hardship and pain it had occasioned me, I was glad of the outcome, since it restored my faith, shaken by corrupt cosmic officeholders, in the natural decency of electronic brains. Yes, it’s comforting to know when you think about it, that only man can be a bastard.”

Polish author Stanislaw Lem is best known for his philosophical first-contact story Solaris (1961). But Mr. Lem proved himself to be more than an utterly serious author of sci-fi (think, Arthur C. Clarke) through his satirical and profound stories, following the cosmic (mis)adventures of Ijon Tichy (the elaborately constructed puns also reminds us of Kurt Vonnegut’s works). The Star Diaries, Lem’s most substantial work(translated by Michael Kandel and published in English in 1976), is the first collection of short stories featuring the obstinate, 23^rd century space explorer, whose intergalactic trips in his rundown rocket brilliantly satirizes society, technology, and human condition (strongly recommended for ‘Rick and Morty’ fans). The book sets up its central conceit in the two separate introductions: that it’s an incomplete recollection of Ijon Tichy’s travels. The diary is allegedly edited by Tarantoga, a professor of Astrozoology and connoisseur of ‘Tichology’. He apologizes for the incompleteness of the diary entries chronicling Tichy’s voyages. This comic introduction perfectly foretells the wacky, free-wheeling tone of each upcoming parables.

On why the diary entries start with seventh voyage and some of the voyages are entirely missing, Tichy says, “…some of the journeys took place in space, and some in time, therefore there can never be a first; you could always go back to when there were none and set out somewhere; then the one that had been first would become the second, and so on, ad infinitum!” Moreover, this specific ordering of the stories in the expanded edition was not done according to the order in which they were written (Lem deliberately concealed the chronological order of his writing). Hence, we can find certain shift in the tone of Tichy’s subsequent adventures, i.e., in Lem’s writing, as he veers from goofy anecdotal stories to satires on Stalinism to profound ruminations on human nature. Lem opens the book with a playful time-travel story, where Tichy’s spaceship travels through a series of time vortices, leading to the creation of multiple copies of himself. However in the book’s biggest story (‘The Twenty-first Voyage’), featuring the oppressed robot monks of a planet called Dichotica, the zippy feel is wholly replaced by somber and deep discussions on religion and faith (“The vision of heaven as a bank account and hell as a debtor’s prison represents a momentary aberration in the history of the faith. Theodicy is not a course in sophistry to train defenders of the Good Lord, and faith doesn’t mean telling people that everything will work out in the end”, contemplates a transhuman prior).

Elsewhere, Lem sharply satirizes Stalinism in couple of stories – The Eleventh and Thirteenth Voyages. In one story, Tichy sets out to the planet of Circia that’s governed by a rogue computer and populated by human-hating robots. In the other story, Tichy lands on the planets of Pinta and Panta which is following the principles of Master Oh, the greatest sage in all of Cosmos. In Pinta, people are desperately trying to live underwater, whereas in Panta, the government has taken extreme measures to abolish individuality. Both these stories amply refer to paranoia, conformity, and persecutions in the Stalinist era (“The upshot was... that what was to be controlled, controlled us”.) The Eighth and the exhaustively detailed Twentieth voyage poke fun at human nature. The Twentieth Voyage of Tichy happens to be another time-travel yarn, in which the explorer is appointed as the chief of a secret programme that’s engaged in amending Earth and human history. Of course, the staggering human mistakes ruins everything, causing Tichy to exile the programme’s violators like Homer, Bosch, Leonardo da Vinci to different centuries in the past, who having ‘deprived of the opportunity to create real things, gave vent to their frustrations in vicarious, sublimated work’.

Lem expertly interleaves weighty stories with playful ones. For instance, the tale of Dichotica civilization is followed up with darkly humorous account of troubles faced by a priest evangelizing extraterrestrial civilizations. Then there’s the tale of a sentient spaceship-attacking 'potatoes' and the description about inhabitants of a tiny planet who economize living space by frequently reducing themselves to 'atomic dust'. What I find interesting about Lem’s perception of human follies is that he doesn’t present a decidedly dystopian vision, but a seemingly utopian vision to meditate on human limitations. Be it the evolution by ‘persuasion’ in the planet of Pinta or Dichoticans achieving corporeal and mental plasticity, Lem envisions how intelligent beings screw up things. In one case, a semblance of utopia is reached as the power structure cruelly twists people's perception of their surroundings, and in the other case, people despite having unbridled access to science & technology to self-enhance themselves (in myriad ways) still feel entrapped. Through these weirdly inventive creations, Lem pushes us to constantly think about the limits of freedom and nature of individuality, and for which parallels could be found in our own history. Overall, The Star Diaries is an alternatively joyful and thought-provoking collection of sci-fi short stories which ponders over humanity through truly bizarre concoctions.

 

Lilith’s Brood –A Thought-Provoking Alien-Intervention Story

“Intelligence is relatively new to life on Earth, but your hierarchical tendencies are ancient.”

Lilith’s Brood (earlier referred to as ‘Xenogenesis’) was the trilogy of science fiction novels written by Octavia E. Butler, one of the very few African-American female writers of sci-fi. The books (published between 1987 and 1989) is set in a world ravaged by nuclear holocaust and the survivors of human species are abducted by the grotesque, tentacled, and slightly humanoid alien higher beings known as Oankali. The first book Dawn unfolds from the perspective of a young black woman named Lilith Iyapo. She is awakened 250 years after the nuclear holocaust on an enormous ship orbiting earth. Over the years, in brief sessions (that lasts over few days to few months), Lilith’s behavioral patterns were scrutinized by her captors and now she is deemed fit for the ‘task’ at hand.

Lilith is initially revolted by the English-speaking Oankalis’ visage and bizarre physicality, but she gets used to them during her stay with the alien family. Dawn is obviously the most intense book in the trilogy, since we stumble upon this strange new world populated with mysterious sentient beings. The Oankali possesses natural-born talent for genetic engineering. They had already genetically modified Lilith to free her body from the cancer cells (furthermore, her ageing is lessened and healing powers are stepped-up). Another unique aspect of Oankali is their family unit, which consists of a male, female, and a third gender called as ‘Ooloi’. Oolois are sexless, whose job is to accept genetic materials from the parents, add its own, and then impregnate the female. Oankali receive sexual pleasure only through their Ooloi whose sensory tentacles serve this purpose (among other complex fuctions). While the Oankali on the whole are a race of natural healers and gene modifiers, the oolois are specifically trained for these things and are pivotal to search the cosmos for continuing their tradition of making successful ‘trades’.

Lilith Iyapo is told that she has been chosen, trained and genetically modified in order to awaken other humans (first batch of 40 English-speaking members) so that they all can return to earth. Yes, the Oankali promises to restore earth, but there’s a catch (to make it sound less threatening, the aliens call it ‘a trade’): the new Earth will only be home to the Oankali-Human hybrid race (the oolois would replace the touch-based sexual proclivities of human race with their own ways). The new children, born to five parents (male-female Oankalis, male-female humans, and a ooloi) will inherit the earth until the time the hybrid species makes their own voyage into space to forge fresh ‘trades’. There’s an added benefit to this the Oankali says, i.e., the humans’ destructive impulses and hierarchical tendencies would be ‘cured’ (“We will moderate your hierarchical problems and you will lessen our physical limitations”, says a ooloi to Lilith). And let's not forget that the new humans and their offsprings will live for a long period (without any fear of terminal diseases).

Although Lilith makes friends with a young ooloi named Nikanj and her adoptive Oankali family, she is conflicted by what she sees as a betrayal to humanity. She feels the only possible way to free themselves from the Oankali is to break away from them, the instance they are set on earth to colonize. As she fears, Lilith is considered the ‘Judas’ by surviving human race and she’s never able to distance herself from oankali and ooloi mates. The humans who get away from the aliens live in different small to medium-sized colonies and are known as ‘resisters’. Since all of these ‘resisters’ come from the space ship, the Oankali has genetically modified them for a prolonged life. However, they have also seen to it that the humans are sterilized, making the complex three-way genetic exchange(via an ooloi) the only choice of reproduction.

The 2^nd book in the trilogy, Adulthood Rites, tells the story of Lilith’s first-born male ‘construct’ – the term for Oankali-Human hybrids. He is named Akin, who is mostly human. Akin is kidnapped and sold to a ‘resister’ village. He grows up understanding his human side and speaks for human-rights which the Oankali has so far dismissed dispassionately. The third book, Imago follows Jodahs, also Lilith’s child who becomes the first ‘construct’ Ooloi. Adulthood Rites and Imago certainly lacks the complexity (and feels boringly repetitive). Moreover, the 2^nd& 3^rd book offers us characters that are so distant and uninteresting when compared with Lilith (and her deeply conflicted stance).

Octavia Butler

Lilith’s Brood chiefly excels in the characterizations of oankali and human race. The oankali has perfectly understood the fundamental flaw in humanity: its predisposition to hierarchy. Despite intelligence, this tendency leads humans to create divisions and set up limits for ‘normalcy’ amongst themselves. Anyone, who falls outside the limits or obscure the divisions receives punishment and gets ostracized. The oankali puts forth inter-breeding as the only way to eradicate this human ‘problem’. On the outset, oankalis are benevolent, they never believe in violence, and are also environmentally responsible. So the aliens might change humanity for better, right? Nevertheless, like Lilith we feel conflicted in seeing these higher intelligent beings as saviors. For one, oankalis’ violation of human race reflects the worst of human behaviors in history: internment camps, colonialism, slavery, etc. Despite calling their society egalitarian, a form of hierarchy exists between the three genders within the family unit. Oankalis certainly don’t lie, but they withhold significant information from humans (that are as devastating as lies). Eventually, the most distressing aspect of oankali is their forced interbreeding techniques (the coercion and manipulation of Lilith is particularly fury-inducing). Of course, the humans of post-apocalyptic world don’t prove wrong the alien species’ discourse. The resisters live in small, scattered groups, and continue to threaten each other with violence and rape. Within few decades, they make guns and men trade materials to gain female sex-slaves. Autonomy seems limited within both species although the oankali promises transformation for better (which human race can’t).

Apart from avoiding simple characterizations (of both human and alien race), Lilith’s Brood is fascinating to read because of its spellbinding meditations on race, sexuality and gendered identity. A lot of analysis has seen oankali as the allegorical representation of the 'benevolent' masters of new world who owned slaves without remorse (some have compared the extra-terrestrial interference with cultural appropriation that’s rampant in the era of globalization). The fear over genetic manipulation is yet another significant theme that permeates the story. Octavia Butler’s writing is definitely adequate and engaging even if readers are less inclined to make allegorical readings. Dawn pretty much comes across as a body horror with Lilith slowly coming to terms with the oankalis’ gift for gene trading and particularly oolois’ role in reproduction. Interestingly, Butler cleverly leaves out feelings of titillation in her descriptions of inter-species sex. The idea of human-oankali interbreeding perhaps remains the most grimly fascinating aspect of Lilith’s brood, which thankfully doesn’t leave us with images of sleazy, uninventive images of tentacle-sex. The novels may also sound pessimistic and misanthropic, but you can surely find rays of hope. Even though Butler doesn’t provide a clear-cut resolution, she does hint at the possibility of affirmative transformation in humans. And the supreme gene-traders are also changed by their contact with humans. Overall, Lilith’s Brood talks of a new humanity in the future, which as Butler posits doesn’t need to have ‘alien’ origins, but can naturally arise from our predilection to examine and metamorphose the human genome.

Eden – The Follies and Obscurities of Human-Alien Contact

Polish author Stanislaw Lem is an expert when it comes to writing stories about human space explorers stumbling upon alien worlds and cultures. The inherent human urge to anthropomorphize an alien civilization and the absolutely unbridgeable gap between human and extraterrestrial intelligence (in terms of technical, biological, cultural, etc) is a recurrent theme in Mr. Lem’s works. Eden (published in Polish in 1959 and translated to English in 1989) was the first of the author’s novels to explore the subject of first contact, a theme scrutinized more in his following works, Solaris (1961), The Invincible (1964), and Fiasco (1986). These travelogue plus cautionary tales (set in bizarre alien worlds) largely works due to Lem’s deeply perceptive nature to envision human condition from an outsider’s perspective. Of course, like many of East European and Soviet Union sci-fi writers of the time, Lem’s highly imaginative premise imparted profound social criticism on Stalinist regime and the Iron Curtain.

Eden starts off like a typical SF expedition story with six members of a spaceship, crash-landing on an Earth-like planet, of course named ‘Eden’. All the six men are identified only by their titles: the Captain, the Engineer, the Doctor, the Cyberneticist, the Chemist, and the Physicist (occasionally the Engineer is called by his real name Henry; the meaning of providing name only to Engineer remains inscrutable). Lem’s expertise doesn’t exist in creating character-driven stories, but in place of it he includes strong ideas and theories. Similarly, the six men of Eden are prescribed a certain personality: the Captain being a stern leader, the Doctor exhibiting empathy, the Cyberneticist preoccupied by his defective robots, etc. They remain as ciphers throughout to carry the author’s grave insights about the first-contact. Nevertheless, the profound strangeness swirling in the 'Edenite' atmosphere keeps the characters and readers on the edge.

The spaceship is badly damaged and it would take few weeks to repair it. Previously, only a probe has been sent to the planet. So the crew decides to use the accident to explore the planet which has a breathable earth-like atmosphere, and if possible seek help from the local intelligent alien species. The ship has crash-landed in a knoll that’s situated at the center of a desertscape. In the subsequent days and weeks, the six men go on an expedition in four directions and stumble upon eerie, incomprehensible things. The foremost odd thing they come across is the planet’s vegetation: giant calyxes; spider-like veins; blossoms that takes flight like butterflies. Then they happen upon a broken-down bio-mechanical factory, which manufactures complex, unfathomable products. Odder still are the planet’s intelligent species, called by the six as ‘Doublers’ (since it consist of two symbiotic life-forms). Mass graves, weird skeletons inside glass jars, pits with deformed alien corpses, disk-shaped flying things, taped footage of every-day alien life, Lem’s concoction of the ‘doubler’ society retains an unsettling, harrowing tone.

An illustration of alien called as 'Doubler' [Pic courtesy: Deviant art -- https://www.deviantart.com/spaceexplorer/art/Eden-tribute-to-Stanislaw-Lem-367363511]

 Eden is definitely not one of Lem’s masterpieces. It lacks the deeply philosophical tone of Solaris or Fiasco and far removed from the playfully satiric tone, found in Ijon Tichy stories (a fictional space voyager encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in cosmos). It isn’t also hard science-fiction like The Invincible. Nevertheless, Eden contains a lot of strangely terrifying scenarios to warrant a read. Moreover, this isn’t an escapist fantasy or space opera with human kind joining hands with alien race to establish brotherhood across cosmos. Lem doesn’t indulge with gratuitous violence, although he keeps alive the fear of unknown. While some of the chapters dealing with the ship’s repair are slow-moving and tedious, there are quite a few spine-chilling situations scattered throughout the expedition. One intriguing confrontation between humans and the alien ‘doublers’ happens at the planet’s metropolis of sorts. The characters’ discovery of the alien structures that leads to feelings of terror and confusion was similar in tone to the ‘discovery’ in Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness.

The last few chapters are equally brilliant and disturbing. The chapters where the men eventually establish a communication of sorts with the astronomer 'doubler' is absolutely riveting and demonstrates why Lem is a gifted sci-fi master. The story of anonymity, oppression, censorship, biological experimentation, and internment pieced through the clumsy mode of communication established with the Doubler stays grimly fascinating (possesses certain parallels from modern human history). Lem also contemplates the ethical issues of imposing values and interpretations on situations humans can’t understand (“…these are beings with a physiology, psychology, and history different from ours. You can’t transplant a model of our civilization here…”, the Captain remarks). Furthermore, the author makes a valid argument against the naivety of humankind with dreams of interfering upon the culture & politics of intelligent alien civilization (an allusion to Fermi Paradox and the concept of otherness). Altogether, Eden isn’t a great SF novel, but definitely worth reading to experience Stanislaw Lem’s mesmerizing excursion through strangely captivating milieus and life-forms.