Mortal Engines

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book from One of the Greatest Writers of Our Time!!!
Review: Buy this book! And any book of Stanislaw Lem's you can get your hands on as well. He speaks of the human condition in his own unique way. His landscapes are vast, and his characters are more human than we know. Beautiful!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but not the best Lem.
Review: Stanislaw Lem is one of my favorite writers and this book is a lot of fun to read, but it isn't the best Lem book (not all of his books can be 5 star masterpieces). Read Cyberiad first (if you like short, interesting and funny tales) since this book seems a little like left-overs in comparison.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed Machines That We Are...
Review: The Fairy Tale aspect of these tales may seem tiresome at first, but as you chew into these stories you discover that the annoyance is intentional and satirical. We are flawed, and often silly, machines; flailing about in a universe devoid of meaning and purpose. If anything, get this book for the stories "The Mask" and "The Hunt"; they are Lem's Finest.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars are not enough!
Review: This is surely one of the greatest collections of 'linked short-stories' ever written -- it matches Calvino's COSMICOMICS and Borges' LABYRINTHS. Lem is a total genius. A writer of playful little fables that are also philosophically profound (and logically consistent). This book is a brilliant companion to Lem's THE CYBERIAD, with which it shares many themes and ideas. Lem has a beautiful style: he can make engineering terms sound poetic. His rigorously modern metaphors are as original as those of J.G. Ballard, but more varied and lyrical. For Lem, the Periodic Table is an unwritten poem. This book is the final and true ode, and each line is a fantastic, fabulous, incredible story. I give this book 200,000,000 stars. And that's only because I'm not feeling so generous today. It probably deserves A GOOGOLPLEX (1 to the power of 100 raised to the power of 1 to the power of 100) of stars. At least.