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The Futurological Congress

From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy

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The Futurological Congress

By: Stanislaw Lem
Narrated by: David Marantz
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Summary

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure.

©1974 The Continuum Publishing Corporation (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Science Fiction Fiction Witty
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Feeling unsure if you're hallucinating, then coming back to reality only to wonder if this may have been part of the hallucination. -this is a feeling Lem pushes to its limits.

It's a short read, but it's really a big, 4 hour concept piece almost as good as Solaris, but funnier.

A whirlwind of hallucination and uncertainty

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What an amazing book. The futurological use of language is a joy and I'm sure I missed half of the psychedelic drug aptonyms. I probably need a sniff of lingorememberall gas. The stark dystopian future of a veneer of drug induced normality that avoids even seeing, let alone dealing with, the truth of life has a darkly appealing mirror of today's slide into shallow celebrity. Is it all a dream, or does he wake up in the future? I love the image of doped up half robot people getting absolutely knackered climbing up a lift shaft, believing they are actually just standing in an elevator ... is brilliant!

Linguistically Psychedelic

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Unfortunately, I don't seem to get on with satirical farce. Lots of interesting ideas, all of which were stuffed into a short book instead of giving them the time that they needed to be explained properly. I enjoyed some of the humourous elements, but the winding, repetitive story arc just annoyed me after a while and from there on on I was lost on the books many ideas.

Good performance of a satirical farce.

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