Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

20 All Time Classic Sci Fi Novels - His Master's Voice

Reviews
 

A highly recommended exploration of genuine alienness. Incommunicable, unfathomable, the kind of encounter that refuses to conform to the frameworks and paradigms that we attempt to enforce. Plot-wise, Lem focuses mainly on the isolated scholarly reflections of Peter Hogarth as he joins The Master's Voice project, set up to decipher a message not of this world.

We get to explore scientific politics and rivalries, potted histories of the project that verge on the Borgesian and a series of intellectual puzzles rendered more thrilling than you would imagine. Lem's true gift is to convey all this without the heavy-handed indulgence of quasi-scientific terms and over-wrought discussions of quantum physics. As a result, the unique alien intelligence not only remains potent today, but is perhaps even more compelling in comparison with the cliched ideas of the alien that currently abound.

If there is a complaint, it is that the unsettling psychological quality which Lem conveys so well is stronger and better-plotted in his best known work 'Solaris'. But this is all well worth your time and attention. It is only a pity that more of Lem's works are not available in contemporary editions. He is woefully under-appreciated.
Pablo K

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'His Master's Voice' explores the limitations of our understanding of the universe in a similar way to the author's most famous book, 'Solaris'. It is also a savage satire on the politicisation of scientific exploration, and the tendency of human beings to spend more time on working out how to destroy each other than on developing their knowledge.

It's a dense, brilliant book told from the point of view of a scientist who has worked on a project to decipher a message from space, which is thought to be a 'letter' from a faraway civilisation. The scientists trying to decipher the letter meet with limited success, but one of the experiments they make produces a reaction that could be used to make a deadly new weapon. Predictably, the authorities soon decide that developing this weapon is now their top priority...

Every sentence in this book is packed with meaning and demands to be read slowly and carefully. 'His Master's Voice' is a difficult read, but it is always fascinating and is never boring. The idea that man is often too preoccupied with politics and short-term expediency to extend his knowledge of the universe is not a new one, but this book explores it in great detail and with such a savage satirical effectiveness that it feels new and fresh even today.
-meaulnes-

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This is an insightful and provoking book, whose theme goes hand in hand with many of the greatest Russian SF works. Unlike his Western contempories, who mostly speculated about the unending future acheivements of man, Lem wrote about our fundemental limits, particularly in understanding the universe, and other people. In some ways, it bears a resemblence to the "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky (sp?) brothers.

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This book needs desperately to be reprinted. Though not as overtly humorous as many of Lem's other books, or as other scientific satires (Arrowsmith, The Black Cloud), it is nonetheless supreme in its genre. Its humor resides in the blindness of its characters; only one person in the book recognizes this, and his commentary probes concepts that are as disturbing as those revealed by Galileo and Darwin. Namely, that human intellect has fundamental limitations, and is more than likely to be utterly unable to comprehend the product of truly alien intelligence. Lem explores these themes in other books as well, but in not nearly as robust a manner.

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If you're familiar with Lem, you know he can dash off deep insights as asides. Now imagine his intellect focused on what it means to be human trying to understand the universe. A masterpiece.

This is not his best science fiction (Fiasco gets that honor) nor his most revealing psychological work (ironically that's Cyberiad). It doesn't explore technology to the greatest extent (try the Golem lectures). However, it may stand as simply the most important work of fiction of the information age.

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