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A review by orange_eating_class
His Master's Voice by Stanisław Lem
5.0
"With sufficient imagination a man could write a whole series of versions of his life; it would form a union of sets in which the facts would be the only elements in common."
The idea of the individual as a microcosm of society or even the universe as a whole is a very old one. It is an idea that Stanislaw Lem regularly explored in his fiction, insofar as his writing exhibits a fairly radical Socratic ignorance concerning our ability to understand the nature of the self (as seen in the above quote from the preface to this book), alien intellects, and nature. His Master's Voice is probably the ultimate expression of Lem's skepticism. The novel is about Cold War-era scientists attempting to make sense of what appears to indisputably be an interstellar message from alien beings. Numerous plausible interpretations of the message and the senders' intent are put forward, most of them plausible, but none even remotely definitive. Indeed, the only thing that would appear to be certain is an utter disregard or at best despairing acceptance by these scientists of the use to which the knowledge derived from the message might be put. With the United States and USSR already locked in a standoff with the nuclear weapons developed using 20th Century science's previous revolutions, the greatest priority in decoding the alien senders' message is in its military applications. It's depressing, but also more realistic than the vast majority of science fiction which treats the misuse of science as an aberration of a morally pure (or at least morally neutral) pursuit, rather than as an enterprise which has historically been centered on aiding the powerful in their conquests. His Master's Voice is, additionally, a deeply philosophical book, but also a more nakedly human novel than any of the other works I've read by Lem, and as such, it probably deserves to stand as his masterpiece even above the likes of Solaris. It has become an instant favorite of mine, and I suspect I will repeatedly return to it in the future.
The idea of the individual as a microcosm of society or even the universe as a whole is a very old one. It is an idea that Stanislaw Lem regularly explored in his fiction, insofar as his writing exhibits a fairly radical Socratic ignorance concerning our ability to understand the nature of the self (as seen in the above quote from the preface to this book), alien intellects, and nature. His Master's Voice is probably the ultimate expression of Lem's skepticism. The novel is about Cold War-era scientists attempting to make sense of what appears to indisputably be an interstellar message from alien beings. Numerous plausible interpretations of the message and the senders' intent are put forward, most of them plausible, but none even remotely definitive. Indeed, the only thing that would appear to be certain is an utter disregard or at best despairing acceptance by these scientists of the use to which the knowledge derived from the message might be put. With the United States and USSR already locked in a standoff with the nuclear weapons developed using 20th Century science's previous revolutions, the greatest priority in decoding the alien senders' message is in its military applications. It's depressing, but also more realistic than the vast majority of science fiction which treats the misuse of science as an aberration of a morally pure (or at least morally neutral) pursuit, rather than as an enterprise which has historically been centered on aiding the powerful in their conquests. His Master's Voice is, additionally, a deeply philosophical book, but also a more nakedly human novel than any of the other works I've read by Lem, and as such, it probably deserves to stand as his masterpiece even above the likes of Solaris. It has become an instant favorite of mine, and I suspect I will repeatedly return to it in the future.