'Hello' from... Warsaw, Poland.

Vramin, my... eee... whatever ;-) encouraged me during this year's summer holidays to read Sprawl Series. Long ago I stopped reading science-fiction at all - when cyberpunk literalry blow up and then started to be published in "Fantastyka" Monthly (in those times it had the biggest edition of sci-fi magazines in the world). I did not like cyber, soon it started to be too mechanical and completely unhumanised. I add that personal computers (ZX Spectrum mostly) were rare thing in Poland.
But after years I'm partly back :-) I've read Sprawl series twice. Now, I'm going to buy Bridge Trilogy. I would say, what Vramin usually says about William Gibson's books, but I think he would like to do it by himself. So, I'll wait... Thank you, Mr Gibson. Thank you, Vramin.

S. Lem rules!
I wonder what he thought of the american film version of Solaris?

Just read an article in last months Wired and he didn't sound all that concerned about it. Or at least, he didn't sound like he expected to be impressed. Here's a link to the article. To quote the article:

quote:

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Lem, now 81 and living in Krakow, is skeptical. "If the Americans turn my novel into something bizarre, I won't be very much surprised," he tells me.
...
Hollywood's Solaris has the muscle to pack theaters - but Lem's expectations are no higher this time around. "I had doubts about whether I should sell the rights for Solaris in the US," Lem says. "But at a certain point I said to myself: 'I am old; I shall refrain from always saying no.' Now it's past the point of no return, and there is nothing I can do about it."
Lem may be dubious, but his American fans are hopeful. With Soderbergh's picture, the science fiction genius may finally get the recognition he deserves.

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Too bad that's not the way it happened. I heard the movie tanked.

If your not outraged, you're not paying attention!

Interesting to see Lem didn't care for Tarkovsky's extraordinarily lauded adaptation.

Let's be honest here, who's managed to get through the Tarkovsky film without nodding off at least once?

One of my favorite science fiction books is one that was passed on to me by a friend who taught in Russia for several years; it's a book of short stories written in the 50s by Eastern European sci fi writers, translated by a socialist group in the UK. Since very little seems to have come across other than Lem's, it's fascinating to see how their take on the future was so radically different. There is no manifest destiny in reaching out to the stars; the cosmonauts tend to be cerebral, reflctive, and self sacrificing rather than steel jawed and triumphant.