Futurological Congress, The

by Stanislaw Lem (1971)

5/10

The last third of this book could have been either its own novel, or just left as is and been a fantastic short story in its own right: a horrifying, Matrix-like dystopia where 30 billion humans are deceived into accepting misery through the use of aerosol chemicals which induce mass delusions. It is far and away the most compelling thing I’ve read in the entire Tichy and Pirx sagas, and would have been arguably up there among the greatest science-fiction short stories ever written.

Unfortunately, you’ll notice I said “last third,” and that’s because the first two thirds of the book are so… goddamn… boring and tedious to get through. It’s the same farcical nonsense that filled up most of the other Tichy and Pirx volumes, and whatever comedic value (essentially its only value) that it may have once possessed is either horribly outdated or has no effect on me whatsoever. For 2/3 of the book there is little plot, just setting, and no characters beyond the thinnest of cardboard cutouts (including the protagonist). It is basically a hallucinatory fever dream written almost stream-of-consciousness, and feels extremely masturbatory.

So yeah, while I can highly recommend Lem as an author, I can’t recommend any of these early frivolities. If you want to see where his real talent lies, check out his more serious novels (Solaris, The Invincible, Eden, Fiasco).