Stanislav Lem died

[Skybird]

Learned about that just today. A Fasciunating author of Science Fiction, critical in his views on the present, the future that may derive from the present, and finally the egenre of Science fiction itself. His novels "Solaris" and "Eden" have left their impression in my mind, "especially Solaris" which was turned into an excellent movie by Andrej Tarkowski - a work whose complexity and philosophical depth the new film by Soderborg (with George Clooney) never was able to rival with (but taken for itself, and visually, it was okay, just too shallow)

On of his last interviews, in German, sorry:
http://www.heise.de/bin/tp/issue/r4/dl-artikel2.cgi?artikelnr=2048&mode=print

[Polak]

He was a great Pole, may he rest in peace. :(

[StdDev]

Solaris is a great book! It probably describes the most likely events of human beings encountering a truly alien entity.
RIP Stanislav

[Polak]

Small corrections to the names>

Stanisław Lem
Andrzej Tarkowski

Sorry that I'm so anal about it, but the names sound so russian when misspelled.

;)

[Skybird]

Tarkowski WAS a Russian. He got kicked out of the USSR, for not being Soviet enough, though.

[Polak]

Okey, didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out.

Andrei Tarkovsky - Russian spelling
Andrzej Tarkowski - Polish spelling

[TLAM Strike]

Technically he was Ukrainian, from Lviv ("Lwów" to the Poles). :lol:

Wiki Bio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem)

[Polak]

Lwów was Polish before the war and before the ********ng Yalta Convention. It was there that Churchill and Roosevelt sold us away to Stalin.

Lwów was once a great prosperous Polish city, many famous Polish intellectuals studied in that city. Before the war Lwów was the cultural centrum of Poland. The city is also famous for the Lwów Eaglets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lw%C3%B3w_Eaglets), they where Polish child soldiers that defended the city druing the Polish-Ukranian war (1918-1919). After the defence of the Lwów Eaglets the city was decorated with the Virtuti Militari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuti_Militari), which is Poland's highest military decoration. It is also the worlds oldest still existing military decoration. Lwów is a city which will allways have a special place in our hearts...

A funny thing is that when I read "TLAM Strike"s post and started writing this one, I was llistening to a Polish song about Lwów. :)

[CCIP]

Great man, that's all I can say. :(

[Torpedo Fodder]

This is a surprise to me: I thought he died years ago... :-?

In any case, Rest In Peace...