SOURCE: “Of Games with the Universe: Preconceptions of Science in Stanislaw Lem's The Invincible,” in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer, 1994, pp. 324–42.

In the following essay, Swirski examines the fundamental epistemological concerns in Lem's fiction, as exemplified in The Invincible.

Even a general overview of Stanislaw Lem's fictions cannot fail to remark the extent to which his works reflect on the narrative and speculative premises which have gone into their making. Although it would not be easy or even necessarily possible to offer a tidy divisio of Lem's patterns of self-reflexive commentary, it is useful at least to identify its two principal elements. The twin mutually supporting tactics that dominate most of Lem's scientific fiction can be traced to the narrative and methodological, or, more generally, literary and speculative, specifics of the genre with which his name is synonymous.

The narrative self-awareness of Lem's fiction, prominent at all stages...