SOURCE: “Two Faces of Stanislaw Lem: On His Master's Voice,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 13, Pt. 3, November, 1986, pp. 352–60.

In the following essay, Rodnianskaia examines Lem's literary approach and philosophical perspective in his novel His Master's Voice, particularly Lem's “philosophy of chance” and issues surrounding the role of scientific inquiry.

A collection of works by Stanislaw Lem has been published by Mir. In addition to the cycle of stories about the space travels of the navigator Pirx, already quite familiar to Soviet readers, the volume includes the novel His Master's Voice, one of this intelligent, sophisticated, and controversial writer's most complex works. It is on this novel of Lem's that I intend to focus, particularly on the argument it contains between the “poet” who firmly believes, in [Aleksandr] Blok's apt phrase, in “beginnings and ends to everything,” and the “anti-poet” convinced that “chance lies in wait for everyone.” In Lem's...