In Fiasco, Stanislaw Lem contemplates the chances for survival of humanity.

He uses the death of an alien civilization to symbolize the self-destructive potential latent in our own society. It is no accident that the planet Quinta, to which Earth's scientists travel, is in the end mercilessly blown out of the sky by their super-weapons. Noble proclamations of professional neutrality aside, the Earth's emissaries allow themselves to be drawn into the local war, and in the process become military dictators whose technological superiority makes them disregard the wishes of the Quintans. In this tragic novel Lem cautions that an accidental disturbance in the socio-military equilibrium can lead to destruction on a planetary scale, whether Quintan or our own.

In Fiasco, Lem gives voice to his anxiety not in terms of abstract moral or ethical axioms, but by relating them to the immediate reality of the social...