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    The Invincible
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    The Invincible
    Unavailable
    The Invincible
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Invincible

    Written by Stanislaw Lem

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Invincible is a classic science fiction thriller by the author of Solaris-for the first time translated directly from the original. A starship from Earth is challenged by a mysterious hostile intelligence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    TranslatorBill Johnston
    Release dateFeb 27, 2018
    ISBN9781541488694
    Unavailable
    The Invincible
    Author

    Stanislaw Lem

    Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) was the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he was a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and the author of numerous works, including Solaris.

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    Reviews for The Invincible

    4.5/5

    55 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      In Solaris Lem used the alien encounter scenario common to science fiction literature as a way to explore the human condition. As such, it's one of my favorites. The Invincible doesn't reach such dizzying heights, but it isn't really trying to. Instead it's Lem shooting for enjoyable pulp science fiction and hitting the mark.

      This book is also the story of man interacting with an alien presence on a foreign world. Unlike in Solaris, the other entity isn't presented as truly alien in the sense of being unknowable, instead the other entity at work in The Invincible is eventually "solved" by the crew of experts that come to investigate after the first ship to explore the planet goes silent. Such a solution seems to arise from some analytical leaps that strains credulity, and certain aspects of the entities never come into full focus (the main character's immunity, for example). These are not significant quibbles, I just mention them to throw some light on the difference in approach between this work and Solaris.

      Eventually The Invincible becomes a book about what in essence is a man versus nature adventure story, and it explores the motivations and mindsets of the people that crew interstellar spaceships a bit. It's fun, but nothing particularly special.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wow! What a gem this book turned out to be! Absolutely grade A science fiction.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic sci-fi book, great voice. Will recommend all my friends
    • 5/5
      Super Satisfying Classic Hard Science Fiction.
      Thrilling account of a mystery on an unknown planet.
    • 4/5
      This is the second novel of Lam's I have listened to, the other being Solaris. This seems to explore further the conflict between human individuality and the collectivity or hive mind consciousness in the planets the humans explore and it releases so much to chew on with the mind. Once again, Lem writes engagingly and the translation is quite enjoyable. The narration, as well, is excellent.
    • 1/5
      Pretty dry and more observational than insightful. Very little description of character and excessive description of mechanical aspects. I guess that's a risk with sci-fi. Had potential, but couldn't keep my focus.

      It was one of those books that make you appreciate paragraph breaks. They do make a difference in the rhythm of a book. Many times, I thought, wow what a difference a couple para breaks would make! When I start editing a book that means I'm not into it, but my mind wandered a lot before I came to that realization.
    • 5/5
      Was impressed with this story since I had read it as a kid. The narration is very good. The story is rich in details, so listening to it is like watching a movie. If not for mentions of “microfilms” and “slide rules” you wouldn’t guess it was written in 1960s.
    • 5/5
      It's an amazing story. I loved every bit of it, except that it has to end. I've re-discovered an author.
    • 5/5
      A true classic of hard SF. Very well translated and read with panache.
    • 2/5
      "I absolutely hated the first half of this book, but it was partially redeemed by the second half. The first part of the book is a Manly Adventure Story about a ship that lands on an alien planet in order to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a previous ship in the region. An inimical situation makes it very clear that it would be better to just leave, but stubbornness, bravado and machismo mean that they stay. However, the second part of the book makes it very clear that much of the idiocy and arrogance of the characters at the beginning was intentional, on the author's part, and to make a point ABOUT man's idiocy and arrogance... but it was still very flawed.
      A lot of it just didn't make sense. I had a hard time believing, for example, that if manned space flight to other planets was achieved, that technology would be unable to do something like analyze a planet's atmospheric content from within the spaceship, without going outside with no protective gear, holding a manual gadget. I also don't think that, no matter how cooped up a crew was feeling, that they would want to go outside (unprotected) into a totally untested alien environment, knowing that another crew had never returned from the same place...
      What I also felt was a flaw is that, although this IS a book about Men, there is no acknowledgment anywhere in the book that females even EXIST, which was just weird.
      However, I'm going to give the book a free pass on the language and writing style, because the translation was just awful - the phrasing was consistently awkward, and there were definitely examples of the wrong word completely being used - like "Alarmed" instead of "Alerted." A note at the front of the book says that this edition was translated from German. The book was written in Polish. Why one would translate from a translation is a little mystifying to me, and after this literary game of 'telephone' I really can't say even if what I read resembled the original story much at all!

      I'll remain open to giving another of Lem's books a try!

      1 person found this helpful