Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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It is faith wrapped in the cloak of science. Contact is as vague and obscure as communion with the saints or the coming of the Messiah.

Solaris by Stanisław Lem

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You are doing all you can to stay human in an inhuman situation. Noble it may be, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere. And I’m not so sure about it being noble – not if it’s idiotic at the same time. ― Stanisław Lem, Solaris It’s what we wanted: contact with another civilization. We have it, this contact! Our own monstrous ugliness, our own buffoonery and shame, magnified as if it was under a microscope! ― Stanisław Lem, Solaris Kelvin is finally on […]

The Evolution of Man (and Machine)

Golem XIV by Stanislaw Lem

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A series of supercomputers has been developed by the Pentagon to aid with warfare, culminating in the creation of GOLEM XIV and HONEST ANNIE. They, however, have started to further evolve on their own, which along the way caused them to lose interest in fulfilling their original purpose. While HONEST ANNIE has entirely ceased to communicate with her creators and has apparently become more powerful than anyone could have imagined, GOLEM XIV has turned to philosophical issues and gives lectures to human audiences. All this […]

On day Turl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n.

The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem

Guys and Dolls by Damon Runyan

Wind/Pinball 1973 by Haruki Murakami

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

The Blood of Elves by Andrej Sapkowski

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

Flatland by Edwin Abbott

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George Higgins

Laughing in the Hills by Bill Barich

Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney

The Prince by Niccola Machiavelli

Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas

The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschmeier

How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

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The Cyberiad – 3/5 Stars This is a collection of short stories by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. Although it’s a collection, it’s more a series of linked stories almost in the form of a novel. If you’ve read a Stanislaw Lem novel, and I think this is my third, you’ll recognize a cognizant effort to question reality, but also the conventions of science fiction in general. Some of his novels like Solaris are highly metaphysical in nature, while authors, like Pirx the Pilot are […]

“It has been said that a specialist is a barbarian whose ignorance is not well-rounded.”

His Master's Voice by Stanislaw Lem

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When a neutrino beam with a possible message from an advanced civilization is discovered, scientists from many different fields try to decode the letter from the stars. Impeded by political and military interests, and limited by their own narrow-mindedness and hubris, they struggle to make sense of the transmission and to gain any useful knowledge from it. This is a deeply philosophical book, and Lem’s reasoning is absolutely sound. Since it is told from the viewpoint of one of the leading scientists, a mathematician, it […]



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