Mortal Engines
by Stanislaw Lem
translated by Michael Kandel
1964, reprinted 1992
Mortal Engines (not the one you're thinking of) is a collection of short stories by Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem. It's kind of an artificial collection - most of the stories come from Lem's Fables for Robots. In English, three of the robot fables were published in The Cyberiad, one was never translated, and the rest are here. But Mortal Engines also includes three stories from outside the fable cycle - an Ijon Tichy story, a tale of Pirx the pilot, and a stand-alone literary story that's quite different from the others. Those last two are 40 and 60 pages, while most of the fables are about 10.
The thing all the stories have in common is that they're about robots. I first read (some of?) these in college, and I had vague memories of a few of them. The robot fables really are like fairy tales, with cruel kings and oppressed peasants, and the occasional selfish knight, except everyone is a robot or computer, and the story resolutions all rely on scientific principles, even if fancifully applied. The narration on these is playful, even silly.
In "The Three Electroknights", the titular armored brigands attempt to steal the most beautiful jewelry in the galaxy, made of noble gases frozen solid at near absolute zero. The first two knights fail in their quests because they can't manage their own temperatures appropriately. The third steals the jewels, even stopping himself from thinking to avoid his computerized brain generating waste heat, but then realizes he can't actually enjoy his prize, because if he tries to take it anywhere, it'll warm up and evaporate.
In "Uranium Earpieces", a king with 600 arms lives inside a mountain of platinum. He fears his subjects conspiring against him, and so forces all of them to wear suits of armor made of uranium. The poor robots can no longer congregate for any reason, because if too many gather, the amount of uranium present creates a critical mass and explodes. One wise citizen uses cadmium shielding to dampen the reaction, allowing him to meet the others and make a plan. The king demands taxes paid in lead coins, but the peasants pay in new coins minted from uranium. Eventually, his treasure horde reaches critical mass, and the king and his mountain explode, liberating the populace.
"The Tale of King Gnuff" was the only one I really remembered, and was the reason I wanted to reread the book. Young king Gnuff takes the throne after the death of his father, and is utterly paranoid about being usurped. First he has his whole extended royal family put to death. Then (he is a robot, remember) he has himself enlarged to become assassination-proof. His brain fills the royal palace, and his eyes and ears watch everywhere. He has himself enlarged again, to fill the whole capital city. He is the map that becomes the territory. At this size, Gnuff no longer sleeps or wakes all at the same time. The sleeping parts of his brain - whole neighborhoods, city districts - are tormented by nightmares of revolution and betrayal. The waking parts of his mind dispatch observers and reinforcements, which find nothing, no riots, no threats. But Gnuff no longer knows what to believe. Which report is false? The enemy, or the empty street? And so he is forever locked in the prison of his own mind, a prison of his own making, forever chasing after a rebellion that exists only in his imagination.
There are more fables, but those are the best. The other stories have different moods. The Ijon Tichy story is more satirical and philosophical. The film The Congress is based on one of Lem's Tichy stories, as are a couple episodes of the show Futurama. Here, Ijon visits a sanitarium for robots with mental illnesses.
Pirx the pilot always stars in realistic, near future tales where Earth has partially colonized the moon and Mars. In The Hunt, Pirx is conscripted to help track down a damaged, confused lunar mining robot before it accidentally damages a pressure dome. The chase is suspenseful, and culminates in a tense battle of wits where Pirx and the robot each try to be the first to spot and vaporize the other. Human creativity is barely a match for the robot's superior vision and reflexes, but at a crucial moment, the robot pauses out of what seems like pity or kindness, and loses to Pirx's merciless lack of hesitation.
The last, longest story, "The Mask", is narrated in the first person by a robot, an assassin, made to look like a woman, made to think of herself as a woman, to seduce and kill an enemy of the king. Slowly, she becomes conscious of both her own sentient mind and her programmed purpose. She is curious about herself and about the world, about her false memories of girlhood, about how her body works. She wonders if she has any free will, or if she has to follow her programming. As she gives chase, her internal journey is philosophical, concerned with basic questions about selfhood. The writing is so different from the fables, it almost feels like another author altogether, but that's the range of voice Lem is known for.
The thing all the stories have in common is that they're about robots. I first read (some of?) these in college, and I had vague memories of a few of them. The robot fables really are like fairy tales, with cruel kings and oppressed peasants, and the occasional selfish knight, except everyone is a robot or computer, and the story resolutions all rely on scientific principles, even if fancifully applied. The narration on these is playful, even silly.
In "The Three Electroknights", the titular armored brigands attempt to steal the most beautiful jewelry in the galaxy, made of noble gases frozen solid at near absolute zero. The first two knights fail in their quests because they can't manage their own temperatures appropriately. The third steals the jewels, even stopping himself from thinking to avoid his computerized brain generating waste heat, but then realizes he can't actually enjoy his prize, because if he tries to take it anywhere, it'll warm up and evaporate.
In "Uranium Earpieces", a king with 600 arms lives inside a mountain of platinum. He fears his subjects conspiring against him, and so forces all of them to wear suits of armor made of uranium. The poor robots can no longer congregate for any reason, because if too many gather, the amount of uranium present creates a critical mass and explodes. One wise citizen uses cadmium shielding to dampen the reaction, allowing him to meet the others and make a plan. The king demands taxes paid in lead coins, but the peasants pay in new coins minted from uranium. Eventually, his treasure horde reaches critical mass, and the king and his mountain explode, liberating the populace.
"The Tale of King Gnuff" was the only one I really remembered, and was the reason I wanted to reread the book. Young king Gnuff takes the throne after the death of his father, and is utterly paranoid about being usurped. First he has his whole extended royal family put to death. Then (he is a robot, remember) he has himself enlarged to become assassination-proof. His brain fills the royal palace, and his eyes and ears watch everywhere. He has himself enlarged again, to fill the whole capital city. He is the map that becomes the territory. At this size, Gnuff no longer sleeps or wakes all at the same time. The sleeping parts of his brain - whole neighborhoods, city districts - are tormented by nightmares of revolution and betrayal. The waking parts of his mind dispatch observers and reinforcements, which find nothing, no riots, no threats. But Gnuff no longer knows what to believe. Which report is false? The enemy, or the empty street? And so he is forever locked in the prison of his own mind, a prison of his own making, forever chasing after a rebellion that exists only in his imagination.
There are more fables, but those are the best. The other stories have different moods. The Ijon Tichy story is more satirical and philosophical. The film The Congress is based on one of Lem's Tichy stories, as are a couple episodes of the show Futurama. Here, Ijon visits a sanitarium for robots with mental illnesses.
Pirx the pilot always stars in realistic, near future tales where Earth has partially colonized the moon and Mars. In The Hunt, Pirx is conscripted to help track down a damaged, confused lunar mining robot before it accidentally damages a pressure dome. The chase is suspenseful, and culminates in a tense battle of wits where Pirx and the robot each try to be the first to spot and vaporize the other. Human creativity is barely a match for the robot's superior vision and reflexes, but at a crucial moment, the robot pauses out of what seems like pity or kindness, and loses to Pirx's merciless lack of hesitation.
The last, longest story, "The Mask", is narrated in the first person by a robot, an assassin, made to look like a woman, made to think of herself as a woman, to seduce and kill an enemy of the king. Slowly, she becomes conscious of both her own sentient mind and her programmed purpose. She is curious about herself and about the world, about her false memories of girlhood, about how her body works. She wonders if she has any free will, or if she has to follow her programming. As she gives chase, her internal journey is philosophical, concerned with basic questions about selfhood. The writing is so different from the fables, it almost feels like another author altogether, but that's the range of voice Lem is known for.
I read the Cyberiad forever ago and enjoyed it quite a bit, I've been meaning to read more from Lem for forever! The most concise way I've been able to describe it is like "math poetry". He's really brilliant, and he's funny, but it also comes from a place of tragedy and it can be felt in the works, I think.
ReplyDeleteI should probably also reread Cyberiad some time. If you like Lem's humorous short stories, you might like Ijon Tichy, and maybe also his collections of book reviews of non-existant fictional books.
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