The Invincible Paperback – 27 Mar. 2017

NOTE: THIS REVIEW REVEALS SOME DETAILS OF THE PLOT, IN ITS DESCRIPTIONThe story begins in the void, with the mighty Earth ship Invincible - 18,000 tonnes of Class II Cruiser, and temporary home to a crew of 83 - having spent several long months travelling a parsec from its base in the constellation of Lyra. Journey's end is Regis III - an ageing planet, feebly lit by an equally aged and reddening sun; the crew's objective - to discover the fate that has befallen their sister ship, the Condor...From the outset, Regis III proves to be something of a baffling and contradictory world: the continents are deserts, seemingly devoid of life - and yet the atmosphere contains a sizeable proportion of methane, suggesting the presence of living organisms. But where are these organisms to be found - and where, exactly, is the Condor and its crew? Their investigations quickly provide some equally puzzling answers: in stark contrast to the harsh reality on land, where nothing appears to survive - not even the smallest microbe - the oceans, on the other hand, fairly teem with many varied yet strangely timid forms of life; and the Condor - well, that poor ship is located a couple of hundred miles away from where the Invincible has landed, but closer inspection shows it now to be hardly anything more than an abandoned hulk, with most of its 80 crew members long since dead...except for one grown man, seemingly as helpless as a newborn. Might their disastrous ending have something to do with the rusting metal bush-like ruins of what may once have been a thriving ancient city, or perhaps with the crumbling remains of almost impossibly venerable machines lying buried in the sand...? And what of the Invincible itself - is it safe, and can Commander Horpach and his crew protect their vessel from a similar catastrophe...?Told almost exclusively from the perspective of the Invincible's chief navigator Rohan, this shortish novel is an exciting read that builds and maintains a sense of tension right to the very last page. Written in the first half of the 1960s, it's a story that clearly embraces one of Stanislaw Lem's abiding themes in his fiction from that period - and a theme that, as preoccupations go, is perhaps not too difficult to understand from an author who was writing from behind the Iron Curtain during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Humankind's apparently boundless faith in the universal efficacy of its own technology (particularly, its weapons technology) - yielding a near unshakeable belief that the machines upon which we place so much reliance must always equip us to prevail against adversity, when in fact it's elementary human courage and resourcefulness that most often sees us through...that is, when we decide to offer them the chance to do so!So - without wishing to disclose too much more of the plot, it almost goes without saying that the basic premise of 'The Invincible' is thoroughly ingenious: that is an essential hallmark of Lem's writing, in general - but particularly so here, I think. Perhaps the manner in which the planet's nigh-indestructible swarming menace goes about incapacitating its victims is a little over-elaborate (being able to summon such incredible levels of unified power, wouldn't it have made far more sense for these entities to kill their chosen targets - either by frying their central nervous systems, stopping their hearts from beating, or simply tearing them limb from limb?); perhaps the spacecraft Invincible might have been better named 'Noah's Ark' - or maybe, 'Pandora's Box' - since it does appear to continually disgorge from its hold an unfeasibly large assortment of vehicles and robots of awe-inspiring power; there are certainly some similarities to the basic premise of the (earlier) 1956 film 'Forbidden Planet', as another reviewer has perceptively identified (an Earth ship travelling to a distant planet in order to investigate the disappearance of a previous expedition, but soon being forced to confront the formidable threat of a long-extinct alien civilisation's instrumentality...); and perhaps the characters - whilst being noticeably stronger-willed and determinedly more focused than their counterparts in 'Solaris', for example - are a little bit on the one-dimensional side, which is unfortunately one of Lem's perennial and most obvious weaknesses; but taken in the round, these are all rather minor considerations that shouldn't deter you in the slightest from reading what is - in my opinion - a magnificently compelling work of science fiction.If you purchase the Kindle edition, you will not only need to contend with Brian Johnston's Americanised (English) translation from the original Polish (spellings AND idiom, I'm afraid!), but also the now depressingly familiar and all too prevalent e-book typos! That said, I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending what is undoubtedly an absolute belter of a book!

This book really has it all, so far as science-fiction is concerned; it manages to handle themes on the nature of intelligent life, on eveolution, and on man's place in the universe, without being heavy-handed or didactic. Just enough of the ideas mixed in to the plot to ensure that the reader has the raw material for connecting these themes together, if they wish so to do. But at the same time, it manages to be a fast-paced sci-fi action thriller, with blasters and shields and aliens and missing rockcet ships, and indeed, it is possible to read it in that vein without considering any of the more thoughtful themes.

The Invincible has themes in common with Solaris - the otherness of what might be out there and our limited grasp on how different other life might be; a critique of the human urge to explore for the sake of domination and to needlessly put human interests ahead of those of other species.This is also a good adventure romp with guns and aliens etc. the works. For those who find Solaris to lack action, this will certainly not disappoint.

A cleverly-constructed scientific detective story with a message - as we explore the universe, we will encounter alien life forms which are so different from what we are used to that we may not even recognise them as being alive. This novel ought to be more well-known - very readable in this translation.

good

Taking what could be seen as perfunctory and academic and turning it into something intricate and exquisite. There are divergences from what a novel usually tries to be to investigate the limits of what both science-fiction, and ultimately mankind, can be.

A brilliant and disturbing science fiction novel. A spaceship from Earth, the Invincible, lands on a distant planet to investigate what happened to a previous mission. It discovers a mysterious and frankly terrifying situation: the middle section of the novel was not one I wanted to read immediately before going to sleep. Let’s just say that the title doesn’t just refer to the name of the ship.It’s hard to know how to say any more about this without heading into spoiler territory. I will try to avoid any outright spoilers in what I say, but if you think you might want to read this book – and you really should, it’s excellent – then stop reading this right now and go and read the book instead.The most immediate reading of this story is as a warning about uncontrolled technological development and environmental destruction. It’s this aspect that first prompted me to read the book.On a more profound level, though, it’s about how humans are led into poor decisions by our obsessions, first with ascribing agency to inanimate objects and forces, and second with assuming that everything has to be about us, that the true meaning and purpose of any phenomenon resides in how it relates to human beings. But as the central character observes towards the end of the story: "Not everything everywhere is for us."One of the additional pleasures of the book for the modern reader is the 50s/60s-era technology (the book was written in 1963). So while the fundamental technology is clearly highly futuristic – NAFAL travel, force fields, and so on – one also encounters computers using “ferromagnetic tapes”, black-and-white display screens, fluorescent tube lighting, and so on. Proper Atomic Age stuff: like a postwar, Communist bloc version of steampunk.