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RYO Review: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Packed into his landing module and jettisoned from an interstellar spacecraft, Kris Kelvin heads towards Solaris. Solaris is a watery planet that has been under Earth’s observation for over a century. The consensus opinion holds that the ocean covering its surface is a single intelligent life form, but any detail of its nature or of the possibility of human communication with it has remained open to question. Over the past decade or so, interest in the planet has cooled among all but the most dedicated or obsessed Solarisists. The observation post on the planet was designed to house dozens of scientists. Kelvin will add a fourth to the three that are currently on board.
Kelvin lands on a strangely desolate facility. Even the robots are inactive. His one friend among the scientists on board has committed suicide. The others he believes are possibly insane. And they are not alone. A caricature of an African tribal woman stalks the hallways and the living scientists appear to hide living beings in their quarters. I associate Stanislaw Lem with the brainy comedy of his short fiction, but the opening chapters of Solaris are as unnerving as any horror novel I have ever read.
