The Cyberiad

Fables for the Cybernetic Age

By: Stanislaw Lem

Narrated by: Scott Aiello

A brilliantly crafted collection of stories from celebrated science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem.

Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each other. Over the course of their adventures in The Cyberiad, they travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their unsuspecting employers.

Playfully written, and ranging from the prophetic to the surreal, these stories demonstrate Stanislaw Lem's vast talent and remarkable ability to blend meaning and magic into a wholly entertaining and captivating work.

©1974 The Continuum Publishing Corporation (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

It's Aesop's Fables for Robots

This is one sci-fi book I never, ever tire of reading and re-reading (or listening to in this case). Short stories, read and "acted" by the narrator with personality and verve, each with a hidden (or not so hidden) moral, word pun, math puzzle, or general exposé on the vagaries of human (and robot) folly.

Ingeniously humorous

Stanislaw Lem’s The Cyberiad is a collection of tales about two ‘constructors’ who are basically uber-engineers who seem capable of building almost anything. They always end up getting into some sort of trouble either due to their creations themselves or as a result of others trying to cheat them for their efforts. Their universe is organized along medieval lines with royalty running the show.

Lem offers a light-hearted, comical collection of tales that is full of belly laughs. In particular, while most individual names have a Latinized version, they are all created tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Under-neath the various plots, Lem provides critical commentary on cultural, social, and political affairs that merit the additional attribute of satire.

The narration is very good with solid character distinction. Pacing is smooth and a tad brisk.

I wanted to like this, I really did

I was recommended this book on reddit and unfortunately it fell short of my expectations. whilst I understand this is a book of fables, too often the story and the foibles of the author make this a hard read. oftentimes seems like the author just wants to monologue vs narrate

pros:
--some funny parts
--imaginative in odd, new ways

cons:
--lack of depth in the stories or characters, which leads to it being
--boring, for the most part
--settings are intergalactic yet feudal (like, what?)
--said settings are not really elaborated on (common in sci fi) bbuuutt then author proceeds to use technical and cybernetic jargon native to the setting without explaining it. context clues only help so much
--characters whom are presumably hyper intelligent fall into the same "trap" (i.e. king: make me something, character: without knowing payment? sure!---king then tries to kill them).

honestly wouldn't recommend

Top notch translation and narration

I'm a big fan of Staslaw Lem and have read The Cyberiad in two translations other than English. I first thought that listening to it in a language far from the original Polish will be a downhill experience as Lem's writing style often ties together linguistics and context [see the example below]. Boy, was I wrong! Once again I was captivated by this book as this translation feels as Lem as the other two and the narration style of Scott Aiello is just superb! Thank you for making this available.

[example]: In the first fable the machine that makes anything starting with "n" is asked to make, among other things, "nature". However, in the original it is asked to make "nauka" which translates from Polish as "science".

This is a great book!

I highly recommend this if you are a Lem fan. I really liked The Truth and Other Stories. This is intellectual, funny, and very human at its core. The narrator does a really good job.