Stanislaw Lem: Solaris

Solaris, a planet whose surface is nearly all covered by a huge ocean. An ocean which turns out to be a sentient living thing. So the only living thing in the sphere is the sphere itself, or more exactly, its ocean.

During the century gone by since the planet was discovered, Solaristics, the Science of the conscious ocean, has developped strongly, and influenced all fields of human culture. Literature, poetry, arts, philosophy. Solaris is everywhere, haunting the human mind.

A scientific station is in orbit around the planet, over the mysterious, omnipresent ocean, to study it. Something strange is starting to happen among the three crew members. Kelvin, a Solaris expert and a psychologist, comes all the way from Earth to see what is going on. Also, to determine if keeping up the station is worth the effort...Communication attempts with the ocean seem a no go.

An experiment has recently been set up. Bombarding the ocean with radiation, and see if it responds. It does eventually. And the response is the weirdest imaginable.

Solaris digs up the minds of the Station scientists, manipulating their memories, hopes, fears. Out of that emotional material, Solaris is capable of creating human beings in full. Psychological stuff, ghosts from the past of the human visitors, are then incarnated into people who appear before them. Kelvin will receive the visit of his wife, dead ten years ago.

Lem´s novel is an investigation on the human condition, true. Nothing new there. But with a powerful and conditioning frame: science and technology, the enormous potential of the vast Universe and, first of all, the unbelievable being that confronts Earth creatures and their nature.

Solaris, 1961. Stanislaw Lem
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