Review: His master's voice
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsIn the messages-from-the-stars tradition of such as Hoyle's A for Andromeda and Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline: a fictional memoir, less a novel than an extended lecture, with Leto simultaneously at his thoughtfully provocative best and irritably didactic worst. Math professor Peter Hogarth, the formidably dry narrator, is called to Nevada's ""His Master's Voice"" project to help analyze a seemingly modulated burst of neutrino emissions from space. Surrounded by military paranoia and scientific jealousies, Hogarth demonstrates that HMV is indeed a message--but one from an ancient, highly advanced culture, addressed to civilizations developed far beyond Earth's, and involving the message's actual ability (via neutrino beam) to create primordial matter: one tiny message fragment, decoded, yields ""Frog Eggs,"" a pseudo-living jelly that sustains itself by means of nuclear reactions. But the message's real meaning remains a mystery. And Hogarth, convinced of the Senders' benevolence, reasons that the message must be designed so that primitive cultures like Earth's will be unable to misconstrue it and, out of ignorance or malice, create (as the Pentagon hopes) terrible new weapons--a faith that is shaken when further studies of Frog Eggs reveal just such a horrifying possibility. The rewards here are Lem's absorbing, profound analyses of the message--its purpose, its interpretation. The scientific-military-political struggles that accompany them, however, often come across as mere academic hectoring--sometimes incisive, often arbitrary or banal in the anti-West rhetoric. Complex, extremely demanding work altogether (originally published in Polish in 1968), only for alert and determined readers.
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Gendou - GoodreadsStanislaw Lem is a good author. But his science fiction reads more like philosophical fiction. There is some good particle physics stuff in this story, which I greatly appreciated. The writing style ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - [P] - GoodreadsReading-wise this is the final frontier for me [stop rolling your eyes], in that Sci-Fi lit is something that I have always avoided as though it were an embarrassingly drunk girl at a club. His Master ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Zack Hiwiller - GoodreadsI had a bit of a double-take when Goodreads said this was only 199 pages. It is so incredibly dense with philosophical asides that I could have sworn it was twice the length. Lem packs so much into ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Sandal Press - GoodreadsBeing a writer, I try to stay away from reviewing fiction, lest I give the impression of being biased or, even worse, spiteful. However, as Lem is unfortunately dead, I feel reasonably safe in penning ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Dan Keating - GoodreadsLet me start by saying that I've owned this book for around five or six years and have only just completed it. I've made several attempts over the years, the most recent of which involving swearing to ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Josh - GoodreadsThis is more of a thought experiment than a novel and if it deserves praise it's not because Lem is a master storyteller (though he can be) but because he's a truly innovative thinker. The characters ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Todd - GoodreadsLem's work brings us through a maze of scientific reasoning to a philosophical reflection on the human condition through an engaging story about a message to earth from an advanced civilization. My kind of book; ) Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Deva - GoodreadsI read this years ago and it is a little drier than I remembered--the "action" consists mostly of scientists advancing theories or else musing over the role of science in society. Basically, the ... Read full review
Review: His Master's Voice
User Review - Michael Harrel - GoodreadsStanislaw Lem is one of the greatest authors of science fiction and, though perhaps not as captivating as his other two novels dealing with the problem of extraterrestrial contact("Solaris" and ... Read full review
