The Hilarious and Serious Teachings of Lem’s Robot Fables
The Hilarious and Serious Teachings of Lem’s Robot Fables
The Cyberiad
This chapter analyzes how Stanislaw Lem combines humour and science in one of his more popular but less studied collections, The Cyberiad. In keeping with the subtitle, Fables for the Cybernetic Age, the stories probe what it means to be human, as opposed to machine, and what sort of evolution the two kind of beings may face together. What makes The Cyberiad so enticing is its rich and seamless fusion of the fairy tale, fantasy (sword but no sorcery), scientific and philosophical discourse, and religious and bureaucratic rhetoric—all in the service of highlighting the abiding follies of our kind and our society.
Keywords: Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad, Fables for the Cybernetic Age, fairy tale, fantasy, humour
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