Book review: Solaris

From The Movie Snob

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem (1961). I enjoyed both movie versions of this science-fiction novel by Lem. Both movies had a sort of dreamy 2001 feel about them, so I was a little surprised by how much strong the "techie" science-fiction trappings were in the novel. In the movies, there is very little description or depiction of the mysterious planet of Solaris, but in the book there are lots of expeditions to the planet surface, and there are lots of descriptions of the planet's surface features. But even in the book, the planet is essentially mysterious, and its most remarkable characteristic is the ability to scan human memories and create exact simulacra of people out of those memories. Weird stuff; I probably liked the Steven Soderbergh movie a little better.