Retorno de las estrellas

by Stanislaw Lem

Other authorsPilar Giralt Gorina, Jadwiga Maurizio

Paper Book, 1978

Status

Available

Call number

891.537

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Barcelona Bruguera 1978

Description

An astronaut returns to Earth after a ten-year mission and finds a society that he barely recognizes. Stanisław Lem's Return from the Stars recounts the experiences of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from an exploratory mission that lasted ten years--although because of time dilation, 127 years have passed on Earth. Bregg finds a society that he hardly recognizes, in which danger has been eradicated. Children are "betrizated" to remove all aggression and violence--a process that also removes all impulse to take risks and explore. The people of Earth view Bregg and his crew as "resuscitated Neanderthals," and pressure them to undergo betrization. Bregg has serious difficulty in navigating the new social mores. While Lem's depiction of a risk-free society is bleak, he does not portray Bregg and his fellow astronauts as heroes. Indeed, faced with no opposition to his aggression, Bregg behaves abominably. He is faced with a choice: leave Earth again and hope to return to a different society in several hundred years, or stay on Earth and learn to be content. With Return from the Stars, Lem shows the shifting boundaries between utopia and dystopia.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member clong

This was an interesting, thought-provoking, dare I say even intellectually stimulating book. It tells the tale of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from a dangerous 10 year trip to the stars to find that a couple of scientific discoveries have profoundly changed how man lives on Earth (where over

100 years have passed due to the time dilation effects of high speed space travel). The extended opening chapter that describes the overwhelmingly surreal experience of Bregg's initial return to the home planet is brilliant. One of the things I really liked about this book is that paints a picture of a future which is neither all black nor all white. Technology and science have indeed led to progress which has made people's lives better (in some ways even utopian), but this progress has come with real costs. The book also has some very interesting things to say about the practical limitations of high speed space exploration and why it might be worth doing anyway. The book bogs down a bit in the second half, and I felt that the extended storyline about Bregg's infatuation with a young married woman named Eri could have been better realized. Still I would rate this as one of Lem's more successful novels.

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LibraryThing member delta351

I briefly judged this book by it's cover, which is a man in a gorilla mask holding a hottie woman. I found the first chapter dreadfully boring, with endless descriptions of colorful arrival terminals in a spaceport. I thought about giving up on the book, but hoped Lem would come through. The

premise of the book is that space travelers return to earth ofter an absence of 130? years, and have to re-integrate to society. Much has changed, like the introduction of betrization which removes all violent impulses and unpredictability from society.
Along the line, our hero goes on vacation and coincidentally make a stop at an old robot factory. This definitely gave me memories of previous Lem masterpieces like Cyberiad. It also made me very suspicious that that Bregg's love interest was a robot. This did not prove to be true, but the romance has some strange twists. The backstory of the space journey was the best part of the book. The stages of astronaut training were interesting as well, and they include Ghost Palace, Wringer, and Coronation. These are different phases of isolation that must be survived to be certified as space worthy.

Overall I thought it was one of his better novels, though some part the flow of the story remains fuzzy.

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LibraryThing member sarcher

Less successful than many of Lem's works, but perhaps I'm setting too high a bar. Hal's return to earth and struggle to adapt is exceptional, but the culture he returns to is at the same measure too similar and too different from our own for me to understand how one came from the other.

LibraryThing member rottweilersmile

found this really hard to get into but really loved the idea. may revisit one day

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