On the one hand – it is a gem. There are many brilliant ideas hidden inside its pages.
On the other hand it is not a good book in the traditional sense. The characters are under-developed. They have no past, no friends, no family. There are no women in this book!! There are no loves or hates and there is hardly any emotion. It is tough going at times and even towards the end there is no rush to keep reading late into the night to find out what happens.

So why rate it 5 stars? Because it’s interesting!
When I was 17, I read “Solaris” by the same author and it deeply affected me. In the decades since then, I have often thought about some of the ideas explored in it. I believe that Fiasco will be the same. Here are some of the ideas explored in this book,

1) Suppose a man is resurrected in some sense but could be one of two people or perhaps even a conglomeration of both. How would that effect his psyche? Would it affect his personality? Would he be one or the other at different times? The way this situation came about in the book reminded me of Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. However in the book the superposition of the two states was the two people the man could have been or his two pasts. While no one knew who was resurrected the man retained traits of both.

2) Suppose computer science had evolved so far as to allow for a completely natural conversation between man and machine. Suppose it was indistinguishable from a conversation between two humans. Would the man attribute feelings to the machine? Is it possible not to?
In the book, the main character has a conversation about his mental state with the computer and in his agitation, he erases the memory of all past conversations he had with the computer. Later he feels as though he had committed murder.

3) Looking at extra-terrestrial landscapes, can an object have a purpose without life behind it? Could “time” take the place of “thought” when creating an object with a purpose?
Must intelligent life be tied, at least initially, to mortality? Could intelligent beings be immortal?
Could they be so different from humans as to allow no contact between it and humans? Could the contact be so fraught with miscommunication as to lead to a catastrophe?

All of these and more are explored in this brilliant novel. I believe that a good writer could pick up even one of those and turn it into a spectacular novel. Lem is not a good writer but he is brilliant in other ways. His characters are cardboard cutout created to voice his philosophies. You cannot “root” for them or “like” them but reading those musings is where the book really shines.

I believe that even reading the first 80 or so pages of the book has a great payoff. You can read small portions at a time since it is pretty demanding. But the reward is worth it.”