November 14, 2021 • 33 mins
In this episode, we look at Lem’s reputation abroad. He was obviously known as a serious science fiction writer, and his books have been translated into over 50 languages. At the same time, Stanisław Lem did not enjoy the fame and celebrityhood a lot of his western contemporaries did.
To understand how Lem was received outside of Poland during his times of writing and afterwards, we hear from with Bruce Sterling - a well-known American science fiction writer who is also considered one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk movement. Bruce has reflected a lot on the role of Lem in the genre of science fiction and has followed Lem throughout the years.
More about Bruce Sterling: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/bruce_sterling
Host: Adam Reichardt
To understand how Lem was received outside of Poland during his times of writing and afterwards, we hear from with Bruce Sterling - a well-known American science fiction writer who is also considered one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk movement. Bruce has reflected a lot on the role of Lem in the genre of science fiction and has followed Lem throughout the years.
More about Bruce Sterling: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/bruce_sterling
Host: Adam Reichardt
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to a special podcast series titleExploring Polar Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prepared
and produced by Talk Eastern Europe.This limited podcast series is being conducted in
conjunction with the Year of Stani sUAVLem twenty twenty one, a special commemoration
being held in Poland. Throughout thisseries, we will discover, together with
(00:24):
experts and writers, the impact thatStani sUAV Lem has had in Poland and
abroad. We will learn more aboutLem's story, his philosophy, and some
controversies Along the way. We willalso look at contemporary literature and bring to
light some new Polish authors following inLem's footsteps. We invite you to join
us on this journey exploring polar sciencefiction and fantasy. Welcome to another episode
(01:00):
of Exploring Polish science Fiction and Fantasyand one hundred years of Stany swav Lem.
In this episode, we look atLem's reputation abroad. He was obviously
known as a serious science fiction writerand his books have been translated into fifty
languages. At the same time,Stani swoav Lem did not enjoy the fame
and celebrityhood a lot of his Westerncontemporary stid To understand how Lem was received
(01:23):
outside of Poland during his times ofwriting, and after we catch up with
Bruce Sterling, a well known Americanscience fiction writer who was also considered one
of the founding fathers of the cyberpunkmovement. Bruce has reflected a lot on
the role of Lem in the genreof science fiction and has followed Lem throughout
the years. I start by askingBruce what was Lem's reputation outside of Poland?
(01:46):
How was he understood and received abroadas a writer of science fiction.
Oh, well, you know,there, Poland is a pretty large publishing
country. People don't understand that itspopulation is as big as France and that
(02:08):
it can actually afford to have professionalscience fiction writers, you know, and
it's quite difficult to be a fulltime science fiction writer, you know,
and really sort of like knuckle downand do it as a professional when you're
working for a really small minority language. So Lim was kind of fortunate in
(02:31):
the sense that he wrote in Polishand he had a relatively friendly reception inside
his own country under very difficult politicalcircumstances. But you know, like a
lot of other European countries of middlingsize, it's hard to be really famous
(02:53):
in Poland unless you're somehow famous outsidePoland, and that's not true of France.
And France you could be really famousand the French just think you're great,
but in other countries like Italy,you really have to make a reputation
with somebody else before the people athome will take you seriously. And I
(03:14):
think Liam kind of suffered that.You know, he was an ambitious writer,
and he was very he was wellorganized, and he was prolific,
and once he decided that he wantedto be, you know, a novelist
writer, essayist, rather than beinga scientist or a medical guy or you
know, encyclopedist or whatever else,whatever else attempted him, he was.
(03:38):
He was ambitious and he did.He did far better outside Poland than any
Polish sci fi writer to date.I mean, there's the guy who wrote
those medieval things, and recently there'sthe guy who wrote the the Netflix series.
(03:59):
Okay, so you know, thisguy is hitting a new level of
global fame that was denied to Limbbecause the Internet didn't exist. So it's
just a different media world than itwas during the Cold War. So you
know, Limb should have been morefamous than he was because he was actually
(04:19):
one of the most talented science fictionwriters ever, and he had a lot
of science fiction writer virtues, buthe also had a number of strikes against
him in that he was inside theWarsaw packed and he was writing in a
relatively obscure language that not a lotof translators could do justice though, and
(04:42):
so you know, his career isquite the epic struggle. Really, I
asked Bruce if he had any directexperience with Polish science fiction and if he
ever met Stanny Swift Flim. Youknow, I never did, but I
have been to Poland, so Iwas at the Polish National Science Convention in
Lublin some years back. So Iwas eager to talk to them. So
(05:03):
of course I said, Stanislav Lim, you guys must be mighty proud.
Well, I've read so many ofhis books. I'm quite the Limb devotee.
And I was surprised to see theirfaces fall. Bruce wasn't exactly sure
what year this was, but laterwe determined it was most likely in the
mid nineteen eighties, when Lem wasliving abroad. You know, on the
(05:24):
contrary, they were not proud abouthim. They were like embarrassed that I
was like very up to speed onLimb and considered him one of my own
influences. So, you know,without trying to hurt their feelings, I
was kind of gently probing for whathad happened. And they were resenting his
Mercedes car. They didn't like itthat he'd fled the country and found legal
(05:47):
residence in Austria. Apparently he quarreledwith a number of his closest supporters in
Poland. He was considered irascible anda difficult guide get to know. So
yeah, they were not, infact very happy about him. They didn't
(06:10):
seem exactly proud to be rid ofhim. But he was not in the
good graces of the Polish science fictioncommunity at that time, and I was
surprised at that. I know thatLimb had in fact left Poland at that
time, and you know, andhe was prosperous because they were talking about
his yellow Mercedes car. He seemedto be quite the car fan Limb.
(06:34):
He even liked to repair his owncars, which was interesting. You don't
see a lot of sci fi writerswho were genuine, you know, kind
of mechanical devotees, especially when they'rebasically metaphysicians and encyclopedists like lim you would
never hear of. I mean,he drew a lot of stuff. He
was kind of a draftsman. Hedid like a lot of these peculiar cartoons.
(06:57):
But he also had this habit oftrying to repair his Italian Fiat.
I'm not surprised he ended up withthe Mercedes, because you have to repair
that one a lot less. Fiatswere pretty common in Eastern Europe, and
they were always breaking down. Theywere kind of they were the curse of
Eastern European car fandom. You knowwhen I say that as a guy who
(07:18):
spends a lot of time in Turin, in Italy, which is the home
of Fiat. So they were makingthese cheap but rather flimsy cars and exporting
them to the likes of Stanislav Lamband really making his life difficult. That's
very funny. Lem's style of sciencefiction was different than many of his contemporaries,
(07:46):
and this is something that drew Bruceto Limb. In the late nineteen
nineties, Bruce wrote an essay aboutLem's style, contrasting it to American science
fiction writing. Sterling admits that quotethe stuff Lem calls science fiction looks a
bit like American science fiction about theway a dolphin looks like a mosasaur.
A certain amount of competitive knowing andthrashing was inevitable. The water roiled ten
(08:09):
years ago, and the judgment ofevolution is still out. The smart money
might be on Limb. The smartermoney yet on some judicious hybridization. In
any case, we would do wellto try to understand him. End quote.
I ask Bruce to elaborate more onthis. Well, you know,
I was a fan of other formsof science fiction from early on because I
(08:31):
was trying to figure out what thegenre could do, you know. And
so Lim was a guy, andhe's like in Levolve, you know.
I mean, he's in a smallUkrainian town, I guess that's Ukrainian now
formerly Polish town where he can't gethis hands on a lot of science fiction,
but he could read vern and Wells, which you're a pretty good start.
(08:56):
But you know, neither of thoseguys is remotely American. I mean,
Verne considered American to be comic figures, and Wells didn't much care for
them. He really thought they werekind of hicks and you know, annoying
and insufficiently to the left and youknow, didn't get it about class struggle.
And so he's a guy who's quitefirmly based in these sort of roots
(09:18):
of science fiction without really having anykind of American commercial, pulp magazine science
fiction taste about him, you know, And that's that's quite interesting. And
also, unlike his many colleagues inthe Soviet Union, he's not writing about
how great the Soviet Union is allthe time. He's not like a Stalinist
(09:39):
apologist, and he doesn't really haveto, you know, make obligatory references
to Marxist Leninist historical determinism every timehe publishes something. On the contrary,
he's allowed to be funny, muchfunnier than most of Soviet science fiction writers
ever. All I mean that Imade him stand out in my eye.
(10:01):
And also I was quite interested inhis theoretical and critical writings about science fiction,
which I thought had a lot oftruth in them, even though they
were quite unkind to American science fictionwriters. And I think there's a lot
of justice in what he says,and that American science fiction writers do have
(10:22):
some advantages, like there's a lotof them, but in other ways they're
also lazy because they simply have thebiggest megaphone, right, They've got the
biggest publishing industry and the widest varietyof places to put their material, and
they could sell to television or Hollywood, which are globally dominant and make a
(10:43):
lot of easy money. By thestandards of a Soviet writer or a Polish
writer writer, or even like aDanish writer or a French writer, Americans
are really living, you know.I mean, they're basically living off birthday
cake year round. So you know, he's got this kind he's got this
discipline about what he's trying to do, which American writers don't have. And
(11:07):
that you know, an American writerwho's in the science fiction business gets up
in the morning and he sees whathis colleagues are doing, like what's hip
this season? Like, oh,books about astronauts. Oh, well,
you know, I think maybe I'llwrite one of those. Let me see
what my agent says, right.Whereas stanslav Lim doesn't have that. I
(11:28):
mean, he's got a few colleagues, and you know, but a lot
of his colleagues are, you know, best basically Polish intellectuals or philosophers or
metaphysicians or doctors or you know scientificprofessionals, and these are the people he
takes seriously and that he's like gettingsome of his best ideas from. Or
(11:48):
as you know, in the inthe American science fiction industry, people will
just do what the industry says iship this year. And there's something,
I mean, there's something kind ofsoft, mushy about it. They're they're
not really thinking, and these starkthe starkly inventive way that Verne and Wells
were thinking. I asked Bruce abouthis own influences and if you would consider
(12:13):
Stanny Swafflim as an influence on hiswriting. Well, you know, I
actually think that we have a lotof commonalities as writers. I'm not a
huge fan of his work, LikeI don't think he's the greatest prose stylist,
mostly because I don't read Polish,so you know, I've read a
lot of Limb, but it alwayshas a somewhat stilted prose atmosphere. So
I wouldn't say his style has beenany influence on me. But I quite
(12:39):
like the spearhead of cognition. II like it that he wants to think
and state things that nobody has everthought and stated before, and when I
was a young guy and you know, aggressive like he was when he was
talking about the spearhead of cognition.There was a militant atmosphere to it that
I liked. I was like,it's like the spearhead, you have like
(13:01):
break stuff right nowadays, I'd bea little more interested in like the wheelbarrow
of cognition, or maybe the kitchenkettle of cognition. You know, the
carpet of cognition would be would benicer. But you know, when you're
a young guy trying to make yourmark in the world and you're like full
(13:22):
of hormones, are kind of likeready to go over the top of the
trench. There's a very inspirational writingand what Lamb has to say, and
also he's like he's not afraid tolike really go outside the box, and
like a very outside the box kindof way, like a metaphysically theoretical fashion
(13:45):
where humans are not the favorite,the heroes not the favorite, the boy
doesn't kiss the girl. There's notlike Hollywood happy ending. It's really about
a kind of omniscient narrator standing outsidethe human condition. And the most Limb
like book I probably ever wrote wasSkiz Matrix, which is my space opera
(14:05):
novel. And many people have saidthat the narrator of skiz Matrix has a
rather Stanislav Limb feeling about him.I mean, because there's this anonymous personage
who's a kind of historian who's constantlybreaking into the narrative to deliver these long
technical lectures and quite a Standislavlamb style. But he never names himself, we
(14:28):
never hear who he is. He'sjust constantly like getting into the reader's face
and this very spearhead of cognition fashion. He wants to tell you something,
tell you things that the characters ofthe book don't know, you know,
and kind of can't know, andthen even human beings can't know them.
(14:50):
And the narrator of that book isnot human. I mean, he's very
interested in post humanity and these kindsof Olaf stapled in vistas. And then
O Lamb was quite the Olaf stapledand fan, and I'm quite the Olaf
stapled and fan. So you know, I wouldn't call myself a Lamb disciple
or a stapled and disciple, butI know very well where staple Than and
(15:13):
Lamb are coming from and what theirkind of appeal is and it's not a
popular appeal. It's really more ofa metaphysical appeal. In discussing the role
of Lim abroad, we cannot forgetabout the famous accusation against Lim in the
nineteen seventies by American science fiction writerPhilip K. Dick, As discussed in
(15:37):
episode one of this series, Dickaccused them of being a Communist propagandist,
and in fact made the claim thatLem was not even a single person,
but a committee set up by theCommunist authorities to promote Communism abroad through science
fiction writing, which was completely false. Interestingly, Lem had a lot of
respect for Philip Dick as a writer. I asked Ruce for his take on
(16:00):
the whole situation. Well, youknow, it's unfortunate that Dick was insane,
but you know, he really was. A lot of people think that
all science fiction writers are insane.You know, if you hang out with
them, you recognize that. Youknow, probably they're not insane at the
(16:22):
beginning, but sometimes fame and successmake them insane because it kind of fertilizes
their eccentricities. I don't think Lambwas insane as a young man, but
he was quite eccentric, but inlater life Limb was very ill behaved.
I mean he was like, youknow, alienating all his friends. He
(16:45):
was hostile for unnecessary reasons. I'veheard a number of anecdotes about him carrying
on and like ways that are likeopenly dangerous or as Dick was just like
really terrible. I mean he wasjust like running this show ac in Los
Angeles and feeding drugs to his disciples. He married, repeat, he was
a big amuss. He couldn't bebothered to get to get divorced before he
(17:10):
remarried other women. He used tocruise mental hospitals for dates. He was
looking for mentally ill women to sexuallyexploit. He had a massive stimulant habit.
I mean he was a speed freakand you know, and he would
he would eat any pill or snortany substance. Really and plus he had
a stroke, you know, thefamous pink beam incident. They really just
(17:33):
put him off the edge. Henever recovered his mental ballots after that.
And oddly the two of them wereworse together. I mean they're like like
baking soda and vinegar. And weirdly, you know, Liam was a champion
of Philip K. Dick. Imean everybody in American science fitch and knew
that Philip K. Dick was notso, I mean they knew he was
(17:55):
a genius. Ursula le Guin wentto high school with him. She like
own him for his entire career.She was trying in her motherly way to
help the guy out. You know, Robert A. Heinlein gave him money
so he wouldn't starve to death.I mean, Heinlein had no reason to
be kind of Dick. He justcouldn't stand the idea of Dick ending up
in the gutter. So people inscience fiction were going out of their way
(18:18):
to prop the guy up. Imean they knew, they knew he'd fallen
off the edge of the table,but they also knew he was a great
science fiction writer, and they couldn'tstand the shame of him ending up with
the well deserved and that he wouldhave gotten as a guy in a cardboard
box as a day elect. Imean that was really where he was going.
Okay, So really his colleagues kindof kept him alive, you know,
(18:47):
whereas Limb, I don't know,he seemed to me to end his
life. I mean, the sonlooked after him you know, he didn't
seem to have he didn't have thesocial circle around him to keep him from
behaving. I mean, he wasliving in another country. He I don't
know, I don't know what happenedto the guy. But yeah, there
are two science fiction writers who bothended up in conditions of mental illness and
(19:12):
like not not like the small cuteyou know, eccentric professor, kind more
like a cardboard box and a bottleof bourbon kind of mental of mental illness,
so you know, and yet theyseemed to they seemed to be struck
by one another. I mean,lim said some very apt things about Philip
(19:34):
K. Dick, and Philip K. Dick, who was quite mad at
the time, seized on Limb aslike one of his own fantasy figures.
I mean, he just invented allthis mythology about Limb being you know,
fifteen people and a KGB agent.You know, he simply made that stuff
up, you know, as ifLimb was like some character from one of
(19:55):
his own thriller novels. You know, him liked to in solve American science
fiction in general, and he wasvery dismissive of what they were trying to
achieve. So no, they did. The American science fiction writers who knew
about him, they didn't much likehim, and for good reason. I
(20:15):
mean, they considered him and notan ally of theirs. I mean he
was a colleague, but he was. He was in some ways the competition,
so you and I don't think hewas ever popular. He had a
following and he had like some criticalesteem that other science fiction writers didn't have,
(20:38):
because you know, the French likedhim, and it was it was
kind of considered modish to like him. If you didn't like science fiction,
you could still like Stanislav lay Upin the US, especially like you know,
East Coast literary circles or so forth. But he was not He was
not a popular guy. And alsoyou know, personally he was he wasn't
(21:00):
an affable figure. He wasn't someonepeople actually liked. I'd say, Brian
all This, who in some waysis a rather astral writer my American science
fiction standards, was actually extremely popular. Whip Americans who met him at conventions
and just thought all this was great. You know, he traveled all over
(21:25):
the world, and he'd been afounder of World Science Fiction, and he
was very cosmopolitan and he had veryadvanced ideas of what science fiction ought to
be doing. And he'd written thisbook Trillion Years Free, which had lots
of sort of Limbs style outside thebox ideas of the potential of science fiction.
And he'd been heavily involved in theNew Wave movement and written and you
(21:47):
know, he was kind of ascience fiction idiologue. But he was also
a guy who was just like reallygreat at pressing the flash. Women really
liked him. He was something ofa ladies man. You know, he's
a good looking god, you know, excellent after dinner speaker, fast on
his feet, witty, you know, affable, could tell a dirty joke
if he had to. So America'squite like Brian all this. I mean,
(22:11):
he was a genuinely popular for andscience fiction writer. Whereas Limb,
he didn't tour the US. Hedid you know, he didn't have a
lot of personal friends. He neversaid kindly things about anybody. He didn't
blurb other writers books. You neverhad like Satifla Limb. So it was
my book about Venus was great,Okay, he just wasn't playing that game
(22:33):
as a science fiction writer himself.I asked Bruce to reflect on Limb and
how he evaluates Limb's style and hisrole as a futurist. Well, you
know, okay, so you know, the progenitor of this thing that Limb
is doing is HG. Wells.Wells wrote this book Anticipations, which is
kind of the first futurist work bya science fiction writer. And you know,
(22:56):
why would Welles do that, andwhy would lim imitate Wells and doing
that? And why would I imitatelab and doing that? You know,
usually the reason that some kind ofsocial or political reform. You're trying to
like tell people that you're a futuristand you know what's going to happen,
and therefore they ought to to votetheir attentions to this, or to vote
(23:17):
their attentions to that, and thisother thing is not as important as people
think, but this thing over hereseems to have a lot of potential and
so forth right, So, youknow, Wells with particularly favorites at the
time for his military futurism. Heactually he was a peace nick and a
leftist and a socialist, but hewas actually very aware of stuff like air
(23:41):
raids and tanks and submarines, whereas Limb is like very aware of cybernetics
and communication technology. To an extentyou really don't expect from a guy from
Poland. I mean, Poland isnot well known for radio innovation or television
(24:02):
or you know, multi media stuffor virtual reality. I mean, Poland's
kind of right well known now forwhat do they call that stuff, a
form of augmented reality called projection mapping. You're into new media, which I
am polls a way into projection mapping, but they're not, they're not.
They don't have like famous internet servicesor you know, famous Polish ais and
(24:26):
yet you know in his works,I mean I haven't read them because they're
not published in in English, butI have read reviews of them. So
in his Suma Technologia, he's actuallydoing a lot of cybernetic stuff or computer
media stuff like you know in thefifties and very early six and you know,
(24:48):
as a futurist, he's actually prettygood at prediction. He's got you
know, he's writing about stuff inthe nineties sixties which still has a lot
of ahead of it. So youknow, I actually respect him a lot
for doing that, and I thinkit's kind of hard work, but it
actually helps a lot to be awareof kind of large trends and technological development
(25:14):
because it kind of it kind offocuses the mind in some ways. In
some ways it makes you narrower.You end up writing engineering fiction rather than
science fiction. And in the caseof us, cyberpunk writers were kind of
notorious for writing about design and design. It's not science, it's not engineering,
it's not even technology. It's basicallya kind of a kind of user
(25:40):
centric pritification to try to make thingsmore humanly approachable. Right, So you
could see a whole lot of influenceof industrial design and interaction design and the
works of cyberpunk writers, and youknow, you don't see much of that
in LAMB at all. As wehave learned so far this podcast series,
(26:00):
Lem was generally known as being ratherpessimistic in terms of humanity's future. I
asked Bruce, what did he think, from today's perspective and looking into the
future, is Bruce Sterling optimistic orpessimistic? Well, you know, people
always ask that, and I alwaysdodged the question because really, I really
think your attitude toward the future orought to be influenced by the attitudes of
(26:25):
other kinds of historians. So,you know, I think the future is
a kind of history that hasn't happenedyet, and you really should be doing
the kind of analysis of the futurethat a historian does when he's trying to
explain like why the Renaissance happened,or what the Industrial Revolution was about and
so forth. So you know,you're saying, are you optimistic or pessimistic
(26:45):
about the Renaissance? Okay? Ifyou're a historian of the Renaissance, you
don't really want to be optimistic aboutthe Renaissance, even though the Renaissance was
probably an improvement in a lot ofways compared to like, you know,
the twelve hundreds, it was justyou know, part of the human condition
and like part of the way peoplebehave. So it's like being you know,
as asking an anthropologist, are youoptimistic or pessimistic about humans? Okay?
(27:10):
In some sense, yeah, Imean, we might kill ourselves and
you know, disappear and so forth. Lim I think from an American perspective,
it's interesting that he's not an optimist, you know, It's interesting that
he's a guy like Ballard whose entirecareer was dominated by his experiences of his
youth in the Second World War.I mean, Ballard was in a Japanese
(27:33):
prison camp and lim was, youknow, part of a genocide, and
his country was annihilated by two superpowers, and the Nazis and the Soviets just
came in and like smashed Poland likea mashed potato between the two of them.
So, you know, he hadto make a career under very difficult
(27:53):
circumstances. And I think he wasalways aware of how frail civilization was,
and he often wrote about it.And he also said that something you know,
I found quite interesting and even kindof inspiring, is that literature doesn't
make much sense when it's reduced tothe sensibility of an individual person and a
(28:15):
realm when millions of people can bewiped out very quickly. That you have
to have an interest in demographics asa fiction writer. So that's how I
feel as a futurists, like areyou optimistic about this, that or the
other. It's melancholy in some ways, because good futurism is about transcending your
own mortality. You have to understandthat the world was interesting before you were
(28:38):
born, and that the world willbe interesting when you're not here. And
Stanislav Limb is not here. Imean, he's a hundred years old now,
but he's nevertheless quite interesting now reallyinteresting and in some ways one of
the most interesting of all science fictionwriters ever. And I don't think his
reputation has faded. People don't understandwhat he did, and you know,
(29:03):
they're mostly aware of him because ofthe movies, which he didn't like,
you know, and that's kind ofthe curse of all science fiction novelists.
You make the movie and everybody talksabout the movie, and you don't like
the movie. But you know,also, I don't think Liam was ever
famous for the things that Lam wantedto be most famous for. He became
famous for the stuff he could doon a weekend with his left hand,
(29:26):
like you know, really funny shortstories. I don't think he was a
funny guy by his nature. He'squite a somber figure in a lot of
ways. So the things that hethought were like really worth doing or not
the things that the public enjoyed.But you know, the world fame is
like that. You know, likewhen you become really really famous, it's
very rare to be famous for thestuff that you thought was the hardest work.
(29:51):
You become famous because you've liked strucka chord somehow, you know,
but you know, he's somebody Itake I take inspiration from. You know,
in some ways I think I admirehim for her his accomplishments, but
I'm also grateful for his mistakes,you know, and not pick quarrels with
my intimates or you know, resentmy business associates or you know, do
(30:17):
these kinds of things. Oh,you know, it'll be interesting to see
if the world ever produces another StandisLaw of Lamb. And would he come
from Poland you know, I'm notconvinced that he would. He might pop
up somewhere else. China would bea good, good candidate. I mean,
they're science fiction writers coming out ofChina right now who are writing science
(30:41):
fiction like the world has never seen. It's really kind of off the wall
conceptually, you know, and theirarea diet. They've like probably read some
Lamb, but they're not really tiedinto the Anglo American tradition of science fiction
at all. I mean even lessthan the Indians, or at least have
(31:02):
English as a first language in alot of their cases. So, you
know, he's a disruptive figure insome ways. He's he's writing in the
in the earliest tradition of the genrein a kind of pure way. And
that's why he's like, he's likea dolphin among mosasaurs. In some ways,
(31:23):
you know, he's like taking whathe's taking what the genre can really
do, and putting aside the businessof pop entertainment and really like messing with
people's heads in a more profound way. And in some ways that's quite lonely
work. I mean, if you'reif you're thinking outside the box all the
time, you end up very alone. That was Bruce Sterling on Sney Swafflam
(31:48):
and The View from Outside Poland.Sterling is considered one of the founders of
the cyberpunk movement in science fiction.He's a celebrated American science fiction author and
known for many books including Invalid AnOcean, The Artificial Kids, A Matrix,
The Difference Engine, Heavy Weather,Islands in the Net, among many
others. Thank you for listening tothis episode of Exploring Polish science Fiction and
(32:22):
Fantasy. The podcast is prepared,research, recorded, and produced by Adam
Reihart and Masha Mkulski of Tugistan,Europe. The series is supported by a
ground from the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Support under the Ground
program promotion of Polish culture Road.If you would like to learn more about
(32:43):
New East podcasts, visit www.New East and Europe that EU
Welcome to a special podcast series titleExploring Polar Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prepared
and produced by Talk Eastern Europe.This limited podcast series is being conducted in
conjunction with the Year of Stani sUAVLem twenty twenty one, a special commemoration
being held in Poland. Throughout thisseries, we will discover, together with
(00:24):
experts and writers, the impact thatStani sUAV Lem has had in Poland and
abroad. We will learn more aboutLem's story, his philosophy, and some
controversies Along the way. We willalso look at contemporary literature and bring to
light some new Polish authors following inLem's footsteps. We invite you to join
us on this journey exploring polar sciencefiction and fantasy. Welcome to another episode
(01:00):
of Exploring Polish science Fiction and Fantasyand one hundred years of Stany swav Lem.
In this episode, we look atLem's reputation abroad. He was obviously
known as a serious science fiction writerand his books have been translated into fifty
languages. At the same time,Stani swoav Lem did not enjoy the fame
and celebrityhood a lot of his Westerncontemporary stid To understand how Lem was received
(01:23):
outside of Poland during his times ofwriting, and after we catch up with
Bruce Sterling, a well known Americanscience fiction writer who was also considered one
of the founding fathers of the cyberpunkmovement. Bruce has reflected a lot on
the role of Lem in the genreof science fiction and has followed Lem throughout
the years. I start by askingBruce what was Lem's reputation outside of Poland?
(01:46):
How was he understood and received abroadas a writer of science fiction.
Oh, well, you know,there, Poland is a pretty large publishing
country. People don't understand that itspopulation is as big as France and that
(02:08):
it can actually afford to have professionalscience fiction writers, you know, and
it's quite difficult to be a fulltime science fiction writer, you know,
and really sort of like knuckle downand do it as a professional when you're
working for a really small minority language. So Lim was kind of fortunate in
(02:31):
the sense that he wrote in Polishand he had a relatively friendly reception inside
his own country under very difficult politicalcircumstances. But you know, like a
lot of other European countries of middlingsize, it's hard to be really famous
(02:53):
in Poland unless you're somehow famous outsidePoland, and that's not true of France.
And France you could be really famousand the French just think you're great,
but in other countries like Italy,you really have to make a reputation
with somebody else before the people athome will take you seriously. And I
(03:14):
think Liam kind of suffered that.You know, he was an ambitious writer,
and he was very he was wellorganized, and he was prolific,
and once he decided that he wantedto be, you know, a novelist
writer, essayist, rather than beinga scientist or a medical guy or you
know, encyclopedist or whatever else,whatever else attempted him, he was.
(03:38):
He was ambitious and he did.He did far better outside Poland than any
Polish sci fi writer to date.I mean, there's the guy who wrote
those medieval things, and recently there'sthe guy who wrote the the Netflix series.
(03:59):
Okay, so you know, thisguy is hitting a new level of
global fame that was denied to Limbbecause the Internet didn't exist. So it's
just a different media world than itwas during the Cold War. So you
know, Limb should have been morefamous than he was because he was actually
(04:19):
one of the most talented science fictionwriters ever, and he had a lot
of science fiction writer virtues, buthe also had a number of strikes against
him in that he was inside theWarsaw packed and he was writing in a
relatively obscure language that not a lotof translators could do justice though, and
(04:42):
so you know, his career isquite the epic struggle. Really, I
asked Bruce if he had any directexperience with Polish science fiction and if he
ever met Stanny Swift Flim. Youknow, I never did, but I
have been to Poland, so Iwas at the Polish National Science Convention in
Lublin some years back. So Iwas eager to talk to them. So
(05:03):
of course I said, Stanislav Lim, you guys must be mighty proud.
Well, I've read so many ofhis books. I'm quite the Limb devotee.
And I was surprised to see theirfaces fall. Bruce wasn't exactly sure
what year this was, but laterwe determined it was most likely in the
mid nineteen eighties, when Lem wasliving abroad. You know, on the
(05:24):
contrary, they were not proud abouthim. They were like embarrassed that I
was like very up to speed onLimb and considered him one of my own
influences. So, you know,without trying to hurt their feelings, I
was kind of gently probing for whathad happened. And they were resenting his
Mercedes car. They didn't like itthat he'd fled the country and found legal
(05:47):
residence in Austria. Apparently he quarreledwith a number of his closest supporters in
Poland. He was considered irascible anda difficult guide get to know. So
yeah, they were not, infact very happy about him. They didn't
(06:10):
seem exactly proud to be rid ofhim. But he was not in the
good graces of the Polish science fictioncommunity at that time, and I was
surprised at that. I know thatLimb had in fact left Poland at that
time, and you know, andhe was prosperous because they were talking about
his yellow Mercedes car. He seemedto be quite the car fan Limb.
(06:34):
He even liked to repair his owncars, which was interesting. You don't
see a lot of sci fi writerswho were genuine, you know, kind
of mechanical devotees, especially when they'rebasically metaphysicians and encyclopedists like lim you would
never hear of. I mean,he drew a lot of stuff. He
was kind of a draftsman. Hedid like a lot of these peculiar cartoons.
(06:57):
But he also had this habit oftrying to repair his Italian Fiat.
I'm not surprised he ended up withthe Mercedes, because you have to repair
that one a lot less. Fiatswere pretty common in Eastern Europe, and
they were always breaking down. Theywere kind of they were the curse of
Eastern European car fandom. You knowwhen I say that as a guy who
(07:18):
spends a lot of time in Turin, in Italy, which is the home
of Fiat. So they were makingthese cheap but rather flimsy cars and exporting
them to the likes of Stanislav Lamband really making his life difficult. That's
very funny. Lem's style of sciencefiction was different than many of his contemporaries,
(07:46):
and this is something that drew Bruceto Limb. In the late nineteen
nineties, Bruce wrote an essay aboutLem's style, contrasting it to American science
fiction writing. Sterling admits that quotethe stuff Lem calls science fiction looks a
bit like American science fiction about theway a dolphin looks like a mosasaur.
A certain amount of competitive knowing andthrashing was inevitable. The water roiled ten
(08:09):
years ago, and the judgment ofevolution is still out. The smart money
might be on Limb. The smartermoney yet on some judicious hybridization. In
any case, we would do wellto try to understand him. End quote.
I ask Bruce to elaborate more onthis. Well, you know,
I was a fan of other formsof science fiction from early on because I
(08:31):
was trying to figure out what thegenre could do, you know. And
so Lim was a guy, andhe's like in Levolve, you know.
I mean, he's in a smallUkrainian town, I guess that's Ukrainian now
formerly Polish town where he can't gethis hands on a lot of science fiction,
but he could read vern and Wells, which you're a pretty good start.
(08:56):
But you know, neither of thoseguys is remotely American. I mean,
Verne considered American to be comic figures, and Wells didn't much care for
them. He really thought they werekind of hicks and you know, annoying
and insufficiently to the left and youknow, didn't get it about class struggle.
And so he's a guy who's quitefirmly based in these sort of roots
(09:18):
of science fiction without really having anykind of American commercial, pulp magazine science
fiction taste about him, you know, And that's that's quite interesting. And
also, unlike his many colleagues inthe Soviet Union, he's not writing about
how great the Soviet Union is allthe time. He's not like a Stalinist
(09:39):
apologist, and he doesn't really haveto, you know, make obligatory references
to Marxist Leninist historical determinism every timehe publishes something. On the contrary,
he's allowed to be funny, muchfunnier than most of Soviet science fiction writers
ever. All I mean that Imade him stand out in my eye.
(10:01):
And also I was quite interested inhis theoretical and critical writings about science fiction,
which I thought had a lot oftruth in them, even though they
were quite unkind to American science fictionwriters. And I think there's a lot
of justice in what he says,and that American science fiction writers do have
(10:22):
some advantages, like there's a lotof them, but in other ways they're
also lazy because they simply have thebiggest megaphone, right, They've got the
biggest publishing industry and the widest varietyof places to put their material, and
they could sell to television or Hollywood, which are globally dominant and make a
(10:43):
lot of easy money. By thestandards of a Soviet writer or a Polish
writer writer, or even like aDanish writer or a French writer, Americans
are really living, you know.I mean, they're basically living off birthday
cake year round. So you know, he's got this kind he's got this
discipline about what he's trying to do, which American writers don't have. And
(11:07):
that you know, an American writerwho's in the science fiction business gets up
in the morning and he sees whathis colleagues are doing, like what's hip
this season? Like, oh,books about astronauts. Oh, well,
you know, I think maybe I'llwrite one of those. Let me see
what my agent says, right.Whereas stanslav Lim doesn't have that. I
(11:28):
mean, he's got a few colleagues, and you know, but a lot
of his colleagues are, you know, best basically Polish intellectuals or philosophers or
metaphysicians or doctors or you know scientificprofessionals, and these are the people he
takes seriously and that he's like gettingsome of his best ideas from. Or
(11:48):
as you know, in the inthe American science fiction industry, people will
just do what the industry says iship this year. And there's something,
I mean, there's something kind ofsoft, mushy about it. They're they're
not really thinking, and these starkthe starkly inventive way that Verne and Wells
were thinking. I asked Bruce abouthis own influences and if you would consider
(12:13):
Stanny Swafflim as an influence on hiswriting. Well, you know, I
actually think that we have a lotof commonalities as writers. I'm not a
huge fan of his work, LikeI don't think he's the greatest prose stylist,
mostly because I don't read Polish,so you know, I've read a
lot of Limb, but it alwayshas a somewhat stilted prose atmosphere. So
I wouldn't say his style has beenany influence on me. But I quite
(12:39):
like the spearhead of cognition. II like it that he wants to think
and state things that nobody has everthought and stated before, and when I
was a young guy and you know, aggressive like he was when he was
talking about the spearhead of cognition.There was a militant atmosphere to it that
I liked. I was like,it's like the spearhead, you have like
(13:01):
break stuff right nowadays, I'd bea little more interested in like the wheelbarrow
of cognition, or maybe the kitchenkettle of cognition. You know, the
carpet of cognition would be would benicer. But you know, when you're
a young guy trying to make yourmark in the world and you're like full
(13:22):
of hormones, are kind of likeready to go over the top of the
trench. There's a very inspirational writingand what Lamb has to say, and
also he's like he's not afraid tolike really go outside the box, and
like a very outside the box kindof way, like a metaphysically theoretical fashion
(13:45):
where humans are not the favorite,the heroes not the favorite, the boy
doesn't kiss the girl. There's notlike Hollywood happy ending. It's really about
a kind of omniscient narrator standing outsidethe human condition. And the most Limb
like book I probably ever wrote wasSkiz Matrix, which is my space opera
(14:05):
novel. And many people have saidthat the narrator of skiz Matrix has a
rather Stanislav Limb feeling about him.I mean, because there's this anonymous personage
who's a kind of historian who's constantlybreaking into the narrative to deliver these long
technical lectures and quite a Standislavlamb style. But he never names himself, we
(14:28):
never hear who he is. He'sjust constantly like getting into the reader's face
and this very spearhead of cognition fashion. He wants to tell you something,
tell you things that the characters ofthe book don't know, you know,
and kind of can't know, andthen even human beings can't know them.
(14:50):
And the narrator of that book isnot human. I mean, he's very
interested in post humanity and these kindsof Olaf stapled in vistas. And then
O Lamb was quite the Olaf stapledand fan, and I'm quite the Olaf
stapled and fan. So you know, I wouldn't call myself a Lamb disciple
or a stapled and disciple, butI know very well where staple Than and
(15:13):
Lamb are coming from and what theirkind of appeal is and it's not a
popular appeal. It's really more ofa metaphysical appeal. In discussing the role
of Lim abroad, we cannot forgetabout the famous accusation against Lim in the
nineteen seventies by American science fiction writerPhilip K. Dick, As discussed in
(15:37):
episode one of this series, Dickaccused them of being a Communist propagandist,
and in fact made the claim thatLem was not even a single person,
but a committee set up by theCommunist authorities to promote Communism abroad through science
fiction writing, which was completely false. Interestingly, Lem had a lot of
respect for Philip Dick as a writer. I asked Ruce for his take on
(16:00):
the whole situation. Well, youknow, it's unfortunate that Dick was insane,
but you know, he really was. A lot of people think that
all science fiction writers are insane.You know, if you hang out with
them, you recognize that. Youknow, probably they're not insane at the
(16:22):
beginning, but sometimes fame and successmake them insane because it kind of fertilizes
their eccentricities. I don't think Lambwas insane as a young man, but
he was quite eccentric, but inlater life Limb was very ill behaved.
I mean he was like, youknow, alienating all his friends. He
(16:45):
was hostile for unnecessary reasons. I'veheard a number of anecdotes about him carrying
on and like ways that are likeopenly dangerous or as Dick was just like
really terrible. I mean he wasjust like running this show ac in Los
Angeles and feeding drugs to his disciples. He married, repeat, he was
a big amuss. He couldn't bebothered to get to get divorced before he
(17:10):
remarried other women. He used tocruise mental hospitals for dates. He was
looking for mentally ill women to sexuallyexploit. He had a massive stimulant habit.
I mean he was a speed freakand you know, and he would
he would eat any pill or snortany substance. Really and plus he had
a stroke, you know, thefamous pink beam incident. They really just
(17:33):
put him off the edge. Henever recovered his mental ballots after that.
And oddly the two of them wereworse together. I mean they're like like
baking soda and vinegar. And weirdly, you know, Liam was a champion
of Philip K. Dick. Imean everybody in American science fitch and knew
that Philip K. Dick was notso, I mean they knew he was
(17:55):
a genius. Ursula le Guin wentto high school with him. She like
own him for his entire career.She was trying in her motherly way to
help the guy out. You know, Robert A. Heinlein gave him money
so he wouldn't starve to death.I mean, Heinlein had no reason to
be kind of Dick. He justcouldn't stand the idea of Dick ending up
in the gutter. So people inscience fiction were going out of their way
(18:18):
to prop the guy up. Imean they knew, they knew he'd fallen
off the edge of the table,but they also knew he was a great
science fiction writer, and they couldn'tstand the shame of him ending up with
the well deserved and that he wouldhave gotten as a guy in a cardboard
box as a day elect. Imean that was really where he was going.
Okay, So really his colleagues kindof kept him alive, you know,
(18:47):
whereas Limb, I don't know,he seemed to me to end his
life. I mean, the sonlooked after him you know, he didn't
seem to have he didn't have thesocial circle around him to keep him from
behaving. I mean, he wasliving in another country. He I don't
know, I don't know what happenedto the guy. But yeah, there
are two science fiction writers who bothended up in conditions of mental illness and
(19:12):
like not not like the small cuteyou know, eccentric professor, kind more
like a cardboard box and a bottleof bourbon kind of mental of mental illness,
so you know, and yet theyseemed to they seemed to be struck
by one another. I mean,lim said some very apt things about Philip
(19:34):
K. Dick, and Philip K. Dick, who was quite mad at
the time, seized on Limb aslike one of his own fantasy figures.
I mean, he just invented allthis mythology about Limb being you know,
fifteen people and a KGB agent.You know, he simply made that stuff
up, you know, as ifLimb was like some character from one of
(19:55):
his own thriller novels. You know, him liked to in solve American science
fiction in general, and he wasvery dismissive of what they were trying to
achieve. So no, they did. The American science fiction writers who knew
about him, they didn't much likehim, and for good reason. I
(20:15):
mean, they considered him and notan ally of theirs. I mean he
was a colleague, but he was. He was in some ways the competition,
so you and I don't think hewas ever popular. He had a
following and he had like some criticalesteem that other science fiction writers didn't have,
(20:38):
because you know, the French likedhim, and it was it was
kind of considered modish to like him. If you didn't like science fiction,
you could still like Stanislav lay Upin the US, especially like you know,
East Coast literary circles or so forth. But he was not He was
not a popular guy. And alsoyou know, personally he was he wasn't
(21:00):
an affable figure. He wasn't someonepeople actually liked. I'd say, Brian
all This, who in some waysis a rather astral writer my American science
fiction standards, was actually extremely popular. Whip Americans who met him at conventions
and just thought all this was great. You know, he traveled all over
(21:25):
the world, and he'd been afounder of World Science Fiction, and he
was very cosmopolitan and he had veryadvanced ideas of what science fiction ought to
be doing. And he'd written thisbook Trillion Years Free, which had lots
of sort of Limbs style outside thebox ideas of the potential of science fiction.
And he'd been heavily involved in theNew Wave movement and written and you
(21:47):
know, he was kind of ascience fiction idiologue. But he was also
a guy who was just like reallygreat at pressing the flash. Women really
liked him. He was something ofa ladies man. You know, he's
a good looking god, you know, excellent after dinner speaker, fast on
his feet, witty, you know, affable, could tell a dirty joke
if he had to. So America'squite like Brian all this. I mean,
(22:11):
he was a genuinely popular for andscience fiction writer. Whereas Limb,
he didn't tour the US. Hedid you know, he didn't have a
lot of personal friends. He neversaid kindly things about anybody. He didn't
blurb other writers books. You neverhad like Satifla Limb. So it was
my book about Venus was great,Okay, he just wasn't playing that game
(22:33):
as a science fiction writer himself.I asked Bruce to reflect on Limb and
how he evaluates Limb's style and hisrole as a futurist. Well, you
know, okay, so you know, the progenitor of this thing that Limb
is doing is HG. Wells.Wells wrote this book Anticipations, which is
kind of the first futurist work bya science fiction writer. And you know,
(22:56):
why would Welles do that, andwhy would lim imitate Wells and doing
that? And why would I imitatelab and doing that? You know,
usually the reason that some kind ofsocial or political reform. You're trying to
like tell people that you're a futuristand you know what's going to happen,
and therefore they ought to to votetheir attentions to this, or to vote
(23:17):
their attentions to that, and thisother thing is not as important as people
think, but this thing over hereseems to have a lot of potential and
so forth right, So, youknow, Wells with particularly favorites at the
time for his military futurism. Heactually he was a peace nick and a
leftist and a socialist, but hewas actually very aware of stuff like air
(23:41):
raids and tanks and submarines, whereas Limb is like very aware of cybernetics
and communication technology. To an extentyou really don't expect from a guy from
Poland. I mean, Poland isnot well known for radio innovation or television
(24:02):
or you know, multi media stuffor virtual reality. I mean, Poland's
kind of right well known now forwhat do they call that stuff, a
form of augmented reality called projection mapping. You're into new media, which I
am polls a way into projection mapping, but they're not, they're not.
They don't have like famous internet servicesor you know, famous Polish ais and
(24:26):
yet you know in his works,I mean I haven't read them because they're
not published in in English, butI have read reviews of them. So
in his Suma Technologia, he's actuallydoing a lot of cybernetic stuff or computer
media stuff like you know in thefifties and very early six and you know,
(24:48):
as a futurist, he's actually prettygood at prediction. He's got you
know, he's writing about stuff inthe nineties sixties which still has a lot
of ahead of it. So youknow, I actually respect him a lot
for doing that, and I thinkit's kind of hard work, but it
actually helps a lot to be awareof kind of large trends and technological development
(25:14):
because it kind of it kind offocuses the mind in some ways. In
some ways it makes you narrower.You end up writing engineering fiction rather than
science fiction. And in the caseof us, cyberpunk writers were kind of
notorious for writing about design and design. It's not science, it's not engineering,
it's not even technology. It's basicallya kind of a kind of user
(25:40):
centric pritification to try to make thingsmore humanly approachable. Right, So you
could see a whole lot of influenceof industrial design and interaction design and the
works of cyberpunk writers, and youknow, you don't see much of that
in LAMB at all. As wehave learned so far this podcast series,
(26:00):
Lem was generally known as being ratherpessimistic in terms of humanity's future. I
asked Bruce, what did he think, from today's perspective and looking into the
future, is Bruce Sterling optimistic orpessimistic? Well, you know, people
always ask that, and I alwaysdodged the question because really, I really
think your attitude toward the future orought to be influenced by the attitudes of
(26:25):
other kinds of historians. So,you know, I think the future is
a kind of history that hasn't happenedyet, and you really should be doing
the kind of analysis of the futurethat a historian does when he's trying to
explain like why the Renaissance happened,or what the Industrial Revolution was about and
so forth. So you know,you're saying, are you optimistic or pessimistic
(26:45):
about the Renaissance? Okay? Ifyou're a historian of the Renaissance, you
don't really want to be optimistic aboutthe Renaissance, even though the Renaissance was
probably an improvement in a lot ofways compared to like, you know,
the twelve hundreds, it was justyou know, part of the human condition
and like part of the way peoplebehave. So it's like being you know,
as asking an anthropologist, are youoptimistic or pessimistic about humans? Okay?
(27:10):
In some sense, yeah, Imean, we might kill ourselves and
you know, disappear and so forth. Lim I think from an American perspective,
it's interesting that he's not an optimist, you know, It's interesting that
he's a guy like Ballard whose entirecareer was dominated by his experiences of his
youth in the Second World War.I mean, Ballard was in a Japanese
(27:33):
prison camp and lim was, youknow, part of a genocide, and
his country was annihilated by two superpowers, and the Nazis and the Soviets just
came in and like smashed Poland likea mashed potato between the two of them.
So, you know, he hadto make a career under very difficult
(27:53):
circumstances. And I think he wasalways aware of how frail civilization was,
and he often wrote about it.And he also said that something you know,
I found quite interesting and even kindof inspiring, is that literature doesn't
make much sense when it's reduced tothe sensibility of an individual person and a
(28:15):
realm when millions of people can bewiped out very quickly. That you have
to have an interest in demographics asa fiction writer. So that's how I
feel as a futurists, like areyou optimistic about this, that or the
other. It's melancholy in some ways, because good futurism is about transcending your
own mortality. You have to understandthat the world was interesting before you were
(28:38):
born, and that the world willbe interesting when you're not here. And
Stanislav Limb is not here. Imean, he's a hundred years old now,
but he's nevertheless quite interesting now reallyinteresting and in some ways one of
the most interesting of all science fictionwriters ever. And I don't think his
reputation has faded. People don't understandwhat he did, and you know,
(29:03):
they're mostly aware of him because ofthe movies, which he didn't like,
you know, and that's kind ofthe curse of all science fiction novelists.
You make the movie and everybody talksabout the movie, and you don't like
the movie. But you know,also, I don't think Liam was ever
famous for the things that Lam wantedto be most famous for. He became
famous for the stuff he could doon a weekend with his left hand,
(29:26):
like you know, really funny shortstories. I don't think he was a
funny guy by his nature. He'squite a somber figure in a lot of
ways. So the things that hethought were like really worth doing or not
the things that the public enjoyed.But you know, the world fame is
like that. You know, likewhen you become really really famous, it's
very rare to be famous for thestuff that you thought was the hardest work.
(29:51):
You become famous because you've liked strucka chord somehow, you know,
but you know, he's somebody Itake I take inspiration from. You know,
in some ways I think I admirehim for her his accomplishments, but
I'm also grateful for his mistakes,you know, and not pick quarrels with
my intimates or you know, resentmy business associates or you know, do
(30:17):
these kinds of things. Oh,you know, it'll be interesting to see
if the world ever produces another StandisLaw of Lamb. And would he come
from Poland you know, I'm notconvinced that he would. He might pop
up somewhere else. China would bea good, good candidate. I mean,
they're science fiction writers coming out ofChina right now who are writing science
(30:41):
fiction like the world has never seen. It's really kind of off the wall
conceptually, you know, and theirarea diet. They've like probably read some
Lamb, but they're not really tiedinto the Anglo American tradition of science fiction
at all. I mean even lessthan the Indians, or at least have
(31:02):
English as a first language in alot of their cases. So, you
know, he's a disruptive figure insome ways. He's he's writing in the
in the earliest tradition of the genrein a kind of pure way. And
that's why he's like, he's likea dolphin among mosasaurs. In some ways,
(31:23):
you know, he's like taking whathe's taking what the genre can really
do, and putting aside the businessof pop entertainment and really like messing with
people's heads in a more profound way. And in some ways that's quite lonely
work. I mean, if you'reif you're thinking outside the box all the
time, you end up very alone. That was Bruce Sterling on Sney Swafflam
(31:48):
and The View from Outside Poland.Sterling is considered one of the founders of
the cyberpunk movement in science fiction.He's a celebrated American science fiction author and
known for many books including Invalid AnOcean, The Artificial Kids, A Matrix,
The Difference Engine, Heavy Weather,Islands in the Net, among many
others. Thank you for listening tothis episode of Exploring Polish science Fiction and
(32:22):
Fantasy. The podcast is prepared,research, recorded, and produced by Adam
Reihart and Masha Mkulski of Tugistan,Europe. The series is supported by a
ground from the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Support under the Ground
program promotion of Polish culture Road.If you would like to learn more about
(32:43):
New East podcasts, visit www.New East and Europe that EU
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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