Radek Novák

Stanisław Lem’s critiques of other writers. The rest of the page is generated by Gemini 2.5

Based on the text of Stanislaw Lem’s Microworlds, here are the author’s opinions about other writers, listed exhaustively for each writer.

Aldiss, Brian

He is mentioned as one of several authors who are thinking of moving from the science-fiction ghetto into mainstream literature.

Andrzejewski, J.

His work Miazga is cited as a parallel to Philip K. Dick’s work. It is described as being written partly in the future subjunctive mood, describing what could possibly happen rather than what has unconditionally happened.

Asimov, Isaac

His defense against criticism of Nightfall and Other Stories is cited as an example of a flawed metric for literary merit. Asimov defended the book by pointing to its excellent and enduring sales figures, which Lem equates to taking “literary merit for the relation of supply and demand,” noting that by this yardstick, Dostoevsky would be no match for Agatha Christie.
His novel The End of Eternity is described as an “ineffably naïve conception” because it deals with a grand theme (a government controlling all of history) without addressing any real issues from philosophy or history. Lem sees it as an “exhibition of formal entertainment” where the plot elements are akin to a “closed room” mystery from fairy tales or detective stories.
His story “Strike-Breaker” is criticized for its “antiempirical” basic structural assumption. Lem argues that a person in the story’s society who is essential for everyone’s life (the director of the sewage system) would not be treated as a pariah, based on real-world social dynamics.

Ballard, J. G.

He is mentioned as one of several authors who are thinking of moving from the science-fiction ghetto into mainstream literature.
He is grouped with Ray Bradbury as a writer of “highest ambitions and considerable talent” who uses science-fiction tools in a “superb way.” However, Lem criticizes them for giving up on rationalism in favor of irrationalism, using fantasy to articulate “old-fashioned” content like the revolt against civilization and the “dead-end course of human civilization.” Lem sees their work as vitiated by pessimism and states they “tear to shreds that which they themselves do not understand,” failing to bring new intellectual content to the genre.

Balzac, Honoré de

He is cited as an author whose depiction of his world in The Human Comedy seems transparent and intelligible to modern readers because we have grown accustomed to his 19th-century interpretation of reality.
He is mentioned with Zola as a model of writing that “fossilized traditionalists” might insist on.

Beckett, Samuel

His work is compared to Philip K. Dick’s because of the “unhealthy curiosity” both have for death and the process of life approaching its end. Lem notes Beckett is content with natural processes like aging, while Dick speculates on a grander, more technological scale.

Bellow, Saul

His novel Mr. Sammler’s Planet is described as “very good – so good that I have read it several times.” However, Lem finds that the novel’s depiction of the experience of a German-occupied Poland “didn’t sound quite right,” lacking the indescribable “aura” of someone who has personally experienced it. He feels Bellow learned of such events from hearsay, and that the narrative conventions used were inadequate for the “unfathomable futility of human life under the sway of mass murder.”

Blish, James

His book The Issue at Hand is used by Lem as an “ethnological protocol” or “raw material to be subjected to a sociological analysis.” Lem states that the facts Blish collected were often more valuable to him than Blish’s opinions.
He is cited as an author who correctly observed that science-fiction readers cannot distinguish a good novel from a bad one.
Lem notes Blish’s complaint that he received only a few, angry letters from readers over his career, which Lem sees as typical of the consumer-product relationship in trivial literature.
Lem uses Blish’s admission that A Case of Conscience was written to a specific length due to publisher constraints as an example of how authors in the “Lower Realm” are treated like slaves, a situation that would cause outrage in the “Upper Realm.”

Borges, Jorge Luis

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.
His story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is used as an example of a story about a secret society that creates a fictitious world.
Lem’s dedicated essay, “Unitas Oppositorum,” analyzes his prose in detail.
His best stories are listed as “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “Pierre Menard – Author of the Quixote,” “The Lottery in Babylon,” and “Three Versions of Judas.”
These stories are praised for their “double-decker, perverse, but logically perfect structure,” constructed as “tightly as mathematical proofs.”
His creative method is identified as unitas oppositorum, the joining of mutually exclusive opposites (e.g., chaos and order, Judas and Jesus). He is a “mocking heretic of culture” because he works within the syntax of established cultural systems but extends their logic to absurd conclusions.
His work is criticized for a “trivial weakness”: the repetition of the same structural mechanism across his fiction. Once the “algorithm of his creative power” is recognized, the work is lessened.
Lem believes Borges “has suffered from a lack of a free and rich imagination,” acting as a “brilliant librarian” who relies on cultural and mythical sources from the past.
Ultimately, Lem views him as a “great man, but at the same time… an epigone” who has lit up the treasures of the past but whose work is at an “opposite pole from the direction of our fate,” knowing nothing of the new paradises and hells being built in the present.
“Three Versions of Judas” is used as a prime example of “fantastic theology” that has no place on Todorov’s classificatory axis.

Boucher, Anthony

His story “The Barrier” is described as a “slightly satiric work” and an example of “tiers in time.” Lem notes, however, that Boucher “does not know what to do with the ’encountering oneself motif’” in the story, simply using it for a prolonged shock effect.

Boy-Żeleński, Tadeusz

He is remembered as “one of the best-known Polish writers,” who was murdered by the Wehrmacht.

Bradbury, Ray

His story “A Sound of Thunder” is called “excellently written” and is used as an example of an “antiergodic” hypothesis of history (where a small change has massive consequences). However, Lem finds the explanation for why a trampled butterfly matters more than a dead tyrannosaur “unconvincing.”
He is grouped with J. G. Ballard as a writer of “highest ambitions and considerable talent” who uses science-fiction tools in a “superb way.” Lem criticizes them for abandoning rationalism for an irrationalism that deals with old-fashioned themes like the revolt against civilization. He sees their work as pessimistic and nihilistic, stating they “tear to shreds that which they themselves do not understand.”

Brown, Frederic

He is cited for writing a time-travel story in which hunters cause the extinction of Mesozoic reptiles, and another about killing one’s grandfather.
His story “The Yehudi Principle” is used as an example of a work that is itself a causal circle, ending with the words it began with.

Brunner, John

He is cited as an example of an author who had to write eight novels a year to “stay alive comfortably,” illustrating the economic pressures on science-fiction writers.
His novel Stand on Zanzibar is mentioned as being modeled on Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer, an example of the New Wave looking backward to mainstream models.

Butor, Michel

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.
His opinion that a team of writers should cooperate to build a fictitious world is mentioned in a footnote.

Caillois, Roger

Lem defends his definition of the fantastic (“the impression of irreducible strangeness”) against Todorov’s criticism. Lem argues that this “irreducible impression” is the psychological correlate that distinguishes an authentic work from kitsch.

Calvino, Italo

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature, with some of his texts being considered science fiction.
He is mentioned as one of the mainstream authors who are included in science-fiction anthologies.

Capek, Karel

His works are noted as still being classified within the “Upper Realm” of literature, unlike those of Stapledon who wrote only ten years later, illustrating the historical separation of genres.

Christie, Agatha

She is used as a point of comparison to show that sales figures are not a measure of literary quality; Dostoevsky is no match for her by that metric.
Her work is contrasted with Dostoevsky’s to show the difference between a detective thriller and a work that explores the psychological truth of crime.

Clement, Hal

His novel Needle is used as an example of “aesthetic inadequacy” in science fiction. Lem criticizes it for modeling the profound theme of contact with another civilization on the simple structure of a “detective and criminal” story.

Conrad, Joseph

His description of literature as rendering “the highest kind of truth to the visible universe” is quoted as a standard that is now threatened and may become an anachronism.

Delany, Samuel R.

His novel Babel-17 is considered an “interesting” example of inversion because its idea that language can be an instrument of enslavement has an “ontological character.”
He is mentioned as a representative of the New Wave, a movement Lem claims has only succeeded in making science fiction “quite boring.”

Dick, Philip K.

He is the primary “exception” to Lem’s assertion that science fiction is a “hopeless case.” His work is analyzed extensively across multiple essays.
His novels share characteristics with van Vogt’s (composed of “trashy parts,” “contradictory elements”), but unlike van Vogt, Dick’s work is structured with more logic and his best novels add up to a “meaningful whole.”
His great achievement is his unconscious discovery of a method to use “elements of trash” to lead to a “gradual resurrection of the long-extinct, metaphysical-exotic values.” He “makes trash battle against trash.”
His work is compared favorably to that of major “Upper Realm” writers: his prose is part of the “Literature of Ideas” like Musil’s and Robbe-Grillet’s, and his “unhealthy curiosity” about death is compared to Beckett’s.
His novels are pessimistic ontological speculations; he shows that even worlds that violate logic and causality are subject to the “invariance of texture and doom.” His main characters are praised as authentic, contemporary Americans who preserve their normality and humanity in worlds gone mad.
Ubik is singled out as his best and most important work, a “master stroke” that “transgressed” the border between adventure novel and mainstream literature. Lem provides a detailed rationalization of its seemingly contradictory plot, suggesting it can be understood as a coherent work of science fiction based on plausible future technologies (“half-life,” simulated realities). He ultimately concludes, however, that the contradictions are metaphorical and the work is a “poetic achievement.”
Other novels are praised, including Solar Lottery, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Galactic Pot-Healer.
He is also heavily criticized for his “uneven” output. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is condemned for “squandering his talent by using brilliant ideas and inspirations to keep up a game of cops and robbers.” Lem deconstructs the novel’s plot to show its “nonsense” and logical contradictions.
Lem notes that the science-fiction environment is unable to distinguish Dick’s valuable work from van Vogt’s nonsense, and that Dick’s “disfigurement” (the unevenness and trashy elements) is the price he paid for his “science-fiction citizenship.”

Dos Passos, John

His novel Manhattan Transfer is cited as the model for John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

He is used as a standard for high literature. His works are not “crime novels” despite containing crime plots, because the plot serves a higher purpose.
He is contrasted with Agatha Christie to show that sales are not a measure of quality.
He is cited as a writer who, before the 20th century, had already abandoned the rule of “God-like omniscience” for the author.
His character Sonya Marmeladova is used as a metaphor for science fiction: a whore who “prostitutes itself, but… with discomfort, disgust, and contrary to its dreams and hopes.”

Eddington, A.

His book The Internal Constitution of the Stars is called “magnificent” and a work that “enthralled” Lem. However, it is now so out of date that it must be read as “(genuine!) science fiction,” because nothing in it corresponds to present knowledge.

Farmer, Philip José

A critic’s indiscriminate listing of Farmer alongside Joyce, Sturgeon, and Kafka is cited as a symptom of science fiction’s problems.
His novel Riders of the Purple Wage is noted as being modeled on Joyce’s Ulysses, an example of the New Wave looking backward.

Faulkner, William

He is mentioned with Saul Bellow as a writer whose serious publisher would not use the same inflated advertising as a science-fiction publisher.

Frisch, Max

His novel Homo Faber is praised as a successful example of a modern work that transposes the Oedipus myth into a contemporary reality. Lem notes that Frisch intended this similarity, unlike the Strugatskys who, in Lem’s view, unintentionally slipped into a fairy-tale structure.

Frye, Northrop

Lem notes that Todorov “demolishes” his past attempts at defining the fantastic.

Gernsback, Hugo

He is called the father of American science fiction, which “descends from the pulps” and “worked itself up from the gutter.” He is unfavorably contrasted with H. G. Wells.

Gogol, Nikolai

He is included in the “sample” of fantastic authors analyzed by Todorov.

Gombrowicz, Witold

He is mentioned as a writer who uses irony on a linguistic level.

Grass, Günter

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.
He is mentioned as one of the mainstream authors who are included in science-fiction anthologies.

Greene, Graham

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature. His crime novels are considered “excursions” or “entertainments” by a mainstream writer.

Grabiński, Stefan

He is mentioned as a Polish weird fiction writer whose work Lem recommended for a series of books.

Heinlein, Robert

He is criticized for the “embarrassing praise” he gives to his own work and for his assertion that science fiction is not only equal to but better than mainstream literature.
His story “All You Zombies” is used as an example of a “minimal” and “smaller” time loop, a structure that is a logical creatio ex nihilo.

Hesse, Hermann

His novel Steppenwolf is used as a counterexample to the way science-fiction authors are treated by publishers. Lem imagines the outrage if Hesse had to admit his novel was only a certain length because of publisher constraints, highlighting the different standards of the “Upper” and “Lower” realms.

Hoffmann, E. T. A.

He is included in the “sample” of fantastic authors analyzed by Todorov.

Homer

He is cited with Cervantes as an author whose work has been preserved in the “treasure troves of our culture” by a process of cultural selection, proving that not all readers are “passive and stupid beings.”

Hoyle, Fred

His novel The Black Cloud is used as an example of science fiction that provides a rational, hypothetical explanation for a fantastic event (a cosmic cloud engulfing the sun), contrasting it with Todorov’s claim that science fiction is irrational.

Ionesco, Eugène

He is mentioned as one of the mainstream authors who are included in science-fiction anthologies.

James, M. R.

He is mentioned as an author whose short stories Lem recommended for a series of books.

Joyce, James

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.
His novel Ulysses is used as a model for both modern experimental prose and, specifically, for Farmer’s Riders of the Purple Wage.

Kafka, Franz

He is included in the “sample” of fantastic authors analyzed by Todorov.
His work is used as a primary example of a modern, complex literature that defies simple classification. Lem describes his method as creating “passing” fantasy where strange phenomena have a “solid nonfantastic meaning.”
Lem heavily criticizes Todorov for being unable to cope with Kafka and for declaring his work an “autonomus” text with no connection to the real world. Lem argues that Kafka’s work is a “fascinating riddle” precisely because it forces a “head-on collision” of conflicting interpretations.
The Metamorphosis and The Trial are cited as works that cannot be simply explained away. The Castle is used as an example of a work that can be interpreted in opposite ways (degrading the beyond, or elevating the temporal).
“In the Penal Colony” is cited as an example of the “cold” description of things not normally presented dispassionately.

Keyes, Daniel

His novel Flowers for Algernon is described as “interesting psychologically,” but its structure is criticized for being derived from a simple “rise and fall” paradigm from fairy tales. Lem argues this simplistic structure prevents the author from exploring the much more complex socio-cultural consequences of his premise.

Knight, Damon

His book In Search of Wonder is used as “raw material” for Lem’s sociological analysis. Lem values the facts he collects more than his opinions.
He is cited as being correct that science-fiction readers cannot distinguish good work from bad.
Lem notes Knight’s praise for any author who “understands schoolteacher’s physics” as a sign of the low standards in the field.
His eventual change of heart regarding van Vogt, where he suggests a popular author must be doing something right, is seen by Lem as a “diagnosis of a general condition” and a “personal defeat” for a critic who fought for years against “tawdriness.”

Koestler, Arthur

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.

Kretschmer, Ernst

His work Medizinische Psychologie is cited to support the idea that the coexistence of contradictory states of affairs is a psychological norm in dreams and hyponoic states, something literary structuralism fails to account for.

Le Guin, Ursula K.

The introduction by Franz Rottensteiner mentions that Lem recommended her A Wizard of Earthsea for a Polish book series.
In a footnote, her novel The Left Hand of Darkness is praised, with Lem noting that its “newness was observed instantly.”

Lévi-Strauss, Claude

Lem expresses “cognitive disappointment” with his work, stating that one cannot discover from it a logical, psychological, or social reason why some cultural meanings are overt while others are “hidden” in relational networks. Lem feels this method is non-empirical and unfalsifiable, much like psychoanalysis.

Lundwall, Sam

His book Science Fiction: What It’s All About is dismissed as “not a piece of criticism or a monograph, but… merely a traveler’s guide to the provinces of science fiction.”

Mailer, Norman

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.

Mann, Thomas

His novel The Magic Mountain is mentioned in relation to Lem’s own The Hospital of Transfiguration. Lem agrees with a reviewer’s comparison, stating that what was a “portent” in Mann becomes the “final circle of Hell” in his own work.
His novel Doktor Faustus is used as an example of a modern work that alloys myth with a realistic structure.
Lem notes that Mann was allowed to work on one novel for fourteen years, a luxury not afforded to science-fiction writers like John Brunner.

Michaux, Henri

He is mentioned as one of the mainstream authors who are included in science-fiction anthologies.

Miller, Henry

His novels (Tropic of Cancer, Sexus, etc.) are cited as examples of works that achieve a culture shock effect by describing characters and bodily functions “coldly,” as if they were machines, intentionally ignoring social-erotic taboos.

Moorcock, Michael

He is mentioned as a representative of the New Wave, a movement Lem claims has only succeeded in making science fiction “quite boring.”

Moore, Ward

His novel Bring the Jubilee is used as an example of a time-travel story that reshapes history, where the arrival of the time traveler inadvertently causes the historical outcome he was investigating to be reversed.

Moravia, Alberto

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.

Musil, Robert

His novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities) is cited as a parallel to Philip K. Dick’s work in its exploration of the “latent, untouched, as-yet-unrealized potentialities of human existence.”

Nabokov, Vladimir

His novel Lolita is praised for discrediting the myth of the “innocence and angelic purity of adolescent girls.”
His novel Ada, or Ardor is cited as an example of a work that exploits cultural taboos (incest) in a “ludic” or playful mode.

Orwell, George

He is mentioned as a mainstream writer who made “excursions” into fantasy.
His “school” of police-tyranny-plus-brainwashing is noted as a source for average science-fiction authors, which Philip K. Dick transcends by making his hells out of ontological categories instead.

Pinget, Robert

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.

Poe, Edgar Allan

He is included in the “sample” of fantastic authors analyzed by Todorov.

Potocki, Jan

His Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse is cited as an example of the “fantastic-uncanny,” a story that seems supernatural but is given a rational explanation in the end.

Reynolds, Mack

His story “Compounded Interest” is used as an example of a time-loop plot based on depositing money in the past to gain interest for building a time machine.

Robbe-Grillet, Alain

His prose, such as Le Voyeur, is cited as being parallel to Philip K. Dick’s work in its exploration of “parallel worlds.”
He and the French antinovelists are heavily criticized for using a “chance generator” or “noise” to create a “semantic mirage.” Lem argues that their method results in texts that appear semantically rich but are ultimately devoid of inherent intentionality, comparing them to Rorschach ink blots. He deconstructs The Erasers as a random superimposition of Oedipus, time loops, and a detective story.

Sarraute, Nathalie

She is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

He is listed as an inhabitant of the “Olympus” or “Upper Realm” of literature.
He is mentioned as a highbrow critic known to all intelligent readers, a status no science-fiction critic has achieved.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Lem speculates that if Borges had invented Schopenhauer’s doctrine of “The World as Will,” it would be considered “fantastic philosophy” rather than a serious system, simply because it lacked historical validation.
He notes that, compared to Philip K. Dick’s black pessimism, Schopenhauer’s philosophy of life “seems to be real joie de vivre.”

Shannon, Claude E.

His work on cybernetics is praised alongside Norbert Wiener’s. Lem saw in it “a new era not just for technological progress but also for the whole of civilization.”

Sheckley, Robert

His story “All the Things You Are” is used as an example of a “very primitive” and “naïve” one-parameter inversion, a common and simplistic creative method in science fiction.

Sienkiewicz, Henryk

His Trilogy is contrasted with Tolstoy’s War and Peace to illustrate the difference between mediocrity and a true masterpiece.

Słonimski, Antoni

His story “Time Torpedo” is used as an example of a work that uses the time loop not just for entertainment, but as a means to visualize a thesis from the philosophy of history (the “ergodicity of history,” where changing the past does not improve it).

Spinrad, Norman

He is mentioned as a representative of the New Wave, a movement Lem claims has only succeeded in making science fiction “quite boring.”

Stapledon, Olaf

He is praised alongside Verne and Wells as a writer of “sovereign individuality” who created something “radically new” and “quite different from what the others created.”
He is cited as an author who, unlike Capek, is not considered part of the “Upper Realm” of literature, a victim of the historical separation of genres.
The majority of science-fiction readers are said not to even know him by name.
His concept of “pan-psychism” is used as an example of an “ontological hypothesis” that can never be proven scientifically.
He is praised as an “isolated writer” who “was still able to view the universe of cosmology, and not the humanized universe of science fiction.”

Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris

Their novel Roadside Picnic is the subject of a long, detailed analysis.
They are praised for successfully employing the “strategy of preserving the mystery” of the alien visitors, transcending the science-fiction tradition established by Wells.
The novel is lauded for its realism and sociological insight, particularly in its depiction of humanity’s reaction to the “Visit” — domesticating a miracle into a consumer-society phenomenon. Lem sees the book as a valuable “thought-experiment in the domain of the ’experimental philosophy of history.'”
Lem’s primary criticism is of the novel’s ending. He argues that the final section, centered on the Golden Ball, slips into the structure of a “black fairy tale,” complete with a quest for a cursed treasure and a required human sacrifice. He feels this “unintentionally” undermines the novel’s ambiguity and points toward the conclusion that the visitors are simply “invisible monsters.”

Sturgeon, Theodore

Lem agrees with his maxim that ninety-nine percent of everything is trash, but argues that in mainstream literature, forces of positive selection exist that are absent in science fiction.

Tenn, William

His story “Child’s Play” is used as an example of the “missent parcel” subcategory of time-travel story, which Lem calls a “monoparametric” vision focused only on a bizarre situation for its own sake.

Todorov, Tzvetan

His book The Fantastic: A Structural Introduction to a Literary Genre is the subject of a long, demolishing critique.
Lem attacks Todorov’s methodology, his “astonishing” and unrepresentative bibliography, his exclusion of aesthetics, and his simplistic, one-dimensional classification of the fantastic.
Lem argues that Todorov’s axis (“uncanny : fantastic : marvelous”) is a Procrustean bed that cannot accommodate actually existing genres like “fantastic theology” (Borges) or “fantastic history.”
He criticizes Todorov’s inability to analyze Kafka, which leads Todorov to the “dodge” of calling Kafka’s work an “autonomus” text with no connection to reality.
Lem concludes that Todorov’s theory is a “useless mythology” that demonstrates the “downfall of a precise conceptual apparatus outside its proper domain.”

Tolstoy, Leo

His novel War and Peace is held up as a masterpiece against which Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy can be judged.
The advertising for his work is contrasted with the inflated advertising for science-fiction books.

Twain, Mark

He is used as an example of a writer of “anti-fairy tales,” who creates a new kind of work by inverting the rules of the basic game (the classical fairy tale).

van Vogt, A. E.

He is the primary example of a “charlatan” in science fiction.
His work is described as being composed of “trashy parts,” “full of contradictory elements” (both internal and external), and ultimately collapsing into “nonsense.”
Lem states that van Vogt “does not solve the riddles posed” and “piling them chaotically on one another… lulls [the reader] to sleep” through “increasing boredom, not fascinating magnetism.”
He is frequently contrasted with Philip K. Dick, who uses similar trashy materials but, unlike van Vogt, assembles them into a “meaningful whole.” The science-fiction environment is criticized for being unable to distinguish between the two.
His novel The World of Null-A is mentioned, with Lem stating that the title would be more appropriate for a book by Dick.

Verne, Jules

Lem mentions reading him in his youth.
He is grouped with Wells and Stapledon as a “sovereign individuality” who created something “radically new” and had “enormous room for maneuvering” in a newly opened field.

Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Auguste

His story Véra is used by Todorov as an example of the “fantastic-marvelous,” where the conclusion forces one to accept a supernatural explanation.

Voltaire

The humorous, misanthropic side of some of Lem’s own work is compared to Swift and “dry, mischievous Voltairean misanthropy.”

Wells, H. G.

He is consistently praised as a master and founder of the genre.
Lem read him in his youth and confirmed his understanding of human psychology during the war.
He is cited with Verne and Stapledon as a “sovereign individuality” who created something “radically new.”
He is seen as the father of English science fiction, in contrast to the “gutter” origins of American science fiction under Gernsback.
His novel The War of the Worlds is used as the primary model for the invasion theme. Lem praises its internal logic (the Martians have a reason to invade) but notes that its failings (poverty of Martian culture) were mechanically imitated and worsened by his successors.
He is called a “master” of the art of “putting hypothetical premises into the very complicated stream of sociopsychological occurrences,” an art that has since been “forgotten and is now lost.”

Werfel, Franz

He is mentioned as a mainstream writer who made “excursions” into fantasy.

Wiener, Norbert

His work on cybernetics is praised alongside Claude Shannon’s. Lem saw in it “a new era not just for technological progress but also for the whole of civilization” and borrowed The Human Use of Human Beings to read voraciously.

Wilson, Thomas

His story “The Entrepreneur” is cited as an example of a threadbare, repetitive time-loop plot where time travelers go back to prevent a Communist takeover of the US.

Wyndham, John

He is described as a “classical” successor to H. G. Wells who worked “like a huckster.” Lem criticizes his novel The Day of the Triffids for its simplistic escalation (not just blindness, but also poisonous plants, but also mobile plants), stating that Wyndham did not add anything major to Wells’s work.

Zola, Émile

He is mentioned with Balzac as a model of writing that “fossilized traditionalists” might insist on.