''The Man from Mars'' ( pl, Człowiek z Marsa) is a " first contact" science fiction novel by

Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical ...

: American scientists are trying to deal with a creature in a crashed spaceship from Mars.

Publication history

It was Stanislaw Lem's first science fiction work, serialized in a Katowice weekly, ' ("New Adventure World") in 1946, starting in the first issue. Lem considered it extremely naive and weak; he said he wrote it exclusively "for bread", and refused to reprint it for a long time. Some Polish science fiction fanclubs produced small editions of pirated reprints. Later it was printed legally several times in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where a publishing house had rights for Stanislaw Lem's juvenilia. The first legal Polish reprint, in book format, was published in 1994 by Independent Publishing House NOWA. In 2009 for the first time a long excerpt from Chapter 1 was translated into English by Peter Swirski and published with permission of Stanislaw Lem's family in the online literary magazine ''

Words Without Borders ''Words Without Borders'' (''WWB'') is an international magazine open to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world's best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The ...

''.

Plot summary

An American reporter is accidentally forced to join a secret team of scientists who got hold of a crashed spaceship from Mars with a creature they dubbed "areanthrop" (Greek: Ares=Mars + anthropos=man) in it. The areanthrop seems to be a kind of

cyborg A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

: a sentient protoplasm which in the course of natural evolution built itself a "robotic suit", rather than developing a biological body. Scientists poke, prod and pry it with all means possible in attempts to study it. Eventually the areanthrop gives them a telepathic trip to Mars and seizes control over a member of the team, and after that it is completely destroyed.

Literary criticism

Despite Lem's own critical attitude, notes that ''The Man from Mars'' is a smoothly written, readable novel that keeps the reader in suspense and does not abuse the technical jargon, although it is written following standard literary recipes, unlike later Lem's works, which break conventions and are full of intellectual challenges. At the same time the novel sketches a number of ideas further elaborated by Lem in other works, most notably the concept of the inherent impossibility of communication between human and non-human intelligences, best known from his novel '' Solaris''.Jerzy Jarzębski, ''Golem z Marsa'' ("

Golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the l ...

from Mars"), an afterword to the first official Polish print of ''The Man from Mars''Ezra Glinter
"The World According to Stanisław Lem"
''Los Angeles Review of Books'', December 10, 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Man from Mars 1946 novels Novels by Stanisław Lem Novels set on Mars Novels first published in serial form Works originally published in Polish magazines 1946 science fiction novels