Book Review
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
First Edition published in Polish in 1961
This Edition published in 2002 by Harvest Books and translated from French

Scientist Kris Kelvin is sent to Solaris--a planet, though thoroughly explored in the past century by Earthmen because it was thought to have intelligent life, is still largely a mystery--to join a crew of three other colleagues. Upon arriving, he finds the station in disarray, with one person having committed suicide and the remaining two acting strange and apparently delusional. Kelvin tries to find the source of the mystery, but can he do it before madness envelopes him?

In a well-written and engrossing novel of psychological science-fiction, Stanislaw Lem takes an intriguing look at what contact with life-forms outside of our planet might be like. While highly technical and futuristic, the book is written in an easy to read prose, if a bit lacking on dialogue.

Interestingly, the famous science fiction writer is described in the cover paragraph as "the most translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language." There is no mention of the book being written in, nor of the author being Polish.

Two movies based on the book were produced: the first one is Russian and was made in 1972; the more famous American version starred George Clooney and Natascha McElhone and was made in 2002. IMDB users rate the first an 8.1/10 and the second a 6.2.