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This title in other formats:

His Master's Voice

by Stanislaw Lem

His Master's Voice Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"Twenty-five hundred scientists have been herded into an isolated site in the Nevada desert. A neutrino message of extraterrestrial origin has been received, and, under the surveillance of the Pentagon, the scientists labor on His Master's Voice, the secret program set up to decipher the transmission."--BOOK JACKET. "Among them is Peter Hogarth, an eminent mathematician whose posthumous diary makes up the novel. Hogarth joins His Master's Voice after all efforts to decode the message prove futile and, after an early success, gives up on the project to pursue clandestine research into the so-called TX effect. Hogarth comes to realize that the TX effect could lead to the construction of the ultimate weapon - a fission bomb - and that such knowledge must not be allowed into the hands of the military."--BOOK JACKET. "Originally published in 1968, His Master's Voice takes to task the military takeover of scientific research, Cold War - era politics, and humanity's perpetual capacity for (self-)destruction. It remains a mordant satire on scientific microworlds and the monstrous political and military systems bankrolling them."--BOOK JACKET.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
UnofficialRose, February 22, 2009 (view all comments by UnofficialRose)
Jill Tarter just won the TED Prize for asking the same question this book asks: Once we've heard a sign of intelligent life from elsewhere in the universe, how will _we_ change? Lem's book is dense and fascinating, funny and entirely plausible, as his very human characters -- scientists, mathematicians, military types -- react variously to this worldview-changing event. (Some turn philosophical, others careerist; and some get right down to the business of war.) Lem has a gift for moving his characters through complex spaces and ideas, inviting the reader to think deeply on questions without simple answers.
If you watch Jill Tarter's TEDTalk and then read this, ask yourself which outcome you'd prefer: that we do, or that we don't, find what she's looking for...
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780810117310
Translator:
Kandel, Michael
Author:
Kandel, Michael
Author:
Lem, Stanislaw
Publisher:
Northwestern University Press
Location:
Evanston, Ill.
Subject:
World war, 1939-1945
Subject:
Science Fiction - General
Subject:
Science fiction
Subject:
Science fiction, Polish.
Subject:
Science / General
Copyright:
Series Volume:
100-844
Publication Date:
November 1999
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
199
Dimensions:
8.60x5.54x.60 in. .60 lbs.

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