His Master's Voice (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Stanisław Lem |
|---|---|
| Original title | Głos Pana |
| Translator | Michael Kandel |
| Cover artist | Andrzej Heidrich |
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
| Genre | Social science fiction, satire, philosophical novel |
| Publisher | Czytelnik |
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Publication date
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1968 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 9945017 |
| 891.8/537 19 | |
| LC Class | PG7158.L39 G613 1984 |
His Master's Voice (original Polish title: Głos Pana) is a science fiction novel on the "message from space" theme written by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. It was first published in 1968. and translated into English by Michael Kandel in 1983. It is a densely philosophical first contact story about an effort by scientists to decode, translate and understand an extraterrestrial transmission. The novel critically approaches humanity's intelligence and intentions in deciphering and truly comprehending a message from outer space. It is considered to be one of the three best-known books by Lem, the other two being Solaris and The Cyberiad.
The novel is written as a first-person narrative, the memoir of a mathematician named Peter Hogarth, who becomes involved in a Pentagon-directed project (code-named "His Master's Voice", or HMV for short) in the Nevada desert, where scientists are working to decode what seems to be a message from outer space (specifically, a neutrino signal from the Canis Minor constellation). Throughout the book Hogarth—or rather, Lem himself—exposes the reader to many debates merging cosmology and philosophy: from discussions of epistemology, systems theory, information theory and probability, through the idea of evolutionary biology and the possible form and motives of extraterrestrial intelligence, with digressions about ethics in military-sponsored research, to the limitations of human science constrained by the human nature subconsciously projecting itself into the analysis of any unknown subject. At some point one of the involved scientists (Rappaport), desperate for new ideas, even begins to read and discuss popular science-fiction stories, and Lem uses this opportunity to criticize the science fiction genre, as Rappaport soon becomes bored and disillusioned by monotonous plots and the unimaginative stories of pulp magazines.
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