Solaris (2002) is one of my all-time favorite films, and so I was excited to dive into this book more than half my life later, hoping to understand once and for all what the hell was going on. Lem is on record saying the 2002 film adaptation is terrible and completely misses the point of the book, but I'm going to back Soderbergh on this one. The book is reminiscent of Murakami in that lots of weird things happen and then nothing is explained and the whole book might as well have not happened. The film understands character arcs and human interest, set among a fantastical environment required for exploring its themes. The setting is a vessel for the story.

But the book, it's clear that the the book is a vessel for the setting. Lem has nothing to /say/ here. He manages to describe a completely alien encounter, but... why? What's it all for? We never learn who the main character is, or why he's come to this strange station. The book doesn't deign to tell us why he is so quick to believe his suddenly re-appearant dead girlfriend /is actually who she says she is./ What the fuck? After like two hours of unease, he settles into the idea, cuddling her at night and talking about bringing her back to Earth. And this guy is supposed to be some sort of world-class scientist? OK sure.

If you're looking for a book with great ideas /that completely fails to execute on them,/ and instead are OK with 150 pages of boring technobabble and a make-believe history of science, then this might just be the book for you.