On one level Fiasco attests to Lem's fascination with problems common to the entire human race. Long sections of the novel are given over to descriptions of, or straight philosophical reflections on, the future history of our civilization.

In this sense it is again the accuracy of certain hypotheses and theories, and the broad techno-evolutionary perspective of the human nature and society, that occupy the book's narrative center.

The presence of a Dominican priest, Father Arago, among the crew of Euridice seems, for example, to have been dictated exclusively by Lem's need for a philosophical and reflective focus. One gets the impression that Arago, much like other characters, is little more than a spokesman in the debates that the author conducts on the pages of Fiasco. This impression is aided by the fact that, notwithstanding Lem's protests of psychosocial realism, he includes no women in the mission to...