Review: The Cyberiad

I loved this. Never before have I so fervently wished that I could speak Polish - and I've been tempted by Polish many a time before. These stories are incredibly playful, but also incredibly critical of the many pitfalls of human ideologies and mindsets. Michael Kandel did an amazing job translating this - providing a hilarious and engaging translation. I will have to seek out more things that he has done (even just essays or editorials).

However, I felt that this collection of stories did have its pitfalls. Some stories dragged a bit. I'm thinking here, mostly, of 'The Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius', but all of the last stories fell a bit flat with me after the sheer wonder of the Sallies. In addition to this, some elements included as givens felt odd in a world of robots - the approach to death being one, the extremely patriarchal society being another. This last is somewhat understandable, given the stories' own explanations of how robot society came about.

All in all, though, this was an incredibly fun read, with three stories that particularly stood out for me being the two first Sallies and the third Sally

This counts as Poland for the European Reading Challenge. It is also included in the Mount TBR challenge (my first book!) and the Books in Translation Challenge.