The Cyberiad
by Stanislaw Lem
Mariner Books, 2002
312 pages / $13.00 buy from Powell’s
Rating: 8.5

The Cyberiad is labeled as science fiction, but it exists in a world where science is no longer distinguishable from magic. The stories in the book take place in a kind of robot Middle Ages, with mad mechanical kings on tiny planet kingdoms, electronic knights and maidens, and two brilliant constructors named Trurl and Klapaucius who travel from world to world, fabricating wonderfully implausible machines to perform various tasks, from writing brilliant poetry (yes, the robot succeeds in doing this) to distracting a lovelorn king with a “femfatalatron.”

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If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
by Jon McGregor
Mariner Books, 2003
275 pages / $13.95 Buy from Powell’s
Rating: 7.3

It’s been close to a decade since Jon McGregor wrote his debut novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, published when he was twenty-six. He was the youngest and only first-time novelist to be long-listed for the Booker Prize, and he won both the Betty Trask Award and the Somerset Maugham Award.

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