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"Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanislaw Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first ""new"" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite bizarre theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, ""The Truth,"" a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; ""The Journal"" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in ""An Enigma,"" beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing."

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"Stanislaw Lem is the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. His books have been translated into forty-one languages and have sold over twenty-seven million copies. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he is a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and he is the author of numerous works, including Solaris, The Cyberiad, and His Master's Voice. Edoardo Ballerini is a two time winner of the Best Male Narrator Audie Award from the Audiobook Publishers Association, and was named a ""Golden Voice"" by AudioFile. The New York Times has called him ""a master in his field."" David Aaron Baker is a voice and film actor. He is an award-winning narrator of dozens of audiobooks, including the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, Paradise Dogs by Man Martin, and The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig. He has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards and been a three-time finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. A native Californian, he is the author of the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning Mars trilogy, as well as the 2016 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space. This award is in recognition of Mr. Robinson's body of work, which includes more than fifteen novels-including his groundbreaking Mars novels-and over forty short stories. Antonia Lloyd-Jones is a prize-winning literary translator, working from Polish to English."

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