A review by wohnjick
Return from the Stars by Stanisław Lem

2.0

The plot revolves around an astronaut returning to Earth after over a hundred years away only to find that society has changed drastically, with everyone undergoing "betrization" which eliminates all violence and lets Earth become a "utopia" where nearly everything is free and there's no violence or human evils. This Brave New World-esque plot is really interesting conceptually... unfortunately Lem spends the first half of this book basically just yapping about all the cool sci-fi stuff he imagined for this world instead of actually discussing it philosophically. The beginning chapters of this book basically read like "And then I took the gleeber-goober into the klepoplex where I met Zuzu who informed me my sweater was lame and I needed to buy the super-duper spray on pants from the Hooble Store." Its only in the second half of the book when the implications of a society where risk and danger are removed are explored... momentarily. The second half instead shifts primarily into a very weird romance where the age old trope of "characters who just met and know nothing about each other fall in love" constitutes basically the entire focus of the novel until the last chapter, where for some reason out main character has just decided he actually doesnt hate this world for whatever reason and is happy to skip out on what he's been desiring for the entirety of the story up until now. A lot of wasted potential here and not Lem's best.