Best Robot Fiction Ever!

The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem is almost certainly the finest fictional book about robots. I don't like hyperbole, so let's keep a calm head while commenting on it. Surely it is one of the greatest collections of linked short stories ever written: it matches Calvino's The Complete Cosmicomics. Lem is a total genius, a writer of playful little fables that are also philosophically profound (and logically consistent). He has a beautiful style: he can make engineering terms sound poetic. His rigorously modern metaphors are as original as those of J.G. Ballard, but more varied and lyrical. For Lem, the Periodic Table is an unwritten poem. This book is the final and true ode of lyrical science, and each page is a fantastic, fabulous, incredible delight. I give this book 200,000,000 stars out of 10. And that's only because I'm not feeling so generous today. It probably deserves a googolplex of stars. At least.