According to a Polish member on another forum, Lem actually used the word "automat".
In the older, more "poetic" English translation (via a French translation) the word "robot" is used, but in the 2011 (approved version by Lem's family) as well as the Norwegian translation "automat" is used.
It's a minor point, since they don't really play any part in the story, but it's still a curious choice of word, I think.

Not for me at this point. I prefer my own visuals and interpretations, not those of film makers, who work under limitations in any case. At least for my first run through, where I want to get maximum joy on my own.

The first book in the series was a slow but good read for me, and each book continued to get better, and I certainly never saw any disconnect or finality that made any of the later books seem extra additions. So each to their own I guess. I love all the differently weaved threads and how they all come together.

I think there is a misunderstanding out there with some, that it was originally just a trilogy. While he may have attempted to do that, it soon became readily apparent that what he wanted to say and achieve, wasn't going to fit within those bounds. So that trilogy was kind of loose, and he often talks about the freedom to go where he needs to, without artificial limitations. And for me, the overall story has always seemed unfinished.

I may read them one day, but on the surface they don't really appeal. I have some of his works, only read one SciFi Mystery novella so far.
Unlike you and many others it is the full vision of Robert Jordan, with all its complexities and threads, that I love the most.
Robert Jordan, along with the duo of Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts, are my all time favorite Fantasy authors, and I've read many many others. Robin Hobb is another author right up there, and J.R.R. Tolkien of course. Many are floating around near the top of my list.

Not really checked his works out ... yet.

Some of you observant ones may notice I am reading two books at the same time ... a clever talent I have. :lol:

The first of those is an autobiography, and is 500 word vignettes, so I read about the first 40 pages in one go the other night, and now I am just reading a few of the vignettes now and then. It is an interesting read, but not a riveting one.

The second, is a free SciFi ebook I recently got from Kobo with my second year of VIP membership. So once again, I am kind off starting the year with one of those, and like I said earlier somewhere, if I enjoy it I will buy the other two ebooks (likely from Amazon though, due to pricing) and the second prequel novella (only at Amazon right now), and probably the sooner I do that the better ... though I might try out Kobo's price matching facility. I already own the first prequel, which I got for free at Amazon and now Kobo, via a BookBub email.

Last year, the first read of the year, once I had completed a book I started near the end of the prior year, was another similar SciFi one involving androids. That would appear to be theme with me, but in reality it is just a reflection on the poor collection of free ebooks Kobo have on offer for the VIP membership. In fact, most seem to be the same as what was available last year, including what I got last year. I don't recall knowing any author names, for the ebooks available to me, and as I spent $10 AUD on my membership, I wanted to get something better than the usual free ebooks I get daily via BookBub at Amazon or Kobo or Google. When I say I didn't know any of the author names, I do recognize a few from those free ebooks I regularly get, none of which I have read yet, and may never. So I am not saying that the poor collection of ebooks are crap, and some of them at least, surely aren't, just a poor choice for me to choose from. I tend to only spend my book money on something that either really grabs me or is some kind of known. Even more so, because I have a huge backlog of books to read. So anyway, I defaulted to something I love - SciFi and Androids.

That VIP membership at Kobo, in theory gives you great discounts on ebooks, but in reality much of the time, that isn't true. Often they only bring the price down to parity, matching what Amazon sells the ebook for, and often not even that much. To be fair though, sometimes they do work out cheaper, hence why I am bothering a second time around ... that and the fact I'd rather avoid purchasing ebooks at Amazon if I can possibly do so ... not least because I prefer my Kobo Ereader device. I'm not going to pay more for that preference though.

Well, it was originally a trilogy, but not in the sense of the first 3 books that were released, because what was originally planned as book 2 became books 2 and 3, and the content that was originally planned for book 3 is yet to be released, because it was supposed to take place 5 years later and he ended up writing books 4 and 5 instead to fill that gap instead of relying on flashbacks. (I'm sure you know this, just saying in general.)
From everything else I read by Sanderson, it's quite clear to me that he uses all his other works as practice for Stormlight. They focus on elements, like he's trying variants of something and then perfecting that aspect in another book or series, then taking that perfected form and incorporating it in SA.
Wheel of Time looks... daunting, way too much to go from start to end, and what if I decide I don't like it at some point, how many should I get at once, and mainly how bad will I feel if I'll get to a certain point and don't want to continue (and something like that can make me feel really bad whether I stop or decide to trudge along, so it's something I really want to avoid).
Feist... Read Riftwar Saga, unimpressed, had some moments but largely struck me as what fantasy used to mean back in the day, mostly aimed at tween guys and lacking the depth and complexities the peaks of the genre gained since then. Haven't read Hobb yet, may be like you say with Sanderson, at least from the descriptions it doesn't appeal to me. As for Tolkien, sure, without him the rest may well not exist, and he was decades ahead of his time, much time passing before he was rivaled, but that time does show now...

My understanding was it was originally planned as a trilogy, but like with Robert Jordan, George had trouble whittling things down, so he expanded it to 4 and then 5 and eventually 7 novels. I am guessing he is still having trouble whittling the story down. As you kind of say, he probably expanded things a bit, went off in tangents at times. Clearly his creative urge was flowing, and he'd become so popular, that he felt the need to deliver more surprises etc.

Well it is daunting I guess with that many books.
I remember holding off until the sixth book was released before buying any, thinking it was the final one, only to eventually discover it wasn't. I tend to buy books in series these days, in one swoop, not liking to wait for future sequels to be published. I was very much a person willing to take a punt or gamble back then, but less so now. Anyway, I got bitten by Jordan and Martin, buying into their series too soon. But I have learnt over time, it is not good to binge read too much ... variety is the spice of life. I do still like having sequels at hand though, and not have to wait when I don't want to.

Anyway, it wasn't all smooth sailing for me with the Wheel Of Time novels, I got heartily sick of the dream sequences that happened early on, for most of the first few books, and was so happy when they eventually disappeared for the most part. Luckily I really enjoyed the rest of the story in those books.

I wasn't really talking about the Riftwar Saga, though the trilogy he wrote with Janny Wurts is certainly related to it. Did you read that? It has many complex threads including Japanese like culture and lots of political intrigue and family stuff going on and the life of a slave, war, magic etc ... even some Roman like elements. I guess they are what is commonly called the Empire Trilogy ... Servant Of The Empire, Mistress Of The Empire, etc. They had a very different feel to the Riftwar proper books. I guess you would call them an offshoot.

No, just Riftwar Saga. And have the first two in Serpentwar Saga and the Riftwar Legacy trilogy around.
Was thinking of getting the Empire trilogy at one point, but after reading those, put me off, and I'd likely start in a negative mindset if I would eventually read them.

Naked to the Stars (1961) by Gordon R. Dickson: 3/5

I've always thought of Gordie, as he was known as, as the number one military romanticist of his generation of SF writers, the other possible candidates being Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard.
So I was quite surprised by this book's pacifist message. I originally skipped the F&SF serial (October-November) since I didn't know the book was somewhat controversial, so when I learnt that it's a book people tend to love ("masterpiece") or loath ("incredibly...stupid? weak? lame?"), I decided to read the book version which at only 157 pages is very short.

Apparently the book is an "answer" to Heinlein's Starship Troopers (although the title made me think of Hubbard's To The Stars), which was easily the most controversial SF novel in the years before Stranger in a Strange Land was released.
Cal Truant is a Section Leader in the 91st Combat Engineers, but unlike Rico he doesn't get the shakes before a drop, instead he hates his father for having been a Societic (pacifists who believe in equal rights, instead of veterans getting an extra vote). When the book starts he's on a mission leading his men, not having slept in two days, when he blacks out and wakes up in a hospital having forgotten the last 16 waking hours of his life.
He's then reassigned against his will to the Contacts Services and groomed to be a "Gutless Wonder" who functions as some kind of field diplomats.

So it's an interesting premise, and Dickson's writing is better and more mature than in Dorsai!
But after a promising start the plot never goes anywhere exciting, and the message of the story ("there must be a better way than war") ignores the possibility of aliens that are completely ruthless, for example.
So what started as something that felt more mature than Dorsai! ended as something rather naive, simplistic, and not very subtle. So as an "answer" to the far more multi-layered and ambiguous Starship Troopers I think it was a failure. Joe Haldeman succeeded 13 years later with The Forever War, though.
But by all means, it was still a reasonably entertaining read.

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

It was quite a fantastical tale spun by Johann. A Swiss colonist family shipwrecks upon a conveniently deserted island, with all the evacuating ship crew conveniently drowning early. The book title references Robinson Crusoe and is mentioned by the head of the family.
Do butter makes for good preserving? Someone thought it's good idea to put meat in a butter cask to preserve them. I only say: Yuck.
The island is quite rich in resources and wildlife. The family finds india rubber, potatoes, sugarcane, cotton, salt and various useful plants. They encounters flamingos, birds, onagers, jackals, hyenas, penguins, monkeys, baboons, a boa constrictor, boars, rabbits, buffalo, bears, lions, walruses, whales, signs of elephants. In real life, this island would be rather large to support all these wildlife.
Needless to say, the hardworking God-fearing Swiss family of husband, wife and 4 boys thrives on the island.

I understand, I am not a fan of starting with a negative mindset either, hence my mostly avoidance of reviews ... especially for books and movies.

Still it is also good to be pleasantly surprised, and sometimes that happens ... especially if you are suspecting less.

I can't actually advise you one way or the other, as aside from people often having very different tastes etc, I quite enjoyed the Riftwar Saga and sequels. I've not quite finished all of the books, the last few of which I have been buying as ebooks. Raymond E. Feist is certainly one of those authors I collect everything of. My oldest son (32), is slightly ahead of me with the books I believe, so he loves them too. I am hoping to get back to reading them sometime this year.

Not that you asked to be advised. :)

The Stainless Steel Rat (1961) by Harry Harrison: 2.5/5

James Bolivar diGriz is one of
"the one per cent that keeps the police departments in business. That one per cent is me, and a handful of men scattered around the galaxy. Theoretically we can't exist, and if we do exist we can't operate-but we do. We are the rats in the wainscoting of society-we operate outside of their barriers and outside of their rules. Society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as the old wooden buildings had more rats than the concrete buildings that came later. But they still had rats. Now that society is all ferroconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints, and it takes a smart rat to find them. A stainless steel rat is right at home in this environment."

The first two chapters is very familiar. I know I haven't read this book before, but yet I felt I had already read/watched most of the story.
So Slippery Jim first avoids the local plods coming down on his current racket, but on his next job he's caught by the ex-thieves of the elite Special Corps and persuaded to join; a thief to catch a thief.
Hid first assignment is to find out who's stealthily (by modifying a cargo ship) building a huge battleship, and why. Turns out the master criminal, who unlike DiGriz is a ruthless killer as well, is a woman (very beautiful, of course) name Angelina. Of course, from there it's predictable to the very last sentence.

I'm not sure how much of the plot was predictable in 1961, but most of it has been regurgitated by Hollywood ad nauseatum by now.
So it's reasonably entertaining and I guess of some historical value if you're interested in the history of SF. But I thought Eric Frank Russel did the cloak&dagger stuff better in Wasp; or at least it was better written and more exciting, although with a more mundane setting.

Harrison's book has an edge in having some humour, though.

Like when he's sucking up/nodding to fandom:


Or with an early example of Steampunk:

I must have bought and read all of the Stainless Steel Rat books and found them delightful when I wanted light entertainment but very little stayed in my memory. Can only really remember the plots of SSR for President and A SSR Is Born. Those two titles I can recommend but the series are not classics.

I've read a lot of the Stainless Steel Rat novels and enjoyed them. That was quite a few years ago.

I've also read and enjoyed The Swiss Family Robinson, very long ago.

I wish I had read The Stainless Steel Rat many years ago, myself. I would have enjoyed it more then.

The Thief of Fate

Again, without having played the game, I'm making assumptions, but if The Destiny Knight struck me as having failed to make proper use of the source material, in this case the impression was that the source material couldn't be put together in book form, and even less so in a novella, offering too much breadth and too little depth to work with. That said, the author didn't even seem to try anymore, appearing to have had enough, rushing through area after area, sometimes barely even mentioning them.
While, unlike Lady Svante, I'd use a term very different from "fascinating" for the fact "that the truth can be lost in so short a time", the beginning seemed pretty good, promising another thrilling fantasy adventure but also having some words of wisdom related to our "reality" to add. However, with the possible exception of a few moments that can be considered exceptions, those expectations were not met, this novella being, at least in my view, by far the weakest of the series. The action offers few thrills, the locations and characters are spared too little attention to generate immersion, not to mention emotional involvement, and while the moments when Gillan breaks the fourth wall make good points about heroic fantasy tropes, and those used in games released in that period in particular, they stop there, and in a way are tropes themselves.

Rating: 2/5

The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge 1970, a reread. Let us give it a 3.5/5 stars.

An alright space opera where I was surprised by how little I remembered from my previous read of it but enough to recognise that I had read it before, 20-40 years prior. I always check when a Sci-Fi book was written before I read it as that tends to be important in understanding the book. Several things in the book are certainly children of its time but I usually do not have a big problem with that but I sure would not want to marry either of the diGriz couple, ugh.