After the time mish-mash of
Ijon Tichy’s seventh voyage, it wasn’t
clear whether Ijon would ever ply the channels of time again, but here he is, traveling back
in time to
persuade himself to go forward in time and take up the helm
of THEOHIPPIP—a.k.a. Teleotelechronistic-Historical Engineering to Optimize the
Hyoerputerized Implementation of Paleological Programming and Interplanetary Planning. It
takes a few attempts for older Ijon to convince younger Ijon to head to the future on a
one-man chronocykl, but when he does, the younger Ijon begins the unexpectedly hard task of
righting history’s wrongs. As a sophisticated time traveler
yourself, you’ll spot
what’s happening early on, while you also
get a tour of history from the
formamtion of the Solar System to the
extinction of the dinosaurs and the paintings of
Hieronymus Bosch. You’ll also recognize the fun Lem has at the expense
of the bureaucracies of mid-20th-century Poland.
— Michael Main
Zresztą Bosch nie powstrzymał się od niedyskrecji. W „Ogrodzie uciech ziemskich,”
w „piekle muzycznym” (prawe skrzydło tryptyku) stoi w samym środku dwunastoosobowy
chronobus. I co miałem z tym robić?
Even so, Bosch couldn’t refrain from certain indiscretions. In the “Garden of Earthly
Delights,” in the very center of the “Musical Hell” (the right wing of the triptych),
stands a twelve-seat chronobus. Not a thing I could do about it.
DEBUT
[ex=bare]“Podróż dwudziesta” | Journey twenty[/ex], in
Dzienniki gwiazdowe,
expanded third edition, by
Stanisław Lem, (Czytelnik,
1971).