Solaris
Author: Stanisław Lem
Translators: Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (from the French translation by Jean-Michel Jasiensko)
Published: December, 1971 by Berkley Medallion Books; originally published 1961 by MON
Cover Artist: Uncredited; cited here as Paul Lehr
Publisher Blurb: A sentient ocean was the ruling intelligence of Solaris. Its vast mind and enigmatic personality exerted a powerful force on those humans who contacted it. And to Kris Kelvin, a galactic researcher from Earth, it had presented a strange and awesome gift...
Notes: A speculative look at contact with alien intelligence as well as a psychological drama, Solaris is one of the genre's classics for a good reason. The 'history of discovery' that is such a prominent part of the book is its strongest point, while the more introspective, psychological components sometimes fall short.
Lem purportedly did not approve of this translation from the French; a newer translation into English is available on Audible (I do not purchase from Amazon so I haven't read the audiobook), but its print run was limited to a fine press edition from Conversation Tree Press (via Wikipedia) that can go for $1,000 on Ebay. So this translation from the French remains the only really accessible option for English readers at the moment.
Summary: Psychologist Dr. Kris Kelvin arrives on the planet Solaris with little in the way of welcome. His landing is rough, the station is in disarray, and the few expected occupants-- researchers of the planet-- are conspicuously absent. Taking a preliminary look around the station, Kelvin stumbles on the disoriented and melancholy Dr. Snow (Snaut in the original). Snow provides little in the way of immediate explanation, but invites Kelvin to return later... with a peculiar warning.
Dr. Snow is not the only disturbed one on the station. Dr. Gibarian, a former teacher and collaborator of Kelvin's, is recently dead-- by his own hand. And Dr. Sartorius has barricaded himself in his lab, uncooperative and abrasive. Unusual sights and sounds tease at the periphery of Kelvin's awareness.
Kelvin soon comes to understand that something very unusual is happening on the planet. Something to do, presumably, with its inscrutable and intelligent planet-wide entity. Scientists have been trying to make contact with the sentient ocean for decades to no avail; but a recent experiment-- an illegal bombardment of X-ray-- seems to have finally gotten Solaris' attention. The trouble is, no one's sure what it's trying to say, if anything.
The planet seems to be in psychological contact with its visitors, generating copies of emotionally significant people for each scientist at the station. The researchers have been calling these inventions visitors, a benign name for what appear to be manifestations of past personal trauma. Kelvin soon has a visitor of his own: his ex-wife Rheya (Harey in the original). He knows this can't really be Rheya, because Rheya killed herself long ago. For years, he's carried his guilt for his own part in her decision: the argument which led to it, the threats she made but he did not believe, the method of her suicide made possible by his own carelessness.
The visitors are convincing, but there are some oddities about them: a visitor cannot bear to be parted from its psychological host, it has no human need for sleep, it heals rapidly from injury, it possesses incredible physical strength. Knowing this manifestation of Rheya is not "real", Kelvin responds to her first appearance by tricking her into a shuttle and launching her into space. This, Snow later explains, is merely a reprieve; she'll come back. He's hardly the first to launch a visitor into space.As promised, Rheya comes back. While Kelvin studies the planet and the strange physical properties of the visitors, he finds it increasingly difficult to think of Rheya as merely an emanation from the planet; instead, he begins to see her as a second chance with his former wife. She does not know herself as anything other than Rheya. As long as she is with him, behaving as Rheya, remembering herself as Rheya, he can put his guilt and grief on hold.
But visitors do not last forever, and eventually Solaris seems to lose interest in whatever it is it's doing. Rheya stops coming back. Kelvin continues his study of the planet, attempting to engage with it, refusing the opportunity to go home and be free of the folly of it. As long as Rheya might come back, he can't help himself. But can the difficulties inherent in communicating with an alien intelligence ever be overcome? Or will he, like so many researchers before him, spend his life in the futile, obsessive attempt?