Perfect Vacuum

A famous science-fiction writer emerges as a satirist as he reviews such nonexistent works as U-Write-It, a publication described as a literary erector set, and The Sexplosion, a novel concerned with the extinction of the sex drive.Most of the 'reviews' target the postmodern infatuation with antinarratives by lampooning their self-indulgence and exploiting their mannerisms. Lem exposes the limits of postmodern fiction, showing how its studious self-consciousness frequently conceals intellectual paucity. Beginning with a review of his own book, Lem moves on to tackle (or create pastiches of) the French new novel, James Joyce, pornography, authorless writing, and Dostoevsky, while at the same time ranging across scientific topics, from cosmology to the pervasiveness of computers.