Janusz A. Zajdel (1938–1985)

This is one of the most frustrating books I've ever read. It contains many intriguing ideas that could fill at least a few books... but the author hasn't developed any of them and stitched them by brute force into a single piece. I enjoyed the presented concepts and tried to imagine what those different books could be... at the same time I was infuriated with the actual book.

This book is a high-concept socio-political story, similarly to Paradyzja I've read just before it. The major difference is that Paradyzja focuses on a single concept and its coherent explanation, not even trying to bring any life to its characters or have a captivating story. Cylinder van Troffa has a multitude of concepts, teases some intriguing story (but hardly delivers), and tries to add some drama (and fails). It feels like a collage of short stories that were glued together without any "normalization" of a tone, pace, or point they try to make. The protagonist is one of the best examples here - his motivation changes without any reason, to force his action author gives him a strong emotional impulse... that comes from nowhere and disappears almost immediately after the action is completed and the plot can progress.

The problems presented in this book were most likely visionary when the book was published and 40 years later we face many of them. The foresight of the author to define the right problems is impressive but, at the same time, his ability to propose solutions seems kind of silly. We have a super-advanced civilization that uses technology to solve major world problems and makes really simple mistakes and bad decisions that make it trip over minor issues. It might be easy to say when having the benefit of seeing how the events unfolded 4 decades later. Regardless, there are multiple inconsistencies in the worldbuilding that make readers suspend disbelief more and more as the plot progresses and, at some point, one can't treat this book seriously anymore.

I like the concepts in this book and I wish that author would break them down into separate pieces or pick one and go with it only. In this form, the book is unbearable for me and I wouldn't recommend it to start exploring Zajdel's work.

Here I'll vent a bit about what triggered me the most. There are distinct parts of the book that introduce things that seem relevant but then disappear completely and make no impact on the rest of the story... and hardly ever any sense in its final context.

So we start with a crew of astronauts coming back from the interstellar trip. Maybe this book will be about their discoveries and what they learned during their adventures? Lol, nope! No one is even remotely interested in this. There is a single character that seems to be curious about it, but conveniently "doesn't want to ask too many questions", because his role is to be walking exposition. So after a few flashbacks, we don't learn anything about their mission, adventures, and impact of this space trip on them... and everything is dropped later on.

Then our astronaut crew is imprisoned and not allowed to come back to Earth. Maybe this book will be a heist story where they need to break out by utilizing a unique bond they have formed on their mission? Lol, nope! As soon as the protagonist is away, he forgets about the rest of the crew - so long suckers! We don't even have a chance to learn the names of all the crewmates. They are gone and out of the picture... except the protagonist thinking to himself "I should care more about my crewmates" two or three times but this has no consequences whatsoever.

Then the protagonist tells us about the titular device. This should be important, right? It's in the title! But in the end, it's just a gimmick :( It doesn't matter at all, has almost no impact on the story, and the main utility of this idea is just to enable the author to make a not-at-all-subtle wink to the readers at the end of the book. I was so disappointed with how underutilized the Cylinder came to be.

And this happens every few chapters. Interesting things are added and then immediately forgotten to add new interesting things. There is no consistency and coherence, making significant parts of this book interesting on their own but not relevant in the context of the main story. … (meer)

It's a great concept book that reminds us of totalitarian regimes of the past (communist Poland) as well as predicts regimes of the present (China, Russia). It's very "lean" - there is hardly anything else except this concept - which can be an advantage for some but I wish there was more creative substance here.

Concept-wise it is perfect! Due to the context of its creation and how it needed to go through the censorship, it's kind of a meta-story - a medium and a message, that uses in real-life tricks described in the sci-fi world. It captures the idea and delivers everything necessary to understand it.

...and nothing else. I wish there was more texture or literary craft that would give something more for the imagination to work on. It's written in a very clear but at the same time plain and simple language. It doesn't provide any meaningful characters (including the protagonist), just empty shells to move the plot forward. The plot itself is pretty straightforward, halfway through a reader "gets it" and there is no twist or "a-ha moment" till the very end. And the conclusion of this book seems to be rushed and doesn't have the impact I was counting on.

It's certainly a book that more people should be familiar with, especially in Poland. I think that the story had more potential but I'm glad it was published at all, which seems to be a glitch of the system or miracle of some kind ;)… (meer)