{{Short description|1946 novel by Stanisław Lem}} {{redirect|Man from Mars|the Joni Mitchell song|Taming the Tiger}} {{about||the 1922 film|The Man from M.A.R.S. (1922 film)|the album by Smokey Wilson|The Man from Mars (album)}} {{Infobox book | name = The Man from Mars | title_orig = Człowiek z Marsa | translator = Peter Swirski | image = | cover_artist = | caption = | author = Stanisław Lem | country = Poland | language = Polish | genre = Social science fiction, satire, philosophical novel | publisher = | release_date = 1946 | pages = | isbn = | dewey = | congress = | oclc = }}
'''''The Man from Mars''''' ({{langx|pl|Człowiek z Marsa}}) is a "first contact" science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem, published in 1946. Lem's first science fiction work,<ref name=cupl>{{ill|Janusz R. Kowalczyk|pl}}, [https://culture.pl/pl/dzielo/stanislaw-lem-czlowiek-z-marsa Stanisław Lem, "Człowiek z Marsa"]</ref> its plot revolves around American scientists studying a creature - an alien - found in a crashed spaceship from Mars.
==Publication history== It was Stanislaw Lem's first science fiction work, serialized in a Katowice weekly, ''{{ill|Nowy Świat Przygód|pl}}'' ("New World of Adventures") in 1946, starting in the first issue.<ref>[http://mbc.malopolska.pl/Content/66082/06.pdf "From "Nowy Świat Przygód” (“New World of Adventures”) to "Świat Młodych” (“The Young People’s World”): The Evolution of a Cartoon Magazine for Children and Teenagers in 1946–1949"], by Adam Rusek, ''Rocznik Historii Prasy Polskiej'', Vol XIV (2011) No. 1-2 (27-28), p .175 *''Note'': Lem, in his commentary on the novel gives a different title of the weekly, ''Co Tydzień Powieść'' ("A Novel Every Week"), printed by the same publisher in Katowice </ref> Lem considered it extremely naive and weak; he said he wrote it exclusively "for bread", and refused to reprint it for a long time.<ref>[http://solaris.lem.pl/ksiazki/beletrystyka/czlowiek-z-marsa/62-komentarz-czlowiek-z-marsa Lem's commentary] on the novel</ref> Some Polish science fiction fanclubs produced small editions of pirated reprints. Later it was printed legally several times in Germany, where a publishing house had rights for Stanislaw Lem's juvenilia. The first legal Polish reprint, in book format, was published in 1994 by Independent Publishing House NOWA.<ref name=jeja/>
In 2009, a long excerpt from Chapter 1 was translated into English for the first time by Peter Swirski and published with permission of Stanislaw Lem's family in the online literary magazine ''Words Without Borders''.<ref>[http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/from-man-from-mars/ "Man from Mars"], an excerpt {{in lang|en}}</ref>
==Plot summary== An American reporter is accidentally forced to join a secret team of scientists who got hold of a crashed spaceship from Mars with a creature they dubbed "areanthrop" (Greek: Ares=Mars + anthropos=man) in it. The areanthrop seems to be a kind of cyborg: a sentient protoplasm which in the course of natural evolution built itself a "robotic suit", rather than developing a biological body. Scientists poke, prod and pry it with all means possible in attempts to study it. Eventually the areanthrop gives them a telepathic trip to Mars and seizes control over a member of the team, and with great difficulty it is completely destroyed.
==Literary criticism== Despite Lem's own critical attitude, Jerzy Jarzębski notes that ''The Man from Mars'' is a smoothly written, readable novel that keeps the reader in suspense and does not abuse the technical jargon, although it is written following standard literary recipes, unlike later Lem's works, which break conventions and are full of intellectual challenges.<ref name=jeja/> Wojciech Orliński seconds this opinion, remarking that after passing through some initial implausible elements (e.g., why would the military need a reporter in a top secret endeavor), the novel is quite readable.<ref name=orl>Wojciech Orliński, ''Co to są sepulki? Wszystko o Lemie'' [''What are Sepulki? Everything about Lem''], 2007, {{ISBN|8324007989}}, p. 54.</ref>
At the same time the novel sketches a number of ideas further elaborated by Lem in other works, most notably the concept of the inherent impossibility of communication between human and non-human intelligences, best known from his novel ''Solaris''.<ref name=jeja>Jerzy Jarzębski, ''Golem z Marsa'' ("Golem from Mars"), an afterword to the first official Polish print of ''The Man from Mars''</ref><ref>Ezra Glinter, [https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/world-according-stanislaw-lem/ "The World According to Stanisław Lem"], ''Los Angeles Review of Books'', December 10, 2016</ref><ref name= orl/>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Lem}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Man from Mars}} Category:1946 novels Category:Novels by Stanisław Lem Category:Novels set on Mars Category:Novels first published in serial form Category:Works originally published in Polish magazines Category:1946 science fiction novels Category:Novels about alien visitations Category:Polish science fiction novels Category:Science fiction about first contact