Guess who really invented the matrix?
Polish SF author Stanislaw Lem in his 1972 novella “The Futurological Congress.”
Cosmonaut Ijon Tichy, hero of countless other Lem stories, including the much acclaimed “Star Diaries” reluctantly agrees to participate in the 8th International Futurological Congress. When weird rebels attack Costa Rica, where the Congress is held, the government uses chemical agents to turn them into peaceful citizens. That’s where all the real trouble starts for Tichy. Over the course of the book, he gets caught up in a weird story of boring lectures, social uprising, his brain is being implanted into other bodies several times and lastly, he’s mortally wounded, frozen and thawed up in the 21st century, in a world that seems perfect, but there’s a horrible truth beneath the surface.
Be not mistaken, even though this sounds quite serious, this is one of the funniest SF novels that were ever written, Lem’s dry, incredibly imaginative humor will have you laughing out loud several times.
My personal opinion: Lem is one of the most renowned SF writers of all times and some of his works belong to the Top 5 of all-time SF novels (of course I’m talking about “Solaris” here) and I’m coming to realize that I should read more old SF from the Soviet era, just imagine what it must have been like: in a totalitarian society, with censorship all over the place, Lem had no way of expressing his mind without resorting to SF. Only the possibility of placing stories, placing meaning, in a world that existed in the future, existed beyond our own, could he escape the censors. And think about it, the whole notion of living in a matrix-like world, that must have been exactly what he felt about living in Soviet Poland.
Anyway, even though I should read even more Lem, I’ve already started World War Z. Bring on the Zombie goodness!