Peace on Earth is a fast-paced adventure set in the future featuring none other than the star of The Star Diaries, Memoirs of a Space Traveller and The Futurological Congress: the one and only Ijon Tichy.
Stanislaw Lem fans have come to know and love brainy, levelheaded Ijon Tichy who zooms around the galaxy in his one-man rocket ship as if bopping about in a sports car in the author's home country of Poland.
But in Peace on Earth, Stanislaw Lem's last novel published in 1987, Ijon Tichy as first-person narrator tells us he is dealing with a mighty big problem: during his latest mission to the moon he was zapped by robots, a zap that felt like a painless little snap in the middle of his head, a remote callotomy that left him with the right and left hemispheres of his brain disconnected.
Poor Ijon! He knows he is just one Ijon but he feels as if he is two separate selves each with its own brain: the rational, analytic, language making left side and the intuitive, imaginative, creative, artistic right side. Holy quagmire, Mr. Tichy! Are you one or are you two? And what, if anything, can offer a resolution? After all, if your wild, nonrational right side continues to pinch the bottom of every attractive blonde you see when you're on a bus, you could wind up in a heap of trouble.
Ijon seeks help from his old friend Professor Tarantoga who locates a specialist by the name of McIntyre in Melbourne, an expert in neurophysiology. Ijon presses the doctor on the question of consciousness - in his own unique case, is consciousness one or two? The professor replies: "It can be explained. The light of a candle is visible in the dark but not in the sun. The right brain may have consciousness, but a consciousness as feeble as candlelight, extinguished by the dominant consciousness of the left brain. It's entirely possible that -" The professor ducked, avoiding a shoe in the head. My left foot had slipped it off, propped the heel against a chair leg, then kicked it so hard that the shoe flew like a missile and crashed into the wall, missing him by a hair. "You may be right," I remarked, "but the right hemisphere is damned touchy." But one example sprinkled throughout the novel of the hilarious consequences of Ijon's callotomy.
Back on the reason why the Lunar Agency, an international organization monitoring activity up on the moon, sent Ijon on his mission in the first place. As twentieth century politics played out in subsequent decades, the superpowers in this future world agreed to remain at peace here on Earth and shift violence and aggression to the moon where war machines and robots from each side were programmed to develop more effective technologies so as to continue the arms race, including attacks and counterattacks. The colossal advantage of this international arrangement: no human casualties.
But, alas, serious problems loom, including the possibility those advanced, ever evolving war machines might come together somehow and decide to attack Earth. Technological surveillance can only go so far; someone had to check in person, and that someone was Ijon Tichy.
Ijon has a bigger problem with his current brain state than pinching blondes - unfortunately, his callotomy effectively wiped out his memory of what he discovered during his moon mission. But there's a chance his memory can be restored, thus one of the superpowers might kidnap him in an attempt to extract by whatever means the knowledge he has locked up in the right side of his brain. The story takes many more wacky twists and turns, including sending Ijon, callotomized brain and all, on a return trip to the moon. So as not to spoil for a reader, at this point I will segue to Ijon's observations on several other technological innovations in this future world:
Remotes
"By putting on a suit that pressed hundreds of electrodes to the skin, anyone could link with a male or female remote. Little did people dream how this technology would change their lives, especially their sex lives." In the same spirit as the film Ex Machina (as per below pic), androids or "remotes" are as common as soda and candy bars. Purchase a beautiful Remote for sex any time you want, day or night. Or, you could put your Remote to work painting your house, attacking your rude neighbor or, if you are having financial problems, maybe even rob a bank. Of course, your neighbor or local bank might have their own remotes to counter yours. Then the fun really begins.
Synthetic Insects
"As germs secretly enter an animal organism and kill it from within, so did these unliving microbes penetrate cannon barrels, shell chambers, the engines of tanks and planes, and eat through metal, and detonate the ammunition inside. What could a brave, grenade-carrying soldier do against a microscopic, unliving adversary?" Nearly all forms of modern warfare are rendered obsolete by superpowers in possession of millions of synthetic insects. Ijon goes on to relate even the military generals find themselves out of a job. Not a happy group made obsolete by technological innovation.
Genetic Engineering
Rich nations found the ideal solution for overpopulation in poor countries: put a drug in their supply of wheat or corn that causes impotence and stand back and watch an entire population die out.
Private Loony Bins
Ijon (and indirectly Stanislaw Lem) pokes a long, satirical needle at millionaires, noting how, other than an interest in the money markets, these millionaires, mostly from Texas, have zero interest in anything else, most especially literature and the arts. What a bunch of bores! We are only thirty years out from when Peace on Earth was written. Is Lem's prediction coming true faster than even he anticipated? Actually, Ijon's interaction with a Texas millionaire counts as one of the the funner parts of the book.
Lastly, let me mention Peace on Earth is not hard SF. Even a non-science reader like myself had absolutely no difficulty grasping the basic science included. With this novel, Stanislaw Lem was primarily interested in offering his many reflection on the philosophy of science and the future possible applications of science. I urge you pick up Peace on Earth and take a rollicking romp through the future with Ijon Tichy.
This could be a cityscape from Peace on Earth - not too many people as people are hardly needed at all. Technology and robots are the thing.
Stanislaw Lem, 1921-2006
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