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Such ruminations seem more at home in a novel of ideas than in a saga of outer space. Fiasco happens to be both. Lem's plot is full of derring-do, infinite vistas and cataclysmic explosions. Equally engaging are digressions from the action: disquisitions on the development of the computer and artificial intelligence, advances in game theory, methods for reviving the dead after they have been frozen. Scientists may complain that Lem clutters up his theories with events; Trekkies and Star Wars buffs may claim the opposite. Readers in the middle distance will find a popular entertainment that is also dead serious.