'But it has to start with n.' 'N?' said Klapaucius. Only then did Trurl invite over his friend Klapaucius the constructor, and introduced him to the machine, praising its extraordinary skill at such length, that Klapaucius grew annoyed and inquired whether he too might not test the machine. So no sodium.' 'Very well,' said Trurl and ordered it to make Night, which it made at once-small perhaps, but perfectly nocturnal. You know, the metal, the element…' 'Sodium starts with an s, and I work only in n.' 'But in Latin it's natrium.' 'Look, old boy,' said the machine, 'if I could do everything starting with n in every possible language, I'd be a Machine That Could Do Everything in the Whole Alphabet, since any item you care to mention undoubtedly starts with n in one foreign language or another. This last it could not do, and Trurl, considerably irritated, demanded an explanation. Still not completely sure of its ability, he had it produce, one after the other, nimbuses, noodles, nuclei, neutrons, naphtha, noses, nymphs, naiads, and natrium. The machine carried out his instructions to the letter.

When it was ready, he tried it out, ordering it to make needles, then nankeens and negligees, which it did, then nail the lot to narghiles filled with nepenthe and numerous other narcotics. How the World Was Saved One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n. THE SEVEN SALLIES OF TRURL AND KLAPAUCIUS The First Sally, or The Trap of Gargantius The First Sally (A), or Trurl's Electronic Bard The Second Sally, or The Offer of King Krool The Third Sally, or The Dragons of Probability The Fourth Sally, or How Trurl Built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince Pantagoon from the Pangs of Love, and How Later He Resorted to a Cannonade of Babies The Fifth Sally, or The Mischief of King Balerion The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl's Prescription The Sixth Sally, or How Trurl and Klapaucius Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg The Seventh Sally, or How Trurl's Own Perfection Led to No Good Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius Altruizine FROM THE CYPHROEROTICON, OR TALES OF DEVIATIONS, SUPERFIXATIONS AND ABERRATIONS OF THE HEART Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal How the World Was Saved A Good Shellacking Title.Ĭontents How the World Was Saved Trurl's Machine

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Lem, Stanislaw. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief reviews, without the written permission of the publisher. Original edition: Cyberiada, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Cracow, 1967, 1972 All rights reserved. Translated from the Polish by MICHAEL KANDEL Illustrated by DANIEL MROZĪ CONTINUUM BOOK THE SEABURY PRESS NEW YORK English translation copyright © 1974 by The Seabury Press, Inc.

THE CYBERIAD FABLES FOR THE CYBERNETIC AGE

The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem