The Star Diaries

Written over a period of twenty years, this book features the cosmic voyages of space traveller Ijon Tichy that take him on strange adventures in a vast stellar wilderness - encountering clones, crazed mutinous robots and tiny beings, meeting his future self in a time loop, avoiding interplanetary diplomatic incidents and dealing with an orbiting piece of beef sirloin. Playful, absurd, irreverent and philosophical, The Star Diaries hold a satirical mirror up to humanity to examine freedom, technology and existence itself.

"What I had taken for a soft drink vending machine turned out to be the deputy chairman of the Rhohch delegation in full regalia."