The last story 'Golem XIV', the longest section in the book, is the perfect example of that. The goal of the Borges style is to save a lazy author from having to concoct an entire story when all he really wants to do is write about an idea for a story, but even Lem's formidable literary pyrotechnics can't make these outlines interesting. These are mildly interesting, but might have worked better in actual sci-fi form instead of this pseudepigraphical sketches. Same with 'Eruntics', which covers the Lysenko-ish efforts of a scientist to teach bacteria to read, 'A History of Bitic Literature', which reviews various styles of computer-generated literature, and 'Vestrand's Extelopedia in 44 Magnetomes', a futuristic encyclopedia. 'Necrobes' is about an artist who makes X-ray artwork out of porn, and is essentially humor-free. The opening 'Introduction' might be the best piece in the whole lot in a way, its supercharged bombast namedropping Linnaeus, John the Baptist, Bach, Heidegger, and the Book of Genesis in an entertaining way while also highlighting the uselessness of most real introductions. The main problem was that though these pieces are 'funny', in that they are usually written to parody various styles of writing, they're not typically actually that amusing. As with most disciples of Borges this student doesn't trump the master, but this was flawed even compared to A Perfect Vacuum, which I highly enjoyed.

This was Stanislaw Lem's first collection of reviews of non-existent books, also known as 'pseudepigraphy' because every stylistic tic clearly deserves its own distinct Greco-Latinate title.

Imaginary Magnitude by Stanisław Lem