“One of the many easter eggs is that we included one item drawn by Lem himself. But the game is never quite the same each time you play it – as we felt befitted the imperfect, arbitrarily futuristic world of The Cyberiad,” says Marcin Wichary, who originally proposed the doodle and was in charge of bringing it to life. We spent a lot of time figuring out how to pay homage to it, and quickly decided to build a small game. “All of Lem’s universes are rich and believable. This is also a doodle you can actually play. This is also the only image of Trurl's bird friend we initially thought it would be nice to include him as a little easter egg, but then expanded his role. Sophia: This pensive from the 1972 edition of The Cyberiad becomes a lot more evocative when you remember that Daniel Mróz, the illustrator, styled Trurl after Lem himself. “The distinctive visual style is inspired by the work of famous Polish illustrator, Daniel Mróz, whose drawings accompanied many of the editions of the book.” “Lem’s stories can be somber, but The Cyberiad is comparatively lighthearted and upbeat, though it still addresses the philosophical themes found in the rest of his writing,” says Sophia Foster-Dimino, the doodle’s illustrator. Today's doodle was inspired by The Cyberiad, a series of stories about two brilliant “constructors,” Trurl and Klapaucjusz. We decided to prepare a really special Google doodle for this occasion. This year would be Lem's 90th birthday, and today is the 60th anniversary of the publication of his first book, The Astronauts.

Even if you haven't read Lem, you might have watched Solaris, a film based on one of his books. Stanisław Lem was one of the biggest and most influential science-fiction writers in history his books were translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.

სოლარისი by Stanisław Lem