First, few words about the audiobook itself.
The technical quality is outstanding. The performance is coherent with the intellectual, somewhat pedantic voice of the scientist narrating his own memoirs, and, thanks to all gods, it comes from a pleasant, deep voice.

This said, let's talk contents.
In the last few considerations, the narrating voice muses about the mixed blessing of not being capable of total empathy. The whole novel unravels the attempts of the best minds amongst humanity to first decipher, then simply to intellectually (and physically...) survive what seems a message from an intelligent cosmic civilisation, with the narrator oscillating between the temptation of creating a mythology for himself and humanity and the awareness of the inanity of such an outcome.
Part of a series of novels centred on the impossibility of communication between alien civilisations, this book is typical Lem: apparently slow and next to plot-less, it unfolds via logical necessity from premise to result, at the same time unravelling under the weight of contradictions too complex from the human mind to wrap itself around.
This unravelling reflects in the marvelous inconsistency in the pace of the narration: from the narrator's childhood as preface fragment of a memoir, to the events leading to the Manhattan-project-like effort at translation, to the endless musings on the nature of the effort itself, to the quasi-spy-story with scientists opposing the Pentagon's war hounds, to the further musings shedding a new light on the childhood memories of the preface fragment and on its very reason for being, the novel seems to tumble down in a disordered avalanche only to gather itself in a coherent whole in the last chapter. We are left with a reflection on the advantages of being more similar to snails than we would like, since we cannot be similar enough to beings who may as well be gods.

WARNING: since one is a hopeless sloth, you may find the same review on Audible. Don't hate. Words come difficult enough for one to optimise their diffusion, once uttered. Thank you for understanding. ( )

https://speculiction.blogspot.com/2023/12/review-of-his-masters-voice-stanisaw-l... ( )

La voz de su amo es en parte fascinante autobiografía (la historia de un matemático genial y excéntrico) y el relato de los conflictos psicobiológicos, interpersonales y políticos que se generan entre investigadores que participan en una portentosa aventura científica: el desciframiento de un mensaje enigmático y cargado de posibilidades (quizá peligroso) captado en el promontorio de Monte Palomar y enviado a nuestro planeta por seres de otra civilización desde los confines del universo. Este bello texto es una meditación sobre el destino de la humanidad y de las fronteras de la fantasía más pura. El clásico más importante de la ciencia ficción rusa.

This is definitely not for everyone, but I did enjoy it. The first half is really dry but also really interesting. The second half there's actually some dialogue and more story. As with stories about "first contact" there's always that excitement about "How is this author going to handle it?" And are they ever going to actually figure it out or meet the aliens (Looking at you Rendezvous with Rama).

In this one there were a bunch of different really cool theories and maybe one of them was right and maybe they figured it out, I'm not telling, don't want to spoil it for anyone. ( )

The philosophical, semi-scientific meanderings of a grumpy old man who thinks man is but a dumb ass.

If you read the top reviews for this book on Goodreads, you quickly find out that if you didn't love this, you are in fact a peasant. Only intelligent and deep thinking lovers of Real Scifi will love this, so be warned.

I am, obviously, a dumbass.

This book is a mostly abstract "memoir" of the fictional man who worked on a project the aim of which was to decode an interstellar letter of sorts. There is very little plot or dialogue, and the narrator is a self professed asshole. Mostly this book handles different philosophical takes on humanity and life (both the nature and origin of them) and spirals down semi-scientific tangents that don't really have any other point than being vaguely interesting.

What I'm trying to get at is that this is not a novel, as such, and definitely not a novel I was interested in reading. I am the reader who enjoys the science fiction at which the narrator continually took jabs at during the course of the book.

This is the second Lem I've read, and I really enjoyed the previous one, so I'll probably keep reading his book despite this one, but boy was I disappointed. ( )