Like many SF readers, I’ve read HP Lovecraft’s short fiction. Like many Lovecraft readers, I’m fascinated by his grasping portrayals of cosmic beings beyond the ken of man’s understanding but still left a bit wanting by his various idiosyncrasies, stylistic and otherwise. Fortunately, Lovecraft isn’t the last word on unknowable alien beings; for my part, I’ve found the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem to exceed Lovecraft in their portrayal.
I’ve read several of Lem’s books, but two of them in particular concern the subject under discussion: His Master’s Voice (1968) and Solaris (1961). In His Master’s Voice, government scientists attempt to decode a message from a distant star. In Solaris, a living ocean on another planet causes strange phenomena aboard a research station.