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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8537
EAN num: 9780156278065
ISBN number: 0156278065
Label: Harvest/HBJ Book
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 276
Printing Date: 1991-10
Publishing house: Harvest/HBJ Book
Sale Popularity Level: 551061
Studio: Harvest/HBJ Book
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A six-man crew crash-lands on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. The men find a strange world that grows ever stranger, and everywhere there are images of death. The crew's endeavor to communicate with this civilization leads to violence and to a cruel truth-cruel precisely because it is so human. Translated by Marc E. Heine. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
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Rated by buyers 
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An astonishing book, especially so given its date. It's not about narrative nor character, so if you're reading for those prepare to be disappointed. It's about the impossibility of human perception outside of any human frame. Having said it's not about narrative, it's disappointing that Lem felt the need to supply something of a classic-realist conclusion in the last pages, but the rest of the book is excellent. Clarke's (later) 'Rendevouz with Rama' explores a similar theme.
Rated by buyers -
If you love stories where strange new worlds and new civilizations are explored, you'll love Eden! This planet is home to 6 astronauts who crash land in the opening pages of the book. Named only for their professions except for the engineer named Henry. Explorations start from a boring desert plane (where their ship has landed) to four separate expeditions. First a northward expedition discovers a strange factory of utmost complexity creating sophisticated items that are recycled , eastward gives them a very first contact with an inhabitant in a very strange transport, South and west just give more and more mysteries. The theme here is how difficult it is to understand a totally alien society. They find that they have plenty of theories to explain the strange sites and occurences but are just unsure of the truth. Part of the problem they decide is that they base their explanations on what they know from earth and earth society. They concede that explanations based on from earth experiences should be disregarded. Well, have no fear as explanations do come at the end of the book, unlike Lem's other planetary exploration of "Solaris".
Rated by buyers -
Almost all of Lem's science fiction centers around one or two variations of one theme. The theme is "What is intelligence?" and the two variations are "What would robotic life be like?" and "What would a truly alien intelligence be like?" "Eden" is in the second group. A party of explorers arrives on an alien world and wanders around trying to make sense of it. The subtext of "Eden" is that it could really be a description of Earth as viewed through completely fresh eyes. In a typical scene the explorers wander into a valley of flowers. When approached the blooms suddenly take flight. Lem leaves it to the reader to realize a visitor to Earth might make the same mistake about butterflys. Like many of Lem's works the book is really a work of philosophy and somewhat abstract: the explorers do not even have names, just job descriptions. By the standards of any other science fiction author this book deserves 5 stars, I only give it 4 because I prefer "Solaris" and "Fiasco" with which "Eden" should be grouped (along with the more difficult "His Master's Voice") as books about contact (Sagan's "Contact" is clearly based on "His Master's Voice").
Rated by buyers 
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The eng. translation takes most of the mystery out of the book.
Rated by buyers -
Instead of just making a fly-by of an unexplored earth atmosphere planet named Eden, a six-man crew spaceship crashlands with no hope of rescue. Lem doesn't even deign to give the characters proper names. Instead, in a Kafkaesque manner, they are simply called The Captain, The Chemist, The Engineer, The Physicist, the Cyberneticist, and The Doctor. It's not really clear to me why he chose this method, unless he wanted the universal everyman or stereotype of each profession. Who knows? The very first problem the crew has to face is just getting out of the ship since the main hatch is resting underground and the only other exit has been flooded with radioactive water. It doesn't seem like they can contact anyone off planet either, and it will be impossible to move the ship without powering up robots. But one of the crew does seem to remember seeing a city before they crashed, and so the crew sets out on foot. They do find alien lifeforms and structures, but what results is the usual violence that humans seem to display when enveloped in fear and the unknown. The crew expects to be attacked or to be greeted by the inhabitants, but what happens when the natives act as if they're not even there?
Lem does a good job of portraying the aliens in his fiction as aliens. In works by other sci-fi writers, extraterrestrials seem to be humans in purple skins, or animals with longer teeth. As he did in Solaris, the author hits the theme that like mortals comprehending God, humans would have an impossible time figuring out the behavior and mentality of a truly alien species. Yes, vastly different civilizations have collided through time on Earth, but what would happen if we truly faced and ALIEN consciousness? The crew in this book make the same mistakes we would make. Namely, comparing and contrasting alien behavior and buildings to human models. Of course, this leads to many wrong conclusions in Eden, even leading to death for some.
I think in the end Lem lets me down simply because there are some explanations of the Edenites behavior, and these explanations are ideas that humans could have. I guess no human can truly write a realistic encounter with an alien race simply because a human mind cannot think like a non-human mind. Well, maybe a flying saucer will land in my backyard tomorrow and I'll write a book about it.
If you liked this book I would highly recommend Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
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