Fortunately this is an excellent theme to explore and one rarely dealt with in SF, so Lem easily finds new wrinkles to explore every time he writes about it, even if the conclusions wind up being nearly the same every time. As in those two books the theme here is the one that Lem seems to count as his favorite, that we should not assume that because we are smart and can get into space and across stars, that we can automatically 'understand' any alien life that we come across, or even start to fit what we see into established human preconceptions.

I count this a truly classic 'Important' SF.I've only read three books by Lem counting this one and while nothing so far has bypassed Solaris as his absolute masterpiece, for me it's a step up from the strangely dense Fiasco. Sure, some books will have so and so good characters, etc, but none will be quite as serious about giving us the truly alien or near-perfect mirrors to our own stupidity.

When I look back at first contact novels in general, few will have quite this amazing creative factor to it. The rest is a serious look at how much we bring in our own prejudices, making our own hell, wherever we go. Īnd I'm only mentioning a single aspect, here. Not to mention biological tools that feel like the most excellent precursor to Farscape or Asher's, or the look at a truly alien mind, as seen in Watts'. Not only superficially, but fundamentally, with strange technological focuses and social structures. Because this is an intelligent alien race that does not think like us. This is a full mystery that gets only digs us deeper into our own misunderstandings. 'Yeah, yeah, but before Star Trek in the wee year of 1959, Eden was born, giving us one of the richest, most detailed alien worlds as seen through a small crew named only by their job titles, instead forcing us to see things through their worldviews, as screwed up (normal!) as they are, misunderstanding everything they see on Eden.' 'What?' you say, 'That whole tail-end period of the golden age of SF was FULL of great and detailed authors. He has a wide range of works, from humorous to deeply disturbing to fantastically mysterious alien discoveries.

What a gem of an old SF! Indeed, Stanislaw Lem might be one of the very best SF authors, period.

Eden stanislaw lem