[In the following review, Lewis offers a positive assessment of Eden, but notes that it does not match the excellence of Lem's best works.]

Originally published in 1959, Eden is Stanislaw Lem's fifth science-fiction novel, antedating the masterpiece Solaris by two years. The translation follows the English version of Solaris (1970) by nineteen years and is the twenty-first book by Lem to be rendered into English.

Not as compellingly written as Solaris, The Invincible, or His Master's Voice, Eden nevertheless brings to its readers many of the characteristics of Lem's best novels: a beautifully detailed description of the geophysical features of another planet; a tension-filled account of the human encounter with the unknown; an intellectual quandary over how best to go about interpreting and engaging another, intelligent form of life; the moral dilemma created by intervening in the affairs of another planet; and finally, the consequences of disengagement and withdrawal.

The six men who crash-land on Eden (the Chemist, the Captain, the Doctor, et cetera) confront a world that at first appears not to support an intelligent life form. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that an activity resembling a manufacturing process is being carried out in factories without workers or managers. Then comes an encounter with strange but intelligent creatures, the doublers, whose double-torso bodies begin turning up in mass graves and dump sites. Finally, it becomes increasingly clear that Eden's ecosystem has been disastrously altered by failed efforts to direct its evolution.

In departing from Eden, the crew narrowly escape an attempt by a hostile life form to destroy both them and the two doublers who have befriended them. Unfortunately but significantly, in escaping they are themselves forced to destroy the two doublers. As the ship catapults away from Eden, members of the crew deliver testimonials to the planet's enormous beauty, made possible now, ironically, by the enormous distance between it and themselves.

Like all Lem's work, Eden does not yield a consoling view of life in the universe. Rather, it stands as a provocation: there are no easy answers, even to the lesser questions.