The doublers come in many different configurations, and they too seem to be ‘recycled’ perhaps some of the doublers are born defective and die naturally, perhaps there are different species of doublers, or maybe the doublers are part of a poorly designed genetic experiment.Īs the novel proceeds, there is a growing sense that something furtive and sinister is occurring. Lem’s aliens are always something truly alien. Eventually the explorers meet the planet’s intelligent species, the ‘ doublers’, who seem to consist of two symbiotic life-forms. The human crew first explores the marvelous landscape and plant life (Lem spends many pages describing the wonders the humans see), then they happen upon a factory that appears to produce complex parts only to recycle the finished product and begin a new process. The novel begins as an exploration story on a fascinating planet and evolves into a first-contact novel. Some of the technical language he used probably felt dated - particularly to a science fiction audience - when the book was published in 1959. I think it’s worth pointing out that Eden is not a hard science fiction novel: Lem makes no real attempt to create futuristic, technical jargon the terminology used was, for the most part, common when the book was written. It is only the Engineer, Henry, who is called by name (I think it is only the Doctor and the Captain who use Henry’s name): if anybody has a theory about why the Engineer is the only one named, I’d be interested… There are six men on-board (apparently the novel was written before male authors realized that women can do things too) with the exception of one member, the men are identified by their titles only: the Captain, the Doctor, the Cyberneticist, the Physicist, the Chemist, and the Engineer. The crew of a spaceship is captivated by the planet’s beauty and they decide to take a closer look unfortunately, the Captain approaches too closely and they crash-land. Eden (1959 in Polish English translation 1989), by Stanislaw Lem, is set on a jewel of a planet, somewhere far from Earth.

Eden by Stanisław Lem