SOURCE: A review of Eden, in World Literature Today, Vol. 64, No. 4, Autumn, 1990, p. 666.

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...