Eden

Rating:
Summary: fine alien description
Review: This is only the second Stan Lem book I've read (Solaris being the first), and here, once again, Lem captures the utter strangeness of an alien world and its utterly strange inhabitants. As others have mentioned, Lem chooses to identify the crew members by profession rather than by name, with one exception. I'm not sure of his reason for this, but my guess is that he was trying to show the tendency of humans to comparmentalize, and, subsequently, to show how this could present a barrier to understanding alien beings. Here, Lem presents a well-thought-out alien atmosphere, with "doublers" living in a society that we can barely imagine. The most interesting parts of the story were the various planetary explorations performed by the men, both on foot and by ground vehicle. It is rare, at least in my experience, to encounter an author who can describe such strange places in such fine and honest detail. I also enjoyed Lem's take on the human contamination of such worlds. Recommended for those who enjoy exploratory, adventure-type science fiction with a philosophical twist.

Rating:
Summary: Culture shock
Review: This one is sort of a forced hybrid-- a stereotyped sci-fi space crew (mostly without names, as I recall) dealing with an alien civilization based on lies and linguistic distortions. Who says that aliens have to be immediately understandable? What would have happened if some spacefaring race were to have plopped down in the middle of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia? That's the situation our protaganists are faced with; they don't even know what the aliens are normally like, let alone what they're like under the situation in which they find them.

The story is told in a very straightforward manner, leaving the readers to draw their own moral conclusions; something that Lem does very well. Lem is also very good at drawing the details of alien worlds without telling us too much about them and destroying their mystique and fascination.