U Edenu, prvi kontakt je mnogo direktniji i prisniji. Tu imamo posadu od šest naučnika, čija raketa je nesretnim slučajem završila na planeti Eden, naseljenoj civilizacijom koja zbunjuje na svakom koraku. Naučnici stanovnicima daju ime Duplaši, zbog anatomije njihovog tijela. U ovom djelu Lem je kroz interakciju ljudi i Duplaša pokušao da opiše samu ljudsku civilizaciju i kako smo se mi ponašali tokom našeg postojanja prema drugim pripadnicima naše vrste. Najupečatljivije scene iz knjige su one kada naučnici otkrivaju neku vrstu logora i masovne grobnice u blizini, te raspravljaju o onome što su vidjeli, pokušavajući na logičan način sebi predočiti postupke Duplaša, koji se opiru svakom zdravorazumskom zaključku. Kada im jedan od Duplaša postane gost u brodu, koji pokušavaju osposobiti, to im daje dragocjenu priliku za proučavanje kulture, života i jezika ove civilizacije. Na kraju iz djelića jezika koji dešifruju pomoću brodskog računara dobijaju uvid u ponašanje i postupke Duplaša i zaključuji da nisu toliko drukčiji od ljudi, ali im je pristup životu mnogo fatalniji i mirno prihvataju svoju sudbinu.

I sometimes say that everyone who comes to the Santa Fe Institute should read at least two Lem novels. Lem's science fiction is heavily influenced by cybernetics, sort of a precursor to the complex systems work that goes on at SFI. Lem's novels Solaris and His Master's Voice are highly influential for me.
Eden is pretty good, but I fear I'm beginning to tire of the Stanislaw Lem thing. Six people crash their rocket on a new planet and are forced to learn something about their surroundings before repairing their ship and escaping. The fun here is the complete incomprehensibility of the alien culture: they keep encountering new things and making hypotheses that are clearly wrong. It's a good premise for a book, but I wasn't entirely thrilled with the execution.

I had to give up on this book halfway through. The vast majority of it consists of arduous descriptions of every minutiae of the environment. Every dimension, color, and aspect is described in terms both scientific and clinical. As a result I struggled to picture anything at all! The premise itself was not particularly interesting; this coupled with the tedious world-building made Eden unbearable, for me.

I really loved it. It always amazes me how authors are capable of imagining different civilizations, so complex and completely different from ours.