Eden (Helen & Kurt Wolff Book)

Six explorers—a Captain, Doctor, Engineer, Chemist, Physicist, and Cyberneticist—crash land on a strange planet orbiting another sun. The landscape contains acrid deserts, hissing trees, and thick spiderlike vegetation. Most puzzling are signs of human presence: plant-shaped buildings with dead ends, passageways, domes, and vaulted ceilings, along with giant statues. Throughout the terrain are images of death—mass graves, bodies in ditches and wells, and clusters of egglike structures filled with skeletons. As the crew investigates the planet's twisted society and its inhabitants, they discover disturbing parallels to their own world. The novel examines the conflict between human nature, discovery, and human flaws through an encounter with alien intelligence.