Before Eden
Written by Arthur C. Clarke
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“Before Eden” is a scifi novela, short story written by the Sci-fi great Arthur C. Clarke. If you consider that this story was first published in 1961 you can see why the author is called a visionary.

Before Venus Goodreads webpage

“Before Eden” is the story of three explorers named Jerry Garfield who is the navigator, Graham Hutchins the biologist and George Coleman the scientist who land on the planet Venus on their ship the Morning Star on an exploration mission. They are heading south toward the pole when they come across dried lake beds and evidence of water having been there. They eventually find water and so consider the possibility of life existing on the boiling planet. They are eventually proven right and see a black mass of plants that approaches. The creature moves across the land consuming whatever it rolls over and eventually eats the refuse from the team’s encampment. This creature seems to be the sole survivor on the planet Venus where the author states at the end of the story – “The story of Creation has ended.”

This is the story of planetary exploration complete with adventure and mystery. A group of explorers find alien life in an unlikely place far from Earth. That story has been told but this one has a twist. The creator behaved like an invasive species. It was intelligent, though not tool wielding intelligent. And it managed to survive when the other forms of life, if there ever were other forms of life, did not.

The explorers are witness to the end of life on a planet that probably was once abundant in life. They witness the final chapter of a planet whose intelligent life has extinguished. The final life is a type of omnivore that blindly eats whatever and whose sole purpose seems to be to clear out all life like a giant cell that just eats and grows. There is a kind of desperation in the creator as if it senses that the clock is ticking even for it.

I feel the explorers should have pushed for this phenomenon of creation collapse to be further studied. It is a kind of cautionary tale on the importance of environmental responsibility and galactic awareness for any species that boasts intelligence and tool making. What happened on Venus could happen anywhere and the saddest would be if the species facing annihilation contributed in their own demise.

I really loved this story. It was short and the themes simple. It did feel too short. I wanted more on the characters and how they handled their superiors and the reports they wrote and meetings they had. Either way, it’s a good read.

John Ink2Quill

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