The Invincible

The Condor has not returned from a distant planet and so her sistership, The Invincible, is sent out to find answers. They land on the planet and immediately it becomes apparent that there is disharmony between the crew. The commander is distant, his second in command is wary, various crew communities such as the scientists have differing views from the technicians.

The covers of many of the various editions of the book show a space helmet with a skull inside, so it's no surprise that they find the Condor crew dead. It's the why and the how that form the rest of the novel. The book is reminiscent of Lem's Solaris in that the humans are on a strange planet thinking they can overcome anything that comes against them. But, once again, they can only guess at the reality of the alien intelligence that they find. Just as in Solaris we have a divided crew, an enemy that can take over the minds of the humans, and a crew that does not have any women but differs from Solaris in that the planet does not conjure any into existence.

Portions of the later story are taken up with longish discussions between crew members of what is really happening on the planet and Lem goes deeply into a similar philosophical position as in Solaris that just because a planet is there does not mean that humans have the right or the ability to take it. Calling the ship Invincible is part of his ironic look at such human endeavour. And the final image is one of failure and defeat.