Cal and his crew arrive at the planet and are astonished when they find no evidence of the colony. An expedition under the command of a Junior E, Cal, is launched. The novel begins when Earth loses contact with Eden. They’ve even grown indolent and fractious and a few even seek an immediate return to Earth and more difficult assignments. However unlike their experience on other planets, they’ve encountered no tough terrain, diseases, or other challenges.

The colony planet Eden has been settled by a group of professional colonists. Earth’s government seeks to reign them in anyway they can. These E’s are super-scientists who are trained to question everything, even the most sacred, basic, and established scientific theories. Earth itself has granted great power to a group of Extrapolators, colloquially known as E’s, who operate with little government oversight. Numerous colonies are settled by professional settler couples (tough, intelligent, sterilized, quick thinking men and women) who prepare the planet for later colonization. The civilization of the future has spread across the stars without any contact with alien species.

Also, a complete lack of character development makes us care little for the challenges faced and the plethora of world changing intellectual Eureka moments reached. The serious nature of the premise is weakened by a forced strain of unfunny “humor” that creeps in at the wrong moments. Although I wouldn’t classify Eight Keys to Eden as a masterpiece, the novel does contains an original premise, good plotting, and sufficiently thought out “pseudo-intellectual” content that is only overbearing at the work’s climax.

Mark Clifton’s readable and thought-provoking Eight Keys to Eden (1960) has been unfortunately overshadowed by his dismal failure, They’d Rather Be Right (1955) (co-written with Frank Riley), which is generally considered the worst novel ever to win the Hugo Award. (Ralph Brillhart’s cover for the 1962 edition)

They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton