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A review by jedbird
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
4.0
This was a hard one to rate. The premise is interesting. Under unclear circumstances, humans are stranded in space on a sunless planet. One man and one woman. Now there are 500+ people. So, yeah. There are birth defects and no one is very smart. The stories of Earth and humanity have been distorted by time and, probably, by people being kind of dumb. Everyone is waiting for Earth to come back and save them.
The story is told from several points of view, the main one being John. John is different in that he has ideas, and ideas aren't generally popular in their Family. He does something that horrifies everyone and he's cast out. But he's not by himself for long.
I overall really enjoyed this. There were parts where I got tired of being in the heads of dumb people nonstop, but John and other smarter people start doing interesting things. The world and its animals are imaginative and it actually sounds quite beautiful, though I wouldn't want to live there.
I'm kind of expecting the series to culminate in an alpha male showdown, which doesn't interest me at all, but I intend to continue with the series.
ETA: Or maybe not. Apparently the second book is a future story with whole new crew of people, but I want to know what happens with *these* characters.
The story is told from several points of view, the main one being John. John is different in that he has ideas, and ideas aren't generally popular in their Family. He does something that horrifies everyone and he's cast out. But he's not by himself for long.
I overall really enjoyed this. There were parts where I got tired of being in the heads of dumb people nonstop, but John and other smarter people start doing interesting things. The world and its animals are imaginative and it actually sounds quite beautiful, though I wouldn't want to live there.
I'm kind of expecting the series to culminate in an alpha male showdown, which doesn't interest me at all, but I intend to continue with the series.
ETA: Or maybe not. Apparently the second book is a future story with whole new crew of people, but I want to know what happens with *these* characters.