A review by schnaucl
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I liked it, though the ending felt a little unearned. 
It just seems far too risky to bet the whole of humanity on two people to raise a bunch of embryos.  There's just a limit to the number of kids any two people can raise, especially if there's no other support (besides the AI).  There's no community that can help.  They had no way of knowing what conditions on the planet would be like.  There might have been predators, they may not have been able to grow food, and yeah, I'm sure the ship had some food on it, but it wouldn't last forever, and they had no way of knowing what the weather or soil conditions would be like.  I was willing to go with it until that point. 

And the embryo reveal  up just as I was thinking and the point of all this is...? since two men obviously can't reproduce.  Although I suppose if there's cloning technology maybe there is a way. But the point is, sending only two people who we've already seen will probably die early deaths from radiation poisoning to raise a bunch of embryos on a completely unknown planet just seems like too fragile a hope to pin the survival of humanity on.

I did like the rest of it though.   It was genuinely shocking when they were murdered the first time, and when they murdered the rest of their clones.
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