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A review by fuzzyfrogs
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
1.0
I am so confused.
Dark Eden is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read (or tried to), and I’m still not entirely sure that I understand what was actually happening. The novel is written in multiple perspectives, but mainly focuses on the main protagonist John. We follow John and various other characters of Family, who live in Eden – a sunless planet with lanterntrees, woollybucks and other oddly named animals, plants and places. Eden, and its 500 odd inhabitants are struggling to find food to sustain them, and John is of course, the saviour who decides to venture into the dark, never-seen-before places on their planet… and thus the story begins.
First of all, there are SO many new words I had to wrap my head around in this book, many of which I still don’t know what they mean. There was never any explanation, and it’s up to the reader to figure everything out themselves, making Dark Eden feel a bit like a puzzle. It was definitely a workout for my brain, that’s for sure. Though there was some terminology which I found easy to understand such as time being referred to as ‘wombtimes’ instead of years, and ‘slip’ being used as a replacement for anything sexual.
“That cheeky minx. Gave me a bit of a slip once or twice way back. Gave me a nice little slippy slide. She still alive, is she?”
“No, Oldest. Cancer ate her, four or five wombs ago.”
I think the main reason I had difficulty with these words is the lack of description throughout the novel. I don’t recall any real description about what anything looked like, which made it hard to visualise the already confusing words being thrown at me from all angles. Another linguistic element that irritated me was the continuous repetition of words. I got very sick sick and tired tired of this being used constantly throughout the boring boring book, and wanted to throw it into a dark dark dark place. Not even joking, this is what many of the sentences looked like.
When you finally break the initial language barrier and dive into the story, things were really no less confusing. The culture of how these people live is utterly bizarre, and I just couldn’t connect to their way of living, and their beliefs (there are religious elements scattered throughout). Everyone wants to have a slip, or slide with John – particularly middle aged women who believed his ‘baby juice’ would produce babies without genetic deformities… because incest is a thing in this book, though they frown upon slipping with siblings. I don’t even know. Honestly, this review probably isn’t making much sense, because I’m still so confused.
Needless to say, I didn’t finish this book, and take my hat off to anyone that could. I was not expecting to feel like I’d taken drugs whilst reading Dark Eden, and was disappointed that it wasn’t a fast paced, action packed sci-fi novel with amazing world building, character development and aliens. If you’re expecting any of those things, I don’t recommend you read this book.
Dark Eden is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read (or tried to), and I’m still not entirely sure that I understand what was actually happening. The novel is written in multiple perspectives, but mainly focuses on the main protagonist John. We follow John and various other characters of Family, who live in Eden – a sunless planet with lanterntrees, woollybucks and other oddly named animals, plants and places. Eden, and its 500 odd inhabitants are struggling to find food to sustain them, and John is of course, the saviour who decides to venture into the dark, never-seen-before places on their planet… and thus the story begins.
First of all, there are SO many new words I had to wrap my head around in this book, many of which I still don’t know what they mean. There was never any explanation, and it’s up to the reader to figure everything out themselves, making Dark Eden feel a bit like a puzzle. It was definitely a workout for my brain, that’s for sure. Though there was some terminology which I found easy to understand such as time being referred to as ‘wombtimes’ instead of years, and ‘slip’ being used as a replacement for anything sexual.
“That cheeky minx. Gave me a bit of a slip once or twice way back. Gave me a nice little slippy slide. She still alive, is she?”
“No, Oldest. Cancer ate her, four or five wombs ago.”
I think the main reason I had difficulty with these words is the lack of description throughout the novel. I don’t recall any real description about what anything looked like, which made it hard to visualise the already confusing words being thrown at me from all angles. Another linguistic element that irritated me was the continuous repetition of words. I got very sick sick and tired tired of this being used constantly throughout the boring boring book, and wanted to throw it into a dark dark dark place. Not even joking, this is what many of the sentences looked like.
When you finally break the initial language barrier and dive into the story, things were really no less confusing. The culture of how these people live is utterly bizarre, and I just couldn’t connect to their way of living, and their beliefs (there are religious elements scattered throughout). Everyone wants to have a slip, or slide with John – particularly middle aged women who believed his ‘baby juice’ would produce babies without genetic deformities… because incest is a thing in this book, though they frown upon slipping with siblings. I don’t even know. Honestly, this review probably isn’t making much sense, because I’m still so confused.
Needless to say, I didn’t finish this book, and take my hat off to anyone that could. I was not expecting to feel like I’d taken drugs whilst reading Dark Eden, and was disappointed that it wasn’t a fast paced, action packed sci-fi novel with amazing world building, character development and aliens. If you’re expecting any of those things, I don’t recommend you read this book.