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Chris Beckett

Dark Eden Paperback – 1 Jan. 2012

by Chris Beckett (Author)

810 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Dark Eden

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WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2013

You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees, hunting woollybuck and harvesting tree candy. Beyond the forest lie the treeless mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among you recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross between worlds. One day, the Oldest say, they will come back for you. You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of two marooned explorers. You huddle, slowly starving, beneath the light and warmth of geothermal trees, confined to one barely habitable valley of a startlingly alien, sunless world. After 163 years and six generations of incestuous inbreeding, the Family is riddled with deformity and feeblemindedness. Your culture is a infantile stew of half-remembered fact and devolved ritual that stifles innovation and punishes independent thought. You are John Redlantern. You will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. You will be the first to abandon hope, the first to abandon the old ways, the first to kill another, the first to venture in to the Dark, and the first to discover the truth about Eden.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Corvus
Publication date

1 Jan. 2012
Dimensions

12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

1848874642
ISBN-13

978-1848874640
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From the Publisher

The Eden Trilogy

The Eden trilogy is a remarkable achievement: with wit, insight and invention Beckett has imagined a scientific Genesis not just about a society, but about the culture and myths that sustain it. It is both politically astute and theologically compelling. -- Stuart Kelly, Guardian

Awards for Eden Trilogy:

Product description

Review

`A classic theme, beautifully told' --Sunday Telegraph

`Brilliantly brought to life by Chris Beckett, a dazzlingly inventive science-fiction writer... superbly well paced and well written, packed with ideas' --A.N Wilson, Reader's Digest

'Human plight and alien planet are both superbly evoked in a captivating and haunting book'
--Daily Mail

Dark Eden is an incredible novel --SFBooks

'Dark Eden is stunningly written' --SciFiNow

'... a strong contender for science-fiction novel of the year...There's no justice if Dark Eden, with its beautiful, terrifying planet, slowly revealed, fails to bring Beckett awards.' --Sunday Times

'... a superior piece of theologically nuanced science fiction... I for one would relish reading a sequel' --Guardian

Book Description

A marooned outpost of humanity struggles to survive on a startlingly alien world: science fiction as it ought to be from the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award, 2013

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Corvus; Main edition (1 Jan. 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1848874642
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848874640
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 339,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 4,000 in Dystopian
- 33,328 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
810 ratings

About the author

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Chris Beckett

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I'm a former social worker and lecturer, based in Cambridge, England. I've published nine novels and three short story collections. My collection, the Turing Test, won the Edge Hill Short Fiction Award. My novel, Dark Eden won the Arthur C. Clarke award. Its two sequels were shortlisted for the BSFA Best novel award. My collection, Spring Tide, was my first foray outside of the boundaries of science fiction. My most recent novel is Tomorrow.

More at www.chris-beckett.com

Follow on Twitter: @chriszbeckett

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

810 global ratings

5 star		52%
4 star		30%
3 star		12%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Raymond Walker

Origin Myth sci-fi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 June 2022

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A science fiction/fantasy series of books begins with this novel, Dark Eden.
The children of humans abandoned upon a deserted world with no “close” sun try to make a home for themselves. Due to incest, and deteriorating food sources there is a long period of dissention and stagnation. Imagine Sumer or Eridu, Abyssinia or Mesopotamia with no sunlight and yet a dawning of civilisation with people trying to improve their lot.
The science fiction, though rarely explained, hangs in the dark landscape, the characters believable if a little obvious but this reads like an “origin myth” and I am pretty sure that is what Mr. Beckett wished it to be.
A challenge to the driven individual, the explorer to “see what is out there” and it works well in my opinion. Imagine John Redlantern as Theseus.
Anyway, I think this is a terrific book and the sequel “Mother of Eden” set later in Eden time carries on in the same theme so if you enjoy this as I did the following volume will not disappoint.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 18 July 2022

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Old school sci fi with great, original, world building and really interesting characters. One star deducted because story took a while to get going. Would strongly recommend.

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ThingsLizzyReads

Fascinating exploration of morality

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 October 2014

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Dark Eden was a compelling exploration of a human society descended from, but totally separate to, our own. Six generations prior to the start of the book, five earth astronauts had arrived on Eden, a planet without a star, but populated by life that creates its own light. The spaceship they travelled in was damaged, so two of them, Angela and Tommy, decide to stay and wait for rescue rather than risk the return journey. From the incestuous unions of their children, population of over 500 has sprung up on the dark and cold world of Eden.

The plot centres on a pretty standard trope of a young man challenging an old fashioned culture. The valley in which ‘Family’ (as the group refer to themselves) lives is running out of food, but they refuse to move from the location where it’s been passed down that Earth will come to find them. John Redlantern decides that the only way to survive is to embrace Eden, and cross the Snowy Dark and find more habitable land. This would have been entertaining in itself, but Beckett takes a refreshing view by increasing making John an anti-hero.

The book interestingly explored motivations, pride and how structured societies prevent certain evils by limiting dissent. The society is safe in its known norms, existing within the parameters of the rules laid down by Tommy and Angela, but yet is the change not the only way to survive, despite the evils it may bring?

It’s also ambiguous in the way that a good 1st person narrative should be – albeit one that shifts between individual viewpoints – because no one is omniscient. What is in the underground that birthed all life except Family? What are the plants and animals on Eden actually like? They are named for earth animals, but the small descriptions that creep through the every day reference to them make them seems totally alien. Why did Tommy and Angela allow the unholy union of their children, if they expected an earth rescue? We are even left hanging at the end, with a question as to who will survive and who will not.

The book reminded me of Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish cycle, in that it is set on a world with a very different eco system, and human population that has had to, and will need to further, adapt to survive. It raises questions about taboo practices, in this case incest, but leaves the reader to come to their own conclusions. However, it is different to Le Guin, because her worlds are complete, human populations are ages old, and evolution has occurred either forced or naturally to adapt to the habitat. Dark Eden tells the story of a human world that is new, that is raw, and that hasn’t yet come to terms with itself. And it tells it well.

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Nick

A novel about mythopoeia

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 August 2020

Verified Purchase

It is a highly allegorical tale that sits right on the cusp between science fiction and fantasy. The characters take a journey together, both literally and metaphorically, negotiating and navigating an alien landscape by creating their own myths, as well as referencing those they have brought with them. The setting has a firm grounding in contemporary theories of the origins of life and is described beautifully.

The characterisation seems to rely on stereotypes, but this could well be deliberate as the focus is on their symbolic value. They see themselves as part of an on-going narrative, occupying roles past down by their ancestors. Thus, the vague division between history and mythology is explored, with a light touch that frequently edges toward the darkly humorous, as with the tale of Hitler verses Jesus and the Juice.

Informed by a view of humanity as the story-telling animal, the main concern here is how identity and community, knowledge and extrapolated visions of the future rely on an essentially mythic understanding. This is a particularly poignant issue in an age of disinformation and revisionist history. But Dark Eden is not an academic thesis. Far from it. Chris Beckett is a masterful and very entertaining author.

Some readers may find the open ending frustrating, or even a flagrant provocation to read the sequel, but even this fits with the story’s parabolic function. In real life there are no endings, or as one character puts it, “We are here. This is really happening.”

2 people found this helpful

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