Eden is an alien world without a sun, a planet of bioluminescent life otherwise steeped in eternal darkness. It has been six generations since an interstellar accident stranded two astronauts on Eden. Their 532 offspring have become Family, an inbred tribal society of hunter-gatherers surviving among the geothermal lantern trees of Circle Valley, an oasis ringed by the freezing mountains of Snowy Dark. Family keeps the half-forgotten rituals of Earth alive, waiting for the "waking" when sky boats will cross Starry Swirl to rescue them from Eden. Adolescent John Redlantern, however, sees a dwindling food supply and stagnant society as a reason to break with tradition and discover what really lies beyond Snowy Dark.
Chris Beckett (Holy Machine; The Turing Test) has created a bizarre world of astounding imaginative vision grounded by fundamental human conflicts. Dark Eden wavers between extended parable and character-driven drama, achieving the best of both efforts. The novel's setting is its strongest point, evoking wonder, terror and the same sort of curiosity that drives John Redlantern beyond the edge of Family's known world. Beckett alternates between first-person perspectives for each chapter, though the voices of many secondary characters feel either underdeveloped or like another outlet for an omniscient narrator. His characters also use speech patterns some readers might find abrasive. These minor issues aside, Dark Eden is a fantastic novel that will certainly appeal to speculative fiction fans--and already won Britain's Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel when it was published there in 2013. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer