Told in alternating character viewpoints, Dark Eden explores the colony of a strange dark world called Eden. After a group from Earth land on this planet, they name things in this strange, dark place and then attempt to get back home. With a damaged ship, two humans (a man and a woman) stay behind as the others promise to come back for them. Now, several generations later, the offspring of those two humans have grown to a population of a little more than 500. They are still huddled around the cramped space where they wait for help from Earth. One young man, John Redlantern, begins to question this practice. Speaking up when he shouldn't and starting to question the beliefs that all of the community, or Family, he attempts to force the issue of spreading out, finding new food, and not hopelessly waiting for rescue. Unfortunately, questioning beliefs is not popular and there are more consequences than he realizes from his actions.
This is a great science fiction book once you get used to the word choices and language. There is some British slang, but for the most part, Beckett has imagined a language of an isolated group from Earth. This means that they have a fairly simple way of speaking and a slang all of their own. It doesn't take too long to get used to the words, but I was annoyed for at least the first 50 pages. The one thing that really aggravated me was the superlatives used. Instead of saying something was bigger, there was "big big". These double words are used for emphasis consistently throughout the entire novel, and I wanted to scream at it because of that. I never got used to that, and that is really why I don't think this is a 5 star book. It took me out of the heads of the characters (which can be hard to keep track of sometimes) and made me focus on the grammar of the sentence instead of the story. I dislike it! I also makes almost all of the characters sound the same. That made keeping track of whose head you were in during that chapter difficult to think of. There were several times that I had to go back to see who the speaker was because I was confused if it was a male or female voice.
Overall, I enjoyed the novel and the topics raised in it. It was a good commentary about belief systems, changes in leadership, questioning authority, and growing up. It also gives some interesting opinions on males versus females leadership skills. While I don't necessarily agree with the sweeping idea that all men or all female fall into these roles, it is interesting commentary. If you are not as particular about word choice as I am, then you will love this book. If you are particular about word choice, then I encourage you to stick with it, correct the sentence in your head and move forward. The ideas are worth reading.
This is a great science fiction book once you get used to the word choices and language. There is some British slang, but for the most part, Beckett has imagined a language of an isolated group from Earth. This means that they have a fairly simple way of speaking and a slang all of their own. It doesn't take too long to get used to the words, but I was annoyed for at least the first 50 pages. The one thing that really aggravated me was the superlatives used. Instead of saying something was bigger, there was "big big". These double words are used for emphasis consistently throughout the entire novel, and I wanted to scream at it because of that. I never got used to that, and that is really why I don't think this is a 5 star book. It took me out of the heads of the characters (which can be hard to keep track of sometimes) and made me focus on the grammar of the sentence instead of the story. I dislike it! I also makes almost all of the characters sound the same. That made keeping track of whose head you were in during that chapter difficult to think of. There were several times that I had to go back to see who the speaker was because I was confused if it was a male or female voice.
Overall, I enjoyed the novel and the topics raised in it. It was a good commentary about belief systems, changes in leadership, questioning authority, and growing up. It also gives some interesting opinions on males versus females leadership skills. While I don't necessarily agree with the sweeping idea that all men or all female fall into these roles, it is interesting commentary. If you are not as particular about word choice as I am, then you will love this book. If you are particular about word choice, then I encourage you to stick with it, correct the sentence in your head and move forward. The ideas are worth reading.
