“We speak of a mother’s love, but we forget her power. Power over life. Power to give and to withhold.”
“A masterpiece” The Guardian
Shortlisted for BSFA Best Novel 2015
Generations after the breakup of the human family of Eden. the Johnfolk emphasise knowledge and innovation, the Davidfolk tradition and cohesion. But both have built hierarchical societies sustained by violence and dominated by men – and both claim to be the favoured children of a long-dead woman from Earth that all Eden knows as Gela, the mother of them all.
When Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no idea that she will be a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela’s ring on her own finger.
And she has no idea either of the enemies she will make, no inkling that a time will come when she, like John Redlantern, will choose to kill.
French and Polish editions forthcoming.
UK paperback out on April 7th, 2016
Review on Fantasyliterature.com.
Hi Chris, just wanted to say that Dark Eden was a fantastic read. My 16 year old son thought it was the best book he had ever read, and we are both looking forward to the next one.
Best wishes,
Nicki
Thanks very much Nicki. This is all very encouraging when I am working on another one. I’m very pleased your son liked it too. It seems to go down well with readers his age (or the characters’ age!)
I caught Dark Eden after seeing a review on the Wertzone, and got the kindle version (no paper version in the US at the time). Glad to see a sequel, I was worried that Dark Eden would be lost under the pile of urban fantasy garbage that seems to dominate the SFF genre these days, and we’d miss out on another look into one of the best imaginary worlds in fiction. Thanks for writing!
Many thanks Jon.
Hi Chris
My first SF read in a while, I loved it and will recommend it to readers of all genres. I have found myself ‘swearing’ in Edenish in front of the kids, which shows me the level of a reality you’ve reached ( and stops my kids hearing the f word).
Can’t wait for Gela’s Ring.
Mick
To think I’ve started a new kind of swearing. I can die happy!
Thanks so much for the feedback Mick.
I have just finished Dark Eden, and feel like I want to start it all over again, because I enjoyed it so much. What an original idea. And I particularly loved the development of the characters, I felt I really got to know each person. Thank you for a brilliant read, I look forward to reading more by you!
Thanks very much Alison. It is really nice of you to give me this feedback. I can’t tell you how encouraging it is.
Best book I have ever read. Thank you.
Wow. Thanks Josh. That’s set me up for the day!
It seems you hear this a lot, but also I have to say Dark Eden was one of the best books I’ve ever read. I really sunk into the world and it was hard hard to put the book down (I finished it last night around 4.30 am…)! I especially loved the way the background story of Tommy and Gela became clearer little by little and how the development of the society at Eden seemed so realistic. Also the use of different perspectives on things (sometimes John’s, sometimes Tina’s etc..) was refreshing and a great way to show how people (mis)interpret each other.
Keep up the good work, I’m sure to buy the sequel!
Thanks very much Jussi. As I’ve said before, it’s really encouraging to have this feedback. Like having people cheering you on when you’re running in a race or something!
I keep annoying my girlfriend by referring to sex as ‘having a slip’. I’ve explained that it’s your fault!
I’m happy to take the blame Ryan!
Hi I’d just like to tell you how much I enjoyed “Dark Eden”. It kept me turning the pages all night. I’m really looking forward to “Gela’s Ring”, I hope you keep this world alive and I hope one day they’ll get in contact with Earth again xx
Much love
Melanie
Thanks very much Melanie. I’m really pleased you enjoyed it. I must say it’s a nice feeling to have invented a world which other people like to inhabit.
Chris, I finally got round to buying Dark Eden this week and simply had to say how much I loved it.
I’d go so far to say that it was good good good, and I am so happy to find out there will be a sequel; particularly when the premise sounds so interesting.
I am intrigued to find out how John – who was so (painfully) aware of his place as an actor in a story – will come to be remembered when he has actually become a legend himself.
The only problem I had with Dark Eden was that I found it too compelling and finished it much too soon! I will have to try and have some better self-control with Gela’s Ring.
I’d just turned on my laptop for a day’s writing when I saw your comment, Jack. Thanks very much. You’ve set me up nicely for a day’s work on Gela’s Ring. I’m now about 80% through the first draft. John is indeed remembered as a very major figure in it.
Echoing what a good book this is. Cannot wait for the sequel (…trilogy, movie etc !) I’m a teacher and think this would actually be a great addition to the curriculum sitting alongside teachers fave Lord of the Flies. It’s so full of ideas and yet so digestible I think my students would love it.
Thanks very much Ryan. I read Lord of the Flies at school when I was 13, and it made a big impression on me. I think it was the first time I really understood that a book could be a way of thinking about life, rather than simply an entertainment. Unlike L of F this book wasn’t written with young people specifically in mind, but of course I’m delighted that young people seem to enjoy and relate to it. And I’d be very pleased if it turned out to be useful in the way you suggest.
I somehow stumbled upon your book Dark Eden and it got its claws into me right away. The 2013 Burning Man theme this year is going to be Cargo Cult and your book gave me some great ideas for that. Glad to hear there will be a sequel. Keep up the great work.
Oh thanks Marc. It is a cargo cult they’re getting into isn’t it? I didn’t think of it as exactly that, but it is. I’m glad it gave you some ideas.
Hi, just wanted to say that I really enjoyed Dark Eden, it was a pleasure to see some well thought out world-building for once, and Eden is a place made with a lot of imagination. I am 27, so not a YA but I thought it was great, and appealing to range of ages. I do have one question though… What is a Stronry? Its the one thing I couldn’t work out! I loved the twisting of historical facts, and the different point of view chapters, as I think a lot of information was conveyed without info-dumping. I very much look forward to your next novel
Thanks very much Holly. I’m glad you enjoyed it and appreciate you letting me know. I didn’t write it particularly with YAs in mind, and am very pleased that it seems to appeal to people of most ages, including YAs and Middle-Aged As like myself.
Lots of people are puzzled about Strornry. It comes from Extraordinary, as in Extraordinary Meeting!
Michael’s dick I enjoyed this book. Love their use of language and the thinking that must have gone into it, can’t wait to read Gela’s Ring
Thanks Neil. Great that you liked it so much. I’m pleased pleased!
I am curious about the fact that this will initially be available in a monthly magazine. May I ask did writing for the magazine modify in any way your writing style i.e. were you aware of the more urgent need to insert cliffhanger type scenarios in the novel as it would be reproduced initially in a format that wanted to deliver that kind of “until the next episode” feeling with the reader left in a kind of eager suspense of what will happen next. Were you conscious of the need to cater for that kind of audience just as for example a tv series like 24 must keep the audience hanging on with a crisis or moment of uncertainty at the end of each hour?
Or perhaps you just wrote this novel as you would any other and the montly installment thing didn’t play on your mind at all?
I made some effect to finish each episode with something that would whet the reader’s appetite for more, Nathan, though not necessarily cliff-hangers. The other thing that was different was that I had to settle at the outset for a predetermined length for the book.
Curiously the book has the potential now to take two different forms. Once an episode has been published, I can’t go back and change it, and the rest of the book has to be consistent with what I’ve already committed myself too. However the book version, not yet delivered to the publisher, isn’t subject to the same constraints, and I’ll be working with a different editor in either case.
Hi Chris,
Just wanted to add to the praise above. I’ve just finished “Dark Eden”, and have no hesitation in describing it as one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Wonderful work on so many levels. I couldn’t put it down.
Tony
Wow, that’s high praise indeed. Thanks so much Tony.
I downloaded Dark Eden for the Kindle a few days ago, after a friend recommended it, and I must say I’ve not been as gripped by a story since Stephen King’s “The Stand”. A very unputdownable read, and looking forward to the sequel. Excellent work Chris!
Thanks very much Dan.
Dear Chris
I enjoyed the original short story of Dark Eden so much that avoided the novel. I finally succumbed a few weeks back and was gripped from the very first page. Being an East Londoner the vernacular you created was spot on and cracked me up, and I find myself exclaiming “Tom’s dick” frequently.
Can’t wait to see how you develope that in the sequel.
I smiled or LOLd the whole way through, and had a – shoosh- teary moment once or twice.
The genius moment for me was how you related the original story in pantomime form, and the resonance of the kid’s voices across time. Nice one.
Up the with The Chrysalids!
All the best
Rudy
Ps Holy Machine is brilliant and Our Land very very clever (send a copy to Noam Chomsky 😉
Just finished reading Dark Eden. Outstanding novel, Chris. You created a vivid, believable world; inhabited it with psychologically rich characters and my word, do you know how to whip up some serious, nerve shredding tension. Thank you for writing it, I’ve been pushing it onto everyone I know.
Thanks Rudy. The voices back and forth across time was the part I personally particiular enjoyed writing.
Many thanks Anthony.
Hi Chris,
I’m a history teacher and promote my current read on my door. I’ve had a few questions about why I read so much SF and tend to reply by suggesting Orwell as a way to understand the development of fear and blame in society – yes, I do teach the Russian revolution, the rise of Hitler and the Cold War! Next to 1984 I shall now suggest Dark Eden as essential reading.
That’s great, Toby, thanks. What an honour!
Just finished reading Dark Eden, really fantastic book. I love that Angela and Tommy weren’t the hyper-competent survivors you normally find in books like this. They understood how to use their technology, but were clueless when it came to actually reproducing it. I can’t wait for the full version of Gela’s Ring to be published, I enjoy consuming a book all at once too much to read monthly installments.
Here’s to hoping the societies in Blinding Light end up a bit better off than the hostile, male dominated ones in Gela’s Ring.
Thanks very much Sean.
Really enjoyed dark Eden, but its quite a sad end. Human failings very much on display.
The ending isn’t to everyone’s taste, I’ve noticed, Alison, even people who like the rest of the book. For myself, I really don’t like neat endings that wrap everything up. I sometimes feel a bit cheated by them: a world that had seemed expansive and large suddenly turns out to be finite and closed.
I’m glad you liked the book and thanks for letting me know.
I am a jaded reader and very few books satisfy me these days, but I profoundly enjoyed Dark Eden. I loved the play with language, especially the reduplication. It is a limited feature of Afrikaans and has been taken up into South African English, as in “I’ll come now-now.” I noticed that sometimes a word was repeated 3 times for emphasis and I am looking forward forward to reading Gela’s ring to see if this trend has been continued. I also hope they had not had to invent a word for rape yet.
Thanks very much Lianne. It’s great to have satisfied even a jaded reader. I didn’t know that duplicated words were a feature of Afrikaans, but interestingly Afrikaans was in the back of my mind as an example of a language which evolved a new, and as I understand it, considerably simplified grammar, when it was separated from its parent language.
I’ve just finished Dark Eden and thoroughly enjoyed every page. I am no stranger to science fiction yet you have easily managed to create the most ~alien~ inhabitable planet I’ve ever encountered and combined it with brilliant character development and a fantastic plot. Thanks for a very entertaining read, I’m excited excited about the sequel!
It’s a bit of a clichéd question to ask an author but I am genuinely interested in your answer. If you don’t mind me asking, whose books do you enjoy reading?
Many thanks,
Dan
Thanks very much, Dan. You can see some of the stuff I’ve been reading lately listed under ‘other people’s books’ on this website. I seem to read nearly as much non-fiction as fiction these days. Some authors, SF and otherwise that I particularly admire are: Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Kazuo Ishiguro, Doris Lessing, Tove Jansson, Christopher Priest, James Tiptree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon), Brian Aldiss, Ursula Le Guin. I thought Ken MacLeod’s Intrusion was excellent, but I haven’t yet read any of his other stuff. ‘The Space Merchants’ by Pohl and Kornbluth is one of my all time favourite SF novels, but I haven’t found anything else they’ve done, singly or separately, that I liked as much, same with China Mieville’s ‘The City and the City’. I’m a big admirer of my friend Tony Ballantyne’s work, and am looking forward to his Dream London, out in October, which I was lucky enough to read in draft form. Other writers whose work impressed me very much at one point, but which I haven’t looked at for some time are C.S.Lewis, Milan Kundera, Russell Hoban. I could go on obviously…
Hi Chris. Having just finished Dark Eden today, I immediately had to head over here to say how glad I am to hear about Gela’s Ring. The world of Eden is completely unique and I was enthralled with every page. I’ll be telling everybody I know to read it!
Very pleased to hear it. Thanks Felix.
Hello,
I’ve just finished Dark Eden. (It was in a list of recommended summer books last month (June 2013)in (I think) The Guardian newspaper.
I enjoyed it immensely.
Within about 2 or 3 chapters, I had decided that the ‘we’re from Earth, and they’re coming back for us’ story was a fairy tale, and in fact the ‘Family’ were part of a experiment. (The bats, up in the trees, were observing and recording all the time.)
It was good to be wrong footed.
I’ve not read anything else by you, but I will be seeking your other books out now.
What made you adopt the literary technique of giving each chapter a particular POV? You use this (potentially very powerful and effective) tool very well.
I ask because G R R Martin adopts this also in his ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ saga.(He uses it pretty well too.)
It kind of crept up on me. Originally I was going to tell the whole thing from John’s viewpoint, but it got boring (John being a bit full of himself) and I shifted to Tina’s viewpoint so we could see things from another angle, and found it opened things up for me.
I like it this way of telling a story so much that I’m using the trick again in the novel I am currently working on, Slaymaker, (though I didn’t use it in the sequel to DE). It allows you to comment on things about characters that they might not notice or speak about themselves, without going for the conventional omniscience 3rd person narrator. I must look at Song of Ice and Fire.
I really really didn’t want one of those ‘it all turns out to be an experiment’ type stories. I didn’t want to pull the rug out from under this world. So I’m glad it worked for you.
Many thanks for the kind feedback Raven.