I don't read a lot of science fiction but I decided to give this one a try. There were some good parts and some bad parts.

Because it takes place on a completely alien world with a group of humans that have regressed back to primitive ages, it takes a little to get into. But eventually you get used to it and it becomes easier.

I was intrigued by the new world. Although I thought that the animals that were described were a little repetitive. For some reason they all have six legs and feelers in front of their mouths.

I liked the Biblical themes that were present throughout the book. You can see the author's idea of how those stories might have originated and spread through time. Also, the development of the culture as it moves from female-led to male-led is interesting.

The book is a little simple, however. Many of those themes talked about above were not fully developed. The book lacks a lot of description. Heck, I was almost 400 pages into the book before I realized that the main character had a beard and that one of the other characters was blonde.

The book was clearly set up to spawn sequels in this world. You are left to wonder what will happen to the group of renegades. What happens as people begin to explore the new parts of the world that are hinted at?

If you like sci-fi, this book may be worth a look. I do suspect there are other books out there that address these themes in a more meaningful way, however.

Bardzo przyjemne czytadło. Prawdopodobnie za kilkadziesiąt lat Beckett nie będzie pamiętanym autorem, ale bardzo trafnie wybrano jego powieść do serii 'Uczta wyobraźni"
Przekonujące jest spore uproszczenie języka - jego dewaluacja w wyniku przejścia w fazę oralną dość trafnie oddana w budowie zdań pozwala lepiej "złapać" klimat.
Narratorów jest wielu, ale nie widać tego, bo opowiadają oni wydarzenia po kolei, nieliczne retrospekcje nie pozwalają na ewentualne porównanie ich wypowiedzi. I to jest słabość, bo w zasadzie nie widać też różnicy w opowieści o sobie głównego bohatera, a opowieści o głównym bohaterze. W dodatku czasami lepiej rozumieją go inni niż on sam.
Dlatego trzy gwiazdki, bo za trzy dekady pewnie niewielu wspomni

So I’m 100 pages in and tapping out on this one. I just wasn’t excited to read it...wasn’t attached to any of the characters and idk if the writing style is for me..

Sci-Fi novels would usually be one of the last genres that I would consider reading, largely because they don't really appeal to my interests and I often struggle to become engaged in strange new worlds. The fact that I was not only able to grasp Eden as a setting, but the culture, language and characters too leads me to believe that this was a fairly mild example of the genre. In fact, at times, it felt like a children's novel, or at least young adult. (Had there not been as much slipping and talk of 'juice'…)

The first two-thirds of this novel were quite dull. I understood that the time was being taken to build the world, the characters and to ensure that when the impact came it felt shocking, but it was so slow paced and repetitive. Someone slips with someone, someone argues with John, John redeems himself. Someone else slips with someone… over and over. I was surprised that I was able to make it through these sections to be honest, every time I put the book down it took me a long time to go back to it. I perhaps wouldn't have even finished if it hadn't been a loan.



However, as I reached the final third, I was well and truly engaged with the characters. Once the plot started to progress and Eden began to crumble and fall, I was hooked hooked. There was a building tension throughout that I didn't even realise held me until I reached the very end and was suddenly looking for the conclusion because it surely couldn't just end like that?

The language didn't bother me as much as it seems to have other reviewers. I just read the book and soon enough picked up the language, and barely noticed the repeated words toward the end. I just saw two and amplified the feeling as I continued.

Actually, as a total history nerd, I found it a fascinating fascinating capture of oral history. Over 165 years language and culture were changed significantly due to the reliance on oral history. It was interesting to see how some elements of Eden's history had lasted but others had been lost, how these passed down stories turned into propaganda and religion.

Overall, there was too much slipping and repetition in the early sections of this book and not enough deep character development. While the first two-thirds were slow slow, the final third really ramped up the pace and made it a more worth while read.

Breaking against what is accepted in society and finding his path by following his own innovative ideas when the Family won't take him seriously because he's a 15 year old and they've never let newhairs have a say in Family matters before. A world that has similarities to our own but is not at all like we know it. It seems to be a bit prehistoric in nature but they came from a more futuristic society and yearn to one day get back to Earth, which is the home to the Mother and Father of the True Story, and their ancestors.

To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website:http://jenpaul13.wix.com/makinggoodstories#!blog/c10zu.

To be perfectly candid, it took me a while to get into Chris Beckett's Dark Eden. For the longest time I struggled to understand what world I was in or what was really going on. Some of this came from the language used, but a greater aspect of it was the delayed world building, which I felt to be a bit incomplete, even if it was a ploy to match the characters' incomplete understanding of their world. The aspects of the world around them that they knew weren't completely fleshed out for easy visualization, and perhaps that comes from the disconnect from a technologically advanced society spawning a primitive society.

Language was a rather large obstacle to overcome in this book. There was the duplication of words, such as "fast fast" when characters were speaking or describing something. At first, I thought it was an error, but its consistent use signaled a different type of language structure for the Eden society, which is a rather hefty undertaking for an author. To go along with the duplication aspect of the language, there were also words made up for new creatures and words spelled out phonetically for things we are all familiar with, such as a radio being referred to as a Rayed Yo. Stylistically, the language was intriguing, after an acclimation period and some reading aloud.

The multiple perspective structure of the story's telling was something that I quite enjoy as it provides a more comprehensive portrayal of the characters and the events. The two primary point of views (POVs) were from John Redlantern and Tina Spiketree. There were six other characters who each had a chapter from their perspective and it helped to vary the voices and fill in details. Whether the secondary character POV chapters added a lot to the story I'm not sure, and it certainly threw me off the first time a "random" character's POV was included, but seeing as they were included, they did intervene the "naturally" alternating POV at seemingly appropriate times.

It was an interesting read but it took me quite some time before I warmed up to the language and the premise. The sense of religious unease portrayed through John and a societies tendency to "need" to expand, there is closure to the story through the exploration that John and his Family begin; however, there wasn't too much closure for the story as a whole as there's the looming threat from the Old Family and we don't know how that will play out--either a fight or continued flight situation. A bit a coming of age story, a touch of science fiction, and a bit religious, Dark Eden is a social commentary that doesn't seem to be fully realized.

Well, that was long. And not terribly good. Don’t be fooled by claims of world building, linguistics, social structure development, etc. Everything stayed on the surface and was was just so rudimentary and/or uncomfortable. I wish I could remember how this book ended up on my radar so I could think twice before adding another book to my TBR from that source.