Dark Eden by Chris Beckett

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett

WINER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD - A stunning novel and a beautiful evocation of a truly alien world.--Sunday Times (UK)

Beckett renders the terror of the darkness beyond the forests with a riveting deftness that evokes all primordial fears of the unknown.--N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review

On the alien, sunless planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family take shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie the 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 the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say--and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return.

But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark . . . and discover the truth about their world.

Already remarkably acclaimed in the United Kingdom, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature: part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty and rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

Praise for Dark Eden

A linguistic and imaginative tour de force.--The Guardian (UK)

Captivating and haunting . . . human plight and alien planet are both superbly evoked.--Daily Mail (UK)

Pure astonishment and pleasure, a storytelling ride full of brio and wonder.--Locus

Chris Beckett became a social worker in the 1980s and spent 18 years working in the field, first as a social worker, then as a manager, and finally as the manager of a children and families social work team. He began his career as a 'generic' social worker, working with a variety of service users including children and families, the elderly, and persons with mental health difficulties and disabilities, but his primary focus was on children and families. He went into academic social work in 2000, first at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and then at the University of Cambridge. He has written academic publications on a number of themes, including the use of military terminology in social work, the value of realism as an ethical concept, and statistics from Sweden on child abuse in the aftermath of the country's legal ban on physical punishment. Chris has a side career as a writer of literary science fiction. His main research field, however, has been decision-making in court processes involving children, as well as decision-making regarding children in general. (For more information on Chris Beckett's writing, go to www.chris-beckett.com.) He won the Edge Hill Short Fiction Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for his story collection The Turing Test.

For his novel Dark Eden, he received the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He currently works full-time as a writer. Chris believes that 'academic' and 'artistic' writing have more in common than might appear at first glance: in both cases, the author starts with a tangle of ideas that appear to be linked in some way, and strives to impose some shape and organization, in large part by a combination of intuition and trial and error.Chris has three grown children and lives in Cambridge with his wife Maggi.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780804138680
ISBN 10	0804138680
Title	Dark Eden
Author	Chris Beckett
Series	Dark Eden
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Year published	2014-04-01
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.