Dark Eden

THE WINNER OF THE 2013 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION BEST NOVEL CATEGORY SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 BRITISH FICTION ASSOCIATION BEST COVER DESIGN (SI SCOTT) SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 BSFA AWARDS You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the Forest's lantern trees. Beyond the forest lie mountains so forbidding that no one has ever crossed them. The Oldest recount legends of a time when men and women made boats that could travel between worlds. One day, they will come back for you. You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of two marooned explorers. You huddle, slowly starving, in the warmth of geothermal trees, confined to one barely habitable valley of an alien, sunless world. You are John Redlantern. You will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. You will be the first to kill another, the first to venture into the Dark and the first to discover the truth about Eden.

Chris Beckett is a former social worker and now university lecturer who lives in Cambridge. In 2009 he won the Edge Hill Short Story competition for his collection of stories, The Turing Test.