aretaa's review
2.0
Oh boy, I really wanted to like this one. The premise sounded like this could be a really cool horror sci-fi book. Sadly, it wasn't, because I didn't really feel the horror. There were a few moments that were building up to something, but then just fell flat for me. Somehow the sci-fi setting felt unnecessary because the world building was really weak. I mean, there are these giant "spiders" that devour whole worlds and then the only thing the author does with them is . And then mixing japanese mythology into it was just weird.
Spoiler
to use one of them to defeat the villain. No explanation of where they came from or what they arelyrrael's review
5.0
Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. But after saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace to oversee the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station well past its use-by date. But all is not well aboard the U-Star Coast City. The station’s reclusive Commandant is nowhere to be seen, leaving Cleveland to deal with a hostile crew on his own. Persistent malfunctions plague the station’s systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard. Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman’s voice that seems to echo across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past—or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension?
YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS YOU GUYS OMG. I picked this up, seriously, babbling to my husband about how this looked like it was going to be exactly what I wanted as far as a Mass Effect-ey style space opera. I mean, it had everything -- monstrous, spider-like robots that EAT PLANETS and a plucky captain who fights them. Right? Right? NOPE. This turned into one of the creepier horror novels I’ve ever read. This was totally Event Horizon. Or Sunshine -- the movie, not the McKinley novel. IT WAS SO GOOD. I can kind of see why it has such a low rating on Goodreads just because I had no idea it was a horror novel, but dude! WIN.
YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS YOU GUYS OMG. I picked this up, seriously, babbling to my husband about how this looked like it was going to be exactly what I wanted as far as a Mass Effect-ey style space opera. I mean, it had everything -- monstrous, spider-like robots that EAT PLANETS and a plucky captain who fights them. Right? Right? NOPE. This turned into one of the creepier horror novels I’ve ever read. This was totally Event Horizon. Or Sunshine -- the movie, not the McKinley novel. IT WAS SO GOOD. I can kind of see why it has such a low rating on Goodreads just because I had no idea it was a horror novel, but dude! WIN.
meghan_is_reading's review
The space station is haunted! Everyone is cut off and bored and weird shit keeps happening. I caught the 'mystery person' early but that did not ruin it *I have a high tolerance for supernatural "does that even make sense?"* It was perfect to burn up my Friday night after a kinda terrible week.
*I would have recommended this on the podcast to Matthew but it's military scifi.
*I would have recommended this on the podcast to Matthew but it's military scifi.
colossal's review
4.0
So this wasn't at all what I expected. From the description I was expecting a military SF novel with a bit of a mystery element, but surprisingly this one was much more a horror story in a SF setting. Complete with jump scares and allusions to the supernatural.
I don't have a huge tolerance for horror and some of the horror tropes/elements went on a bit too long for my taste without moving the plot forward, but overall it's a satisfying story.
Describing it in a spoilery way.
I don't have a huge tolerance for horror and some of the horror tropes/elements went on a bit too long for my taste without moving the plot forward, but overall it's a satisfying story.
Describing it in a spoilery way
Spoiler
it's Event Horizon by way of Cabin in the Woodsmferrante83's review
4.0
Before reading this review you should all understand that one of my favorite movies is Event Horizon. For those who aren’t familiar, Event Horizon, is essentially a haunted house story set in space wherein an intrepid group of spacers investigate the titular ship, the Event Horizon, which years ago mysteriously disappeared during the test of the first FTL drive. Event Horizon isn’t a great movie but much like Alien it combines science fiction and horror in a fun and entertaining manner (see also: Pandorum, Eden Log, and Europa Report). As such the blending of science fiction and horror has always been one of my favorite areas of genre fiction (I do less well with video games, I’m looking at you Dead Space). I say all this to warn you that my look at Adam Christopher’s The Burning Dark is not going to be through a completely objective lens.
The Burning Dark opens with a fairly enigmatic prologue. It is vague but hints at someone or something trapped outside the bounds of our universe trapped but still brimming with malevolent intellect. The prologue definitely sets the tone for the novel and clearly shows, right out the gate, that nothing is quite as it seems. From there readers are introduced to the heroic actions of one Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland as he desperately uses every trick in the book to save a planet from a horrific invasion by an armada of marauding spider-like machine aliens. It is strange then that no long after this battle the seemingly heroic Captain Cleveland finds himself into a forced retirement and sent to oversee the backwater U-star (a space station), Coast City, monitoring the strange star system known as Shadow. Mostly empty, Cleveland finds himself shuffled off into an unused section of the station and left to his own devices while the crew completes its shutdown. Bored, Cleveland constructs a space radio out of spare parts (a hobby he had in his youth) and it isn’t long before he is receiving a strange signal on a subspace band that he isn’t legally supposed to be listening on. Meanwhile, the strange light of Shadow seems to wreak havoc on the sensors and powers Coast City’s systems and its crew while strange whispers and mysterious sight begin to increasingly haunt the station.
There is element of predictability to the The Burning Dark that is sort of endemic to the haunted house theme: lights flicker, people disappear, and strange voices are heard. As a reader familiar with horror you sort of know how things will go and many of the elements that Christopher introduces are a bit obvious. I can’t fault an author working in an established medium for using familiar tropes and Christopher manages to infuse those tropes with a unique style and flavor that definitely makes them stand out. I particularly enjoyed Christopher’s use of real-world Cold War era conspiracy theory by playing upon, and extrapolating a lot more detail from the supposed (real-life) recording made by Judica-Cordiglia brothers in 1961 of a (supposed) Russian cosmonaut. Christopher futher works elements of Japanese folklore into his story thus managing to create a fascinating pastiche of the historical, the supernatural, the scientific and the horrific.
While The Burning Dark is a self-contained story Christopher does a commendable job of placing the story within a larger universe. While, primarily focused on the trials and tribulations of the characters aboard the Coast City the events described in the novel are tied to events outside of Shadow in a rather clever manner. Indeed, the universe of The Burning Dark is an interesting one and one that would be great to be explored in a more traditional space opera. Christopher doesn’t give a lot of background information on the world of The Burning Dark. He lets you extrapolate from name alone just what a psi-marine is without ever fully detailing the nature of a psi-marine’s training. This is both a blessing and a curse as it lets the plot and story flow smoothing while at the same time slightly frustrating readers (like myself) interested in the nitty gritty details so often seen in militaristic space operas. While The Burning Dark is at its heart a ghost story there is a great deal going on in the background that lends a little bit of extra heft to the main story.
I found The Burning Dark an enjoyable read that hit all the right notes to entertain a reader whole enjoys both science fiction and horror; this is a fun story that reads quickly. The Burning Dark leans hard on the fiction half of science fiction so fans of hard science fiction might be a bit less enamored than I was. Similarly the derivative bits of the horror story might put off readers heavily enmeshed in the world of horror fiction. The Burning Dark tries deftly to navigate the thin line between both horror and science fiction succeeding in some regards and failing in others. Thankfully, The Burning Dark marks the opening of a new series (The Spider Wars) and introduces a wealth of interesting ideas that I keen to see explored further. The Burning Dark is a real genre bender with a supernova bright cinematic flair that is worth checking out.
The Burning Dark opens with a fairly enigmatic prologue. It is vague but hints at someone or something trapped outside the bounds of our universe trapped but still brimming with malevolent intellect. The prologue definitely sets the tone for the novel and clearly shows, right out the gate, that nothing is quite as it seems. From there readers are introduced to the heroic actions of one Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland as he desperately uses every trick in the book to save a planet from a horrific invasion by an armada of marauding spider-like machine aliens. It is strange then that no long after this battle the seemingly heroic Captain Cleveland finds himself into a forced retirement and sent to oversee the backwater U-star (a space station), Coast City, monitoring the strange star system known as Shadow. Mostly empty, Cleveland finds himself shuffled off into an unused section of the station and left to his own devices while the crew completes its shutdown. Bored, Cleveland constructs a space radio out of spare parts (a hobby he had in his youth) and it isn’t long before he is receiving a strange signal on a subspace band that he isn’t legally supposed to be listening on. Meanwhile, the strange light of Shadow seems to wreak havoc on the sensors and powers Coast City’s systems and its crew while strange whispers and mysterious sight begin to increasingly haunt the station.
There is element of predictability to the The Burning Dark that is sort of endemic to the haunted house theme: lights flicker, people disappear, and strange voices are heard. As a reader familiar with horror you sort of know how things will go and many of the elements that Christopher introduces are a bit obvious. I can’t fault an author working in an established medium for using familiar tropes and Christopher manages to infuse those tropes with a unique style and flavor that definitely makes them stand out. I particularly enjoyed Christopher’s use of real-world Cold War era conspiracy theory by playing upon, and extrapolating a lot more detail from the supposed (real-life) recording made by Judica-Cordiglia brothers in 1961 of a (supposed) Russian cosmonaut. Christopher futher works elements of Japanese folklore into his story thus managing to create a fascinating pastiche of the historical, the supernatural, the scientific and the horrific.
While The Burning Dark is a self-contained story Christopher does a commendable job of placing the story within a larger universe. While, primarily focused on the trials and tribulations of the characters aboard the Coast City the events described in the novel are tied to events outside of Shadow in a rather clever manner. Indeed, the universe of The Burning Dark is an interesting one and one that would be great to be explored in a more traditional space opera. Christopher doesn’t give a lot of background information on the world of The Burning Dark. He lets you extrapolate from name alone just what a psi-marine is without ever fully detailing the nature of a psi-marine’s training. This is both a blessing and a curse as it lets the plot and story flow smoothing while at the same time slightly frustrating readers (like myself) interested in the nitty gritty details so often seen in militaristic space operas. While The Burning Dark is at its heart a ghost story there is a great deal going on in the background that lends a little bit of extra heft to the main story.
I found The Burning Dark an enjoyable read that hit all the right notes to entertain a reader whole enjoys both science fiction and horror; this is a fun story that reads quickly. The Burning Dark leans hard on the fiction half of science fiction so fans of hard science fiction might be a bit less enamored than I was. Similarly the derivative bits of the horror story might put off readers heavily enmeshed in the world of horror fiction. The Burning Dark tries deftly to navigate the thin line between both horror and science fiction succeeding in some regards and failing in others. Thankfully, The Burning Dark marks the opening of a new series (The Spider Wars) and introduces a wealth of interesting ideas that I keen to see explored further. The Burning Dark is a real genre bender with a supernova bright cinematic flair that is worth checking out.
drewsof's review
3.0
Although it's a bit fitful to start, there are some good spooky jumps in this book and Christopher really nails the derelict space station vibe. And the crazy purple star thing is a trope that I enjoy the hell out of: space is a crazy place, so who knows what's out there? And the overarching story he seems to be headed towards (facing off with this intractable sentient-machine race) has be cautiously buying in... There's a short story set in this same universe that I'm going to read, too (available at Tor.com). I like the man's invention if his writing isn't always the most successful. And I wanted this to scare me to death - instead, it was just a pleasant post-ToB-reading reset.
More at RB soon: https://ragingbiblioholism.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/the-burning-dark-spider-wars-1/
More at RB soon: https://ragingbiblioholism.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/the-burning-dark-spider-wars-1/
meaganc's review
4.0
I am on vacation, so I am reading all the books.
This one was pretty good. The world building was lush and we were just on the edge of it, but yeah, I wasn't the hugest fan of the actual plot.
But I still read it in one sitting.
Also the first half of the first chapter is jarringly Not Super Good, so make sure to get past that before judging it.
This one was pretty good. The world building was lush and we were just on the edge of it, but yeah, I wasn't the hugest fan of the actual plot.
But I still read it in one sitting.
Also the first half of the first chapter is jarringly Not Super Good, so make sure to get past that before judging it.
kate_farber's review
2.0
DNF at 80%. That's far enough along that I should probably pick it up and finish, but...look, I just don't understand how you can take malevolent ghosts + space isolation and have it be BORING. It's practically gift-wrapped how easy it should have been to leave me sleeping with the lights on. It isn't a bad story and there are interesting features, but ultimately, it failed to make me care.
tdeshler's review
3.0
This was an odd combination of hard sf, which worked pretty well, and horror (ghosts from hellspace), which didn't work so well. In the former genre, detailed descriptions are often given for all sorts of equipment, technologies, and phenomena, but not so much with these ghosts. For most of this book, we're left to wonder about the origin these ghosts, only to finally learn about their soul-sucking nature, then everything explodes, the end. Not too satisfying.
ctgt's review
4.0
In the shadowland of the dead, she sat and cried for her husband, but the prison was sealed and she could not leave and nobody could hear her.
The shadows surrounded her, swarming like living, breathing creatures. The shadows caressed her skin, holding the rotting flesh onto her bones. Things crawled over her and ate the flesh, but the shadows kept her firm, kept her whole as the things ate, and ate, and ate.
It was too late.
She had eaten the food of the underworld, and she could not return. So she sat in the shadows, and cried for her husband, and things ate her flesh.
With an opening like that I thought I was in for the next great sci/fi/cosmic horror book to add to my growing list of favorites. I can't really say I was disappointed because I did enjoy the story but it never materialized into what I would consider an outright horror title. I would consider this a creepy, suspense story with some horror moments.
The setting is ideal for this type of story, a space station in the process of being dismantled
The entire fleet was modular, allowing for an infinite number of combinations and functions, limited only by the imagination of the Marine-Engineer Corps-which meant that, actually, the vehicles of the fleet only came in five different forms.
So there are large areas that have already been dismantled and the other areas are automated for energy usage and human occupation, in other words, very low lighting. It's great for seeing shadows and hearing voices, which is exactly what begins to happen. Oh, and the star the station has been studying, bathes near space in purple. Captain Cleveland is sent to oversee the rest of the dismantling as his final assignment before retiring and isn't exactly welcomed with open arms by the marines on site. The previous commander has left the station before Cleveland arrives and no one is exactly sure when or how he left.
There are some pretty cool ideas about subspace
Ida closed his eyes, leaned back, and listened. The sound of subspace wasn't just white noise and it had nothing to do with the Big Bang. The sound of subspace was the angry roar of the nothing that resonated between space. It was weird, alien.
The suspense does build quite well as some of the mysteries surrounding the star, the commander and Captain Cleveland are revealed and in the end I did enjoy the story...even though it wasn't exactly what I had expected.
The shadows surrounded her, swarming like living, breathing creatures. The shadows caressed her skin, holding the rotting flesh onto her bones. Things crawled over her and ate the flesh, but the shadows kept her firm, kept her whole as the things ate, and ate, and ate.
It was too late.
She had eaten the food of the underworld, and she could not return. So she sat in the shadows, and cried for her husband, and things ate her flesh.
With an opening like that I thought I was in for the next great sci/fi/cosmic horror book to add to my growing list of favorites. I can't really say I was disappointed because I did enjoy the story but it never materialized into what I would consider an outright horror title. I would consider this a creepy, suspense story with some horror moments.
The setting is ideal for this type of story, a space station in the process of being dismantled
The entire fleet was modular, allowing for an infinite number of combinations and functions, limited only by the imagination of the Marine-Engineer Corps-which meant that, actually, the vehicles of the fleet only came in five different forms.
So there are large areas that have already been dismantled and the other areas are automated for energy usage and human occupation, in other words, very low lighting. It's great for seeing shadows and hearing voices, which is exactly what begins to happen. Oh, and the star the station has been studying, bathes near space in purple. Captain Cleveland is sent to oversee the rest of the dismantling as his final assignment before retiring and isn't exactly welcomed with open arms by the marines on site. The previous commander has left the station before Cleveland arrives and no one is exactly sure when or how he left.
There are some pretty cool ideas about subspace
Ida closed his eyes, leaned back, and listened. The sound of subspace wasn't just white noise and it had nothing to do with the Big Bang. The sound of subspace was the angry roar of the nothing that resonated between space. It was weird, alien.
The suspense does build quite well as some of the mysteries surrounding the star, the commander and Captain Cleveland are revealed and in the end I did enjoy the story...even though it wasn't exactly what I had expected.