Thursday 9 June 2016

Mother of Eden - Chris Beckett

'We speak of a mother's love, but we forget her power. Power over life. Power to give and to withhold.'

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 of the enemies she will make, no inkling that a time will come when she, like John Redlantern, will choose to kill... 

My thoughts:
What to do when you crash on an alien planet and there are two of you left? You have a few babies, but hey what next? Yes, euww. And then 400? years later there are a lot of people on this planet, and they are all related. There are some major birth defects too, and those without them are treated better. It is a stone age society that in some parts have gone over to the iron age.

And it is a fascinating world. In the last book we saw how John Redlantern wanted to explore more of the world. Now 200 years later people have spread, and built more villages. But as society changes things also gets worse. It is a world who is all Mother Gela would have wanted us to this! And also a society where men now have taken power and look at women as lesser. As society changes it is not always for the better. Now they also kill those who do not think like them.

In this world we have Starlight, a woman from a tiny fishing village. But she wants more from life, and who can blame her, there is a whole world to explore, and she is stuck on a tiny island. She is naive, but so are they all. She is impulsive in her quest for more. But she is smart.

Greenstone, oh poor guy, he was just too kind and they meet and she gets to explore the world across the Pool. Which takes out to another society, and one of the bad ones. When people make rules there are always those who suffers.

There are actually many POVS in this one. We follow Starlight, but we gets bits and pieces from others around her and how they feel about things. Those she left behind. Those who rule. Those who follow.

People are idiots. ...but Not all, Starlight's village was a good one, they treated each other fairly and felt like everyone is equally important. They had fled the others and the squabbling. But the rest, oh people.

There will be another book, and I look forward to that one. I wonder where that book will take us. I do wonder if Earth will finally get here and what they will think of these inbred idiots who think they rule the world....

Conclusion:
A great sci-fi. Even the language had evolved. So interesting. 

Cover
meh

Paperback, 480 pages
Published April 7th 2016 by Corvus (first published May 12th 2015)
Dark Eden #2
Sci.fi
Library

27 comments:

  1. OMG OMG OMG I only skimmed your review b/c I so need to read this one. Dark Eden was one of my Fav reads ever! So glad to hear you enjoyed this. I need to read it ASAP!

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    1. Dark Eden was so amazing, I know some complained about the language, but I found it cool

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  2. YEAH! I love when a book totally hits all cylinders!

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  3. Scary world. Interesting...but scary

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    1. The world was effed up. They were all We are better than you, omg 400 years you were siblings!

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  4. Hmm this sounds like a good series and I can hear that in the way you talk about this book. Last one will be interesting.

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  5. Sounds scary to me. But then I hardly read sci fi and when it does appear on my radar it sounds really bad!

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  6. I loooooved the first book! I didn't think this one was as good, but it was really cool to see what had become of Eden centuries after John Redlantern!

    ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

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    1. That one was so good! And you are right, this one was not as good, back in John's book it was still so freaky. But here it has evolved

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  7. You always see in movies or shows, "What if we were the last two people on Earth?". I guess this series is showing us just that. I like the idea. I need to check this out. Great review.

    Melanie @ Hot Listens & Rabid Reads

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    1. The answer is lots of incest and birth defects...yay

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  8. This sounds sort of like the start of the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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    1. Ohh The Darkover books, I read some of those, so good

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  9. Well that sounds curious! Maybe I might need this one. lol

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  10. Read this one and didn't really like it. I remember giving it away last year, as soon as I read it.

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  11. Sounds like some great creating here. Thanks for sharing about this!

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