For example, John describes his crush, Tina, as “ pretty pretty” and an icy stream as “cold cold.”īeckett explains that “For the first 16 years…the Eden settlers were a bunch of kids and two adults….There’s no external adult world as a reference point,” which explains the childish language. “It’s just turned on its head.” Because, after all, these people have been “expelled to Eden.” The resulting society seems almost childlike, as exemplified by their manner of speaking-they emphasize things by repeating adjectives.

“Obviously the Bible story is in there,” notes Beckett. When young John Redlantern points out that the Family’s resources are running out, and they need to spread out beyond their original location (the place they believe the spaceship will come to pick them up), it’s regarded as blasphemy. But a few generations later, no help has come, and considerable myth about Tommy, Angela and Earth has sprouted among the couple’s hundreds of inbred descendants. Supposedly, their fellow astronauts returned to Earth in their damaged ship and will return someday with help. His small domestic story begins with Tommy and Angela, an unhappy couple marooned on a tiny, sunless planet called Eden, heated by its core and lit by glowing plants. “The thing that strikes me about the Bible,” Chris Beckett says, “is that a lot of the Old Testament is small domestic stories elevated to a mythical level.” Beckett explores that idea in his new science fiction parable, Dark Eden.

Dark eden by chris beckett