The Dark Beyond The Stars, by Frank M. Robinson, was not a book I heard about until I found it at a library book sale. Sporting a decidedly 1990s science fiction book cover (being from that time), complete with the requisite title font, I couldn’t help picking it up for two dollars. It boasted of a story containing a generation ship designed to search for alien life, which it has yet to find. And since I was in the middle of reading Generation Ship, I figured I couldn’t fare that much worse. Folks, it was quite a treat, you know with it being a forgotten hidden gem with positive reception at the time (it currently has a whopping 123 reviews on goodreads).
The starship Astron has been searching for alien life for over 100 generations. The captain, Michael Kusaka, is immortal and has just about exhausted this corner of the galaxy. In his obsession, he is planning on crossing the Dark, a region of space with nothing in it, to reach an older section of the galaxy. It’s a trip that would take another 100 generations to complete. Sparrow has lost all his memories after having woken up from an accident on another planet. In his uncertainty, he is guided by members of the crew that knew him from before. But they have ulterior motives for him as they try to get him to join their slow-burning mutiny to turn the ship back home to Earth. But the captain also recognizes Sparrow’s skills, and spends his time convincing Sparrow that the search must continue. Will Sparrow push back against the captain, or push to explore the emptiness of space forevermore?
I didn’t know what to expect when picking this book up, so I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I became consumed by Robinson’s narrative. Amnesia is a weird plot device, and it rarely works for me. Here it felt silly at first, giving Robinson an easy in for the reader to see how the society of the Astron works. The suspense surrounding Sparrow’s identity started to build, and it added to the dilemma. Since it’s told through Sparrow’s perspective, his need to find out who he was pulled at strings tied to the general plight of the Astron. Robinson also weaponized it against me in particular as certain inconsistencies within Sparrow’s narrative dropped clues that I didn’t initially pick up on as clues. And when the reveal started to make itself known, it was a gradual slow roll kickstarted by a small revelation. On a plot level, The Dark Beyond The Stars was a delight, taking its time to marinate and build, trusting the reader to continue on the story’s merits.
As a generation ship novel, this book also fits into an interesting space. In my experience, I have read books that have a singular task, reach a planet/anomaly, and report/colonize. The Astron however, has an open-ended task: explore the universe and find life. After 1,500 planets and 2,000 years, the task is still incomplete, nothing has been found. And the question is, when do you turn around? Robinson dives into this question not only with numbers, percentages, and calculations, but with heart as well. It’s not just about having explored a fraction of a percent, but what does it do to the people involved? What kind of society develops as the search for life yields a more barren universe than conceived? What sort of value does that place on the life that we know exists? The exploration is tantalizing to me not just because of the answer, but how the answer is reached by the people within the story. It doesn’t feel like a blanket answer, but one that the crew arrives at based on their own considerations.
Where people might find frustration with the novel is that a lot of these conversations are within the book itself. I personally found the ratio of “events” to “debates” to be adequate, making sure that stakes between the characters are set before the rock is set rolling down the hill again and again. The novel takes its time, letting the reader understand the characters and their motivations. It builds a history around its many mysteries. Two thousand years is a long time, and Robinson shows how tiring that can be for a population, even as it changes, and invents new purpose with each possible planet. So your mileage may vary, depending on your capacity to withstand debates about the Drake Equation, or navigating a new realm of sexual politics. I, for one, was particularly enthralled even if some concepts felt a little dated by today’s standards and scientific understandings.
The Dark Beyond The Stars is a window into another time for generation ships. I had a great time with its mysteries and its debates. There are a lot of other interesting ideas at play within the book that I didn’t get to here, but I also appreciated that Robinson had a clear focus on the purpose of the ship. It’s a tight 400 pages that doesn’t allow itself to get bogged down. The ending is a real killer, filled with revelations and emotion, something I wasn’t prepared for considering the larger cast surrounding Sparrow. If you’re looking for some older science fiction, and willing to wade into the darker waters away from the “canon,” The Dark Beyond The Stars should be a stop on your journey.
Rating: The Dark Beyond The Stars – Take the leap
-Alex
I find a copy of this book at a thrift store. Its one of those sci-fic I’m intrigue to dive into.
Thanks for the review.