Every Dark Cloud by Marisca Pichette
I would like to thank Ghost Orchid Press for a copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Ghost Orchid Press
Published - Out Now
Price £2.99 ebook £9.99 paperback via publisher
Living in a post-climate disaster world protected by a layer of artificial cloud, Mallory knows every shade of darkness, their world lit sparingly by bioluminescence. But when Rein stumbles across their path—radioactive light bleeding from their teeth, their skin twisted and burned—Mallory’s worldview implodes, and the true cost of their survival becomes all too clear.
Storytelling is a powerful way to help us see someone else’s world. We can be thrust into high adventure, the future or even parts of the modern world we have not been ourselves. But a story can also make us experience things that for most readers we just can’t do. In Marisca Pichette’s very inventive Science fiction novella Every Dark Cloud we explore a world where all live in darkness but also are oblivious to the way their world now works.
Mallory Myco is a designer in a world where 80 years ago the human race went into darkness. Following a huge environmental collapse where the atmosphere changed changed so much that the sun ravaged the planet and became deadly to humanity. The solution led by a form of unified government known as the Coalition was the Clouding where the remaining human race voluntarily moved to immense skyscrapers in which people would live in darkness as if humanity had returned to caves but now highly technologically advanced ones. Mallory working for Biohomes plans the next generation of living quarters but a return from work places her with a mysterious stranger who shows her the dark secrets of the world for the first time.
What really impressed me with this novel is how Mallory telling us her story also makes us experience a world which is very much in darkness. Being away from the sun has led to a population who prefer limited light, touch, smell and low level light are the norm. So here we have a designer who works with 3D physical models just as much as screens. In these immense buildings we have dead forests preserved for walking through but now bioluminescent fungi is where the sense of wonder and splendour really comes from. It also helps create tension when a walk home makes Mallory realise she may not be alone and where a flash of colour on someone’s mouth becomes threatening. It’s a very dramatic start to the novella and suitably we as the reader are very much out of our comfort zones and trying to work out what is going on.
The middle section. Of the story puts us more in the familiar dystopian tale but I liked how the metaphor for a world that has voluntarily locked itself out of the light has also not asked questions as to how the world really works. Mallory is pushed through the wringer through disbelieve, horror and acceptance before we run at pace for a desperate attempt to do the right thing. That realisation of the world and question of what Mallory will do about it is handled well and the changes in character are then very organic and believable.
What for me worked less well was the book’s ending. In a very short novella we race through the aftermath of the story and this feels a bit too fast and tries to tie up all the loose ends. A few more pages to make us experience theses events than just being told then would I think allowed the story to breathe and match the pace of the other parts of the story.
Despite that this was a hugely enjoyable and inventive story. I loved the way the reader gets to experience a world of darkness and how it asks questions about how we don’t question those who claim to protect us. Definitely worth a look!
