Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts

I would like to thank Gollancz for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Gollancz

Published – Out Now

Price – £10.99 paperback £5.99 eBook

Good is a construct. Evil is a virus.

The Starship Sa Niro and the Starship Sß Oubliettewere in orbit around a black hole, one afternoon... by the end of the day, the crews of both starships were dead, victims of a single killer: Captain Alpha Raine.

Raine claims he's acting under the command of a voice emanating from the black hole: Mr Modo. No one believes him.Everyone knows that things go into black holes; nothing comes out.

But something inexplicable has been happening to Raine, and whatever it is seems to be spreading. An historian studying serial killers from the 21st century interviews him... and then nearly kills someone herself. It becomes increasingly undeniable that there's somethinginside that black hole... and it's found a way out...

In many ways a story can also be an argument. A chance to explore a subject and come down hard on one side. The War of the Worlds is an alien invasion story, but it can also explore how it feels for a country to be suddenly under threat from a mightier empire colonising it for their own ends. These debates may be subtle or well aimed bricks to our heads – both have their places. Sometimes I think the current world suggests a lot of us weren’t paying that much attention. In Adam Robert’s interesting science fiction novel Lake of Darkness we have a tale of murder, black holes and yet also the dangerous futures that humanity may fall into.

In the far future two spaceships and their crews explore a black hole. But things quickly go wrong when one award winning scientist starts to claim he is speaking to someone inside the black hole. Soon murder strikes both crews and the mysterious Raine is now being sought by a third crew intent on his capture. This desire to cause death seems to be spreading and in a utopia can anyone ever understand evil?

There is a lot to admire in this novel but ultimately, I don’t think it quite pulls its various themes together. Initially it seems to be a very urbane take on Event Horizon as one man goes apparently mad and this time it’s a very peaceful very academic sounding group of people unused to violence that need to stop him. But in this first act a few clues start to emerge that this future is a bit strange. The Nobel prize is now much more commonly awarded and popular voting applies, the teams trying to stop Raine love long dsocusisons and tactics but perhaps we can say kindly show a lack of common sense. As news of Raine’s deeds gets out to other worlds people are horrified and also love the endless debate as to what to do . A historian focused on serial killers is not entirely on board with her subject and indeed we see a future where history isn’t really understood that well Neil Armstrong in some places is a nickname, Beatles Songs with the words not quite right and generally we discover this world has sat on its laurels. A perfect utopia, where AI minds do all the work and humans just exist making themselves busy but not necessarily being productive. Why learn to read, analyse, explore without risk when a mind can do the heavy lifting. There is a lot to say here about a future we could be in many ways devolving into. Great geniuses are actually when you read between the verbose sentences not that bright they just sound good. A world that can’t analyse or do things itself is stagnant. Perhaps idle hands needs the devil to help and apparently he wants to.

Another strand of the story is about black holes and who may be living in a particular one. There is some delicious hard science exploring speed of light, how we could communicate inside a black hole and then we get metaphysical with a character known as The Gentleman who can reference a particular relevant Rolling Stone track and appears to corrupt anyone he talks to. It sets the later stage for conflict for characters trying to stop events and there is a wonderful debate he had towards the end where the limitation of this utopia are explored. This is science fiction full of ideas, playing with its cast and world to make points and make you think. I can never not respect that!

However for me the story does lack much impetus. When most of your cast are thanks to the culture naive verging on the idiotic it’s hard to have sympathy or to care. It’s revealed very early on how stagnant the human race has got that it may have worked better to also show the pluses of a utopia what makes people want to stay as they are. That for me mean the actual story feels more framework to make an argument rather than also tell a story alongside it.

I overall enjoyed Lake of Darkness, I have a lot of sympathy with the case it is making and there are moments of science, culture and philosophy to favour but I just felt it needed a bit more focus and speed to fully make its case. Definitely though for science fiction fans who appreciate books taking some risks this is worth a look.