Dark Star edition by Oliver Langmead Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
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A unique blend of science fantasy, hardboiled crime and epic verse.
The city of Vox survives in darkness, under a sun that burns without light. In Vox’s permanent night, light bulbs are precious, the rich live in radiance and three Hearts beat light into the city. Aquila. Corvus. Cancer.
Hearts that bring power to the light-deprived citizens of the city of Vox whilst ghosts haunt the streets, clawing at headlights. Prometheus, liquid light, is the drug of choice. The body of young Vivian North, her blood shining brightly with unnatural light, has no place on the streets.
When Cancer is stolen, the weaponisation of its raw power threatens to throw Vox into chaos. Vox needs a hero, and it falls to cop Virgil Yorke to investigate.
But Virgil has had a long cycle and he doesn’t feel like a hero. With the ghosts of his last case still haunting his thoughts, he craves justice for the young woman found dead with veins full of glowing. Aided by his partner Dante, Virgil begins to shed light on the dark city’s even darker secrets.
Haunted by the ghosts of his past and chased by his addictions, which will crack first, Virgil or the case?
Dark Star edition by Oliver Langmead Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
This would have been a better story IMO if it was just a straight up novella and tried to avoid the poetry bit. It didn't really read in poetic fashion to me. I appreciated the attempt but maybe better to stick with prose.With that said, the worldbuilding here was excellent. I really felt immersed in this dark world though there were some logical loopholes that I would have liked to have seen explained better. (where is the gas for these cars coming from if its too dark to actually even mine/drill for anything?)
The plot itself was a bit predictable at times and really the setting carried this story overall.
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Dark Star edition by Oliver Langmead Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks Reviews
Let's talk first about Langmead's audacious decision to write his debut novel in the form of an epic poem. I have to confess to being unfamiliar with the form, and my potential appreciation was further hampered by the fact that I read the novel on my using an over-large font (all the better to not have to get out my reading glasses, my dear), which messed with the way the verses are intended to appear on the page. Still, it didn't slow me down in the slightest. One might argue that the use of an epic poem form was unneccessary, as the story would flow just as easily in verses or in conventional prose form; but then, one could also argue that Langmead's achievement both satisfies starved poetry fans and demonstrates an astonishing facility with words and storytelling.
Either way, it's a kick-ass story.Think Bladerunner (I wonder if the character of Rachel is a nod to the aforementioned movie), only much, much bleaker. In this world, light is currency, light is a drug, light is treasured and elusive. The darkness is both metaphorical and real (this story is noir in all senses of the word), all-pervasive and claustrophobic. The thought and detail that goes into realizing this perpetually black world - print books are an extravagance when most "writing" is in braille, there are no days but only 'cycles', and even the cattle have evolved into strange, blind, albino creatures - is razor sharp. Langmead makes no secret of his influences in naming two main characters Virgil and Dante, and indeed the hellish atmosphere is almost palpable, leaving me breathing deeply and turning on all the lights by the time I got to the end.
If you like poetry (especially epic poetry) - you need to read this. If you like classic noir detective stories - you need to read this. If you like imaginative science fiction/fantasy - you need to read this.
There are many modes and styles of storytelling. Classic, minimalist, expository, stream of consciousness, mosaic, metafiction—and on and on go the ways in which an author can transpose their imaginings into fiction. But poetry? Have you ever read science fiction in metered form?
Time to waste, so I escape the city
At one of those seedy establishments
They call ‘Glow Shows’ because they fill the girls
So full of Pro’ it nearly burns their veins.
Prometheus, resident wonder-drug;
Pro’, Promo’, ’Theus, liquid-f*****-light;
Prohibited by city law and shot
By yours truly, Virgil Yorke, hero cop (1)
So run the first lines of Oliver Langmead’s Dark Star (2015, Unsung Stories). And what follows is a story that lives up to every ounce of vividness contained in those few words—a proper story, just in measured form.
The effect replete, when Detective Yorke is called to the late night scene of a murder, the emptiness between the lines makes what imagery that is in the lines—the corpse’s neon veins—twice as powerful. The city of Vox perpetually dark, the young woman’s body glows in the back alley, begging Yorke—and the reader—to learn what has transpired. But just as his investigation begins, an even bigger crime calls Yorke away. Vox dependent on the power generated by three dying stars, one has been stolen. So, into the cold, dark night Yorke goes, battling his own addictions every step of the way, the metered verse stripping his story down to its evocative essentials.
The beautiful cover image precisely relaying the imprint of the story, Dark Star is an intensely visual experience. Akin to the aesthetic of the Sin City films, Yorke’s path through his own haunted life as well as the depths of Vox’s ghettos and aristocracy lifts off the page in a swirl of neon, broken streetlights, dark alleys, and cigarette smoke. The rhythm and flow of language pitch perfect for the classic minimalism of hardboiled noir, the story virtually pops into the reader’s field of vision, after-images burning like tracers through the night.
Thus, the reader wary of reading science fiction in poetic form needn’t worry. Dark Star, while requiring a slight shift in gears compared to standard third-person omniscient narration, is highly readable—more rhythm than rhyme. Erasing the thought ‘Oh no, not more cyberpunk noir…”, the brisk pace, perfect balance of story elements, and simple but tight plotting make for a highly engaging, unique read through the use of language. Anybody can partake, but it will hit the sweetest spot for the reader keen on lexical flow.
For those interested, Dark Star makes room for rumination on the classics. Aside from the epic poetry form, the fact the main character is Virgil, his partner Dante, the setting dystopian, and the investigation curtailing the absence of light in their dark world, all pave the way to open discussion beyond the text. Difficult to go deeper without spoiling the ending, suffice to say Langmead seems interested in critiquing, if not inverting, the Divine Comedy. The final scene, as well as the chapter endings, pointing in a different direction than Aquinas, I’d hazard a guess that the Aenid won out. Regardless, all is a poetic vision of hell that one must read to make up their own mind about Langmead’s angle.
Kudos go to Unsung Stories for being willing to publish this extremely unique… book. (‘Novel’ seems it should go at the end of that sentence, but just doesn’t quite do the content justice). When so much of publishing these days is interested in producing the equivalent of pop music, it’s truly pleasurable to have such small publishers willing to present alternative material for the reader of speculative fiction interested in more.
Truly fresh and original (at least I have never read such a science fiction story before), Dark Star is an engaging, visual story that forces the reader into a slightly different vein of reading experience—one they will undoubtedly emerge from with neon glowing in their eyes. Perfectly paced and structured yet in a form virtually unknown to the genre, Dark Star is detective noir for the 21st century.
Written as an epic but don't let that stray you away. Fantastic book. Very Guy Richie-esk crossed with dystopian noir.
A noir epic poem? Sadly, no.
It is actually not a poem at all, just a novella with a lot of spurious carriage returns. They don't serve any real purpose. If you ignore them, it reads like text.
That said, it is a good short novel, spun out to too many pages by the poem conceit.
This would have been a better story IMO if it was just a straight up novella and tried to avoid the poetry bit. It didn't really read in poetic fashion to me. I appreciated the attempt but maybe better to stick with prose.
With that said, the worldbuilding here was excellent. I really felt immersed in this dark world though there were some logical loopholes that I would have liked to have seen explained better. (where is the gas for these cars coming from if its too dark to actually even mine/drill for anything?)
The plot itself was a bit predictable at times and really the setting carried this story overall.
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