The Dark

In this yarn blending horror and SF, Carr (A Journal of the Crazy Year) sends a spaceship into absolute, unimaginable darkness and watches as terrifying things press in from outside and emerge from inside the crew. A new space drive lets the vessel Santa Maria jump not only beyond our galaxy but past the edge of the whole universe. There, as Catholic priest Cameron Teal observes, God has no presence, since it’s a place beyond divine creation. That leaves humans with no savior to appeal to as chief astrogator Lydia Nguyen-Jones’s persistent nightmares about a rotting bogeyman take physical form, while Capt. Sirius Cermeno’s resentment against his father is translated into increasingly murderous rage against his subordinates. In short order, everyone’s personal vulnerabilities are magnified into deadly form, and multiple mechanical failures threaten to strand them all in the dark forever. The story doesn’t stand up to serious examination, but that’s beside the point. Carr mainly just wants to make readers twitch and cringe, and he succeeds. [em](BookLife) [/em]