Mother of Eden

Description

'We speak of a mother's love, but we forget her power. Power over life. Power to give and to withhold.' Generations after the breakup of the human family of Eden, the Johnfolk emphasise knowledge and innovation, the Davidfolk tradition and cohesion. But both have built hierarchical societies sustained by violence and dominated by men -and both claim to be the favoured children of a long-dead woman from Earth that all Eden knows as Gela, the mother of them all. When Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no idea that she will be a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela's ring on her own finger. And she has no idea of the enemies she will make, no inkling that a time will come when she, like John Redlantern, will choose to kill.

Chris Beckett is a university lecturer living in Cambridge. He is the winner of the Edge Hill Short Story competition, 2009, for The Turing Test, the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award, 2013, for Dark Eden and has been shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Novel of the Year Award, 2015, for Mother of Eden.

Every bit as compelling as Dark Eden was... Eden is building into one of most vivid and fascinating places in modern SF. -- Eddie Robson * SFX * A masterpiece * Guardian * A classic theme, beautifully told * Sunday Telegraph on DARK EDEN * This is a world I'm desperate to return to * Guardian on DARK EDEN * There's no justice if Dark Eden, with its beautiful, terrifying planet, slowly revealed, fails to bring Beckett awards * The Sunday Times on DARK EDEN * A captivating and haunting book * Daily Mail on DARK EDEN *