Cally Black’s In The Dark Spaces is an immersive sci-fi thriller that features some incredible aliens and insightful thoughts on human nature. While it’s full of action and danger, the heart of the story revolves around family, morality, communication, and love in all its forms.
Exposition is scarce, but this works in the book’s favour. At first, it’s difficult to work out what’s going on, but by the time the aliens show up, the reader is working things out at the same time that the protagonist is.
Unlike most sci-fi, these aliens don’t speak English for simplicity’s sake. Their language is made up of whistles and other bird-like sounds, and not all of their words have a direct translation. Black has carefully crafted her novel to create an intelligent species that is different from humans in their culture and values, yet are still believable as aliens. The novel creates a rich and immersive world that feels familiar and foreign all at once.
In The Dark Spaces has as much capacity to shock as it does to warm hearts. The violence and terror that Tamara experiences only makes her moments of tenderness even stronger. As a young girl living a life of secrecy and risk, the only thing that ties her to the world is her family. Her love for her blood family is what keeps her alive, but finding new families amongst aliens and humans alike force her to make difficult decisions that make us question what we think we know about wrong and right.
Tamara’s passion and loyalty drive this pulse-quickening novel, her need to survive overpowered by her need to save her loved ones. She isn’t an endlessly optimistic protagonist – she doesn’t see the good in everyone, but if good presents itself to her, she will stand by it.
In The Dark Spaces poses deeply provoking questions about where our allegiances lie and how we treat people who act differently to us. It challenges the selfishness of human nature but also shows humanity’s depth of compassion and the curiosity that helps us understand others.
DRAGON RIDER follows the tale of Firedrake, a young dragon who sets off on a quest to find the acclaimed Rim of Heaven after learning that his home–and all the dragons that live in it–are in grave danger of a man-induced flood that will destroy their riparian home. Along the way, he will be joined …
Contagion by Teri Terry is a ticking time bomb of a novel, each chapter bringing the reader closer to the point of impact. This pre-apocalyptic dystopian novel set in Scotland follows two unique and compelling viewpoints; Shay, whose world is about to be changed forever, and Callie, who has seen everything but can communicate nothing. …
‘The Gilded Ones’, an action-packed new fantasy series from début author Namina Forna, follows the story of a young female named Deka, who lives in the West-African-inspired society of Otera, in which women live to be of service to men, and their roles in everyday life are grounded in misogyny. For Deka, reaching a certain …
The Conference of the Birds offers readers with a fifth dive into Ransom Rigg’s world of the much-adored literary peculiars. In this novel, which carries on directly from ‘A Map of Days’–released as the fourth book in 2019–Jacob and his peculiar friends return to uncover the mystery surrounding their newest companion Noor, most namely piecing …
A Curse of Ash and Embers follows Elodie, who is sent away from her stepfather, mother and siblings to work at Black Oak Cottage. But as Elodie journeys there, she will discover that she is working for a mistress named Aleida, who is left to care for the house after the passing of Gyssha Blackbone, …
Elizabeth Murmur is moving with her unusual friend Zenobia to Witheringe House, the place where her dad grew up with his sister Tourmaline. Zenobia loves it and is convinced that there is a Spirit Presence in the East Wing, where they are forbidden to go. She tries to contact it using a book on clairvoyance, …
Book Review – In the Dark Spaces by Cally Black
Cally Black’s In The Dark Spaces is an immersive sci-fi thriller that features some incredible aliens and insightful thoughts on human nature. While it’s full of action and danger, the heart of the story revolves around family, morality, communication, and love in all its forms.
Exposition is scarce, but this works in the book’s favour. At first, it’s difficult to work out what’s going on, but by the time the aliens show up, the reader is working things out at the same time that the protagonist is.
Unlike most sci-fi, these aliens don’t speak English for simplicity’s sake. Their language is made up of whistles and other bird-like sounds, and not all of their words have a direct translation. Black has carefully crafted her novel to create an intelligent species that is different from humans in their culture and values, yet are still believable as aliens. The novel creates a rich and immersive world that feels familiar and foreign all at once.
In The Dark Spaces has as much capacity to shock as it does to warm hearts. The violence and terror that Tamara experiences only makes her moments of tenderness even stronger. As a young girl living a life of secrecy and risk, the only thing that ties her to the world is her family. Her love for her blood family is what keeps her alive, but finding new families amongst aliens and humans alike force her to make difficult decisions that make us question what we think we know about wrong and right.
Tamara’s passion and loyalty drive this pulse-quickening novel, her need to survive overpowered by her need to save her loved ones. She isn’t an endlessly optimistic protagonist – she doesn’t see the good in everyone, but if good presents itself to her, she will stand by it.
In The Dark Spaces poses deeply provoking questions about where our allegiances lie and how we treat people who act differently to us. It challenges the selfishness of human nature but also shows humanity’s depth of compassion and the curiosity that helps us understand others.
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