Nebula Express: Pocket Edition

ISBN-13: 9780743319751 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 194 str.

John Argo

Opis

DarkSF is the Dark Chocolate of Science Fiction, we are told by John Argo-a pioneer in digital publishing since 1996. If you love DarkSF movies like Blade Runner, Dark City, Chrysalis, or Alien, then Nebula Express is yet another classic for you (along with his Monopol City, Robinson Crusoe 1,000,000 A.D., Streamliners, and others). Nebula Express (John Argo, 2003) is a DarkSF novel based on a terrifying premise. What if we aren't who we think we are? What if our memories, our loved ones, our hopes and dreams, are all just smoke (think of the replicants in Blade Runner). This novel puts a unique twist on a gripping idea. As always, John Argo offers a rousing, cinematic tale for the brave of heart, yet he leavens it with a touching love story, and yes, there is HEA at the end. If the beginning reminds you of Ridley Scott's classic movie Alien, that's the author's intention as homage to his favorite director. But the similarities end. All writers worth their salt tap into the archetypal sources visited by their predecessors. Virgil borrowed from Homer, Shakespeare from Boccaccio, Dante from Virgil, and so on. Nobody owns these tropes. It just takes a craftsman and an artist to really know how to tap into that good stuff. That's why we make some of the best dark chocolate (DarkSF) in the SF world. Try Nebula Express. You'll be hooked. There are indeed scary creatures on board, as many as there are dark mysteries. And it's claustrophobic, by design. But the scariest secrets are those buried in our souls. Ridge and Brenna share a mysterious love that transcends their understanding-until they figure out the deadly secret of the derelict starship called Nebula Express in which they are trapped-and doomed-unless they can engineer a miracle to save themselves. The dark chocolate metaphor is delicious, and explains much-if you like fresh, original (richly dark) literature-which is what most serious writing is anyway, drawing upon Aristotle's distinctions thousands of years ago between serious (tragic) art and comedic (melodramatic) art. More info at www.darksf.com for readers who may be interested. This isn't fast food reading. To extend the metaphor, if you seek a fine restaurant, to order a unique and original creation complete with steak, violins, linen, and a rose in a vase, this is your cup of dark espresso. By contrast, the milk chocolate or fast food metaphor describes often warmed over genres; which work as a formulaic escape or narcotic. There is a place for everything; this just isn't that place. We're mixing metaphors a bit, but it all goes down smoothly. DarkSF is rich, dark chocolate for conoisseurs. Let's be clear. DarkSF is not necessarily scary, gory, violent, or any of the things that scare off milk chocolate bunnies. One finds plenty of speculative fiction as well as gore and horror in Homer, Virgil, Dante, Defoe; or any of the memorable, serious, and enduring modern writers. Homer's Iliad is a slasher tale for sure. Think of the ending of Homer's Odyssey or Shakespeare's Hamlet-each ending in a massive sword fight and blood bath. So what is the core principle of DarkSF? As with all poetry, it's writing for its own sake, for the beauty of the words and ideas and how they are expressed. That's why those great movies (Blade Runner, Body Snatchers, Fifth Element) or novels (Lord of the Flies, 1984, Brave New World) linger in memory. All serious literature is dark in the sense that Aristotle meant (as opposed to comedy, melodrama, fluff that goes in one ear and out the other). Milk chocolate readers simply want escape, sugar, a narcotic, a few hours of relief. That's fine. We all do sometimes. This stuff is the heavy cream, pungent espresso, red wine, dark bittersweet chocolate, expensive brandy. Please do visit www.darksf.com. Meanwhile-if it's your cup of dark chocolate-hope you enjoy Nebula Express and see you in Monopol City (another of John Argo's DarkSF novels).