The Burning Dark - (Spider War) by Adam Christopher (Paperback)

About the Book

From Adam Christopher, winner of the Sir Julius Vogel award, comes a thrilling far-future science fiction tale set aboard a decommissioned space station

Book Synopsis

Adam Christopher's dazzling first novel, Empire State, was named the Best Book of the Year by SciFi Now magazine. Here he explores new dimensions of time and space in The Burning Dark.

Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. After saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace, overseeing the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station.

The station's reclusive commandant is nowhere to be seen. Persistent malfunctions plague the station's systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard.

Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman's voice that echoes across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past--or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension?

"Builds tension expertly. Claustrophobic in mood but with the scope of great space opera, this is SF you will want to read with the light on."--Library Journal, starred review, on The Burning Dark

Review Quotes

"Builds tension expertly. Claustrophobic in mood but with the scope of great space opera, this is SF you will want to read with the light on." --Library Journal, starred review

"An exciting new novel from an exciting new voice in SF." --Booklist

"Christopher has produced a widescreen Hollywood spectacular in novel form. Not to be missed." --James Lovegrove, New York Times bestselling author

"Smart, intricate, and viscerally gripping... Christopher carves a place for himself among the stars of his genre." --V. E. Schwab, author of Vicious

"Christopher mines the terror of a setting that feels both tremendously vast and nerve-wrackingly claustrophobic. The Burning Dark will have readers hesitating before glancing at the night sky or turning on their radios." --Robert Jackson Bennett, author of Mr. Shivers and American Elsewhere

"With this creepy and compelling mystery, Adam Christopher demonstrates why he's one of the most original and exciting writers working in the genre right now." --Gareth L. Powell, author of Ack-Ack Macaque and The Recollection

"Christopher is writing science-fiction unlike anyone else - tense, unsettling, and grounded in a universe full of danger and mystery. The Burning Dark slips a cold, gloved hand around your heart and doesn't let go."--Jen Williams, author of The Copper Promise

"A riveting SF mystery reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House." --Martha Wells, author of Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge

About the Author

Adam Christopher is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Master of Evil, Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith and Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town. He has also written official tie-in novels for the hit CBS television show Elementary and the award-winning Dishonored video game franchise. Co-creator of the twenty-first-century incarnation of Archie Comics superhero The Shield, Adam has also written for the universes of Doctor Who and World of Warcraft, and is a contributor to the internationally bestselling Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View anniversary anthology series and the all-ages Star Wars Adventures comic. Adam's original novels include Crawlspace, Made to Kill and The Burning Dark, among many others, and his debut novel Empire State was both a SciFi Now and Financial Times book of the year.