Book Review: The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

The Darkness Outside Us

by Eliot Schrefer (YA Schrefer)

 

What do you get when you take the enemies-to-lovers trope, a murderous space ship AI, and the premise of the game “Among Us” and put it into freeze-dried space ready smoothie? Eliot Schrefer’s The Darkness Outside Us.

 

This book had been on my radar already for a while — an LGBTQ+ representative science fiction novel is right up my alley. However, when the book became the center of a controversy involved with a local literary festival, it jumped to the top of my to-be-read list. With action, romance, and a mid-point twist worthy of the best sci-fi thrillers, The Darkness Outside Us stands out for much more than its place in the center of a censorship controversy.

 

Ambrose Cusk is more than just the prodigal son of one of future Earth’s two remaining nations — he’s the champion for humanities future. Chosen to go on a rescue mission to save his sister, Minerva, from her failed mission to colonize Pluto, Ambrose is hoping to not only save his family but the hope of mankind as well. Along with him on his mission is a representative from the other of Earth’s nations, a mysterious boy his own age named Kodiak. Though they’ve never met, they’re expected to live and work together in a joint effort to save Minerva and the planet’s future. Of course, things don’t start off well, with Ambrose waking up after being comatose from an accident with the ship’s launch and Kodiak refusing to communicate. Slowly, the two boys come together and begin to get to know each other with the help of the ship’s AI guiding them to complete essential tasks to ensure the success of their mission.

 

But all is not as it seems (after all, if things went according to plan, we’d have a much shorter and far less interesting book). After a few solid chapters full of relationship building, cute almost-dates eating freeze dried space food, and emotionally charged backstory reveals, we take a sharp twist from a budding romantic enemies-to-lovers space romcom to a heart-pounding thriller complete with existential dread, a murderous AI, and timorously unraveling mental states (for both the characters and the reader). This book had me on the edge of my seat for the majority of the second half, and the pay-off was more than worth the rise in blood pressure. Eliot Schrefer ends on a refreshingly hopeful note that doesn’t cheapen any of the tension or twists.

 

Schrefer’s writing is enrapturing, with a tone that is engagingly straight forward supported by the perfect juxtaposition of exhilarating fast paced action and slow, heart pounding tension. While the setting is contained almost entirely on the two main character’s space station, Schrefer builds the single setting into an entire complex world full of tantalizing details and easy to miss clues that delightfully reveal themselves as the novel goes on.

 

Plus, there’s an adorable helper robot. I love a little robot in any context.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, The Martian by Andy Weir or Interstellar, a film by Christopher Nolan.)

 

( official The Darkness Outside Us and Eliot Schrefer web site )

 

The Darkness Outside Us was a book up for discussion at last month’s Let’s Get Books Together book group meeting at the Gere Branch. Tonight is the November meeting!

Check out this library-sponsored LGBTQ+ book group’s upcoming titles on their schedule at this link.

 

Recommended by L. G.
Gere Branch Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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