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.
A heartwarming and honest read, Finding Nevo is a charming story of self-discovery and love. The memoir deals with some complex and relevant issues such as sexuality and gender identity, and while these kinds of stories tend to take on a tragic or depressing tone, Nevo keeps it light and relatable, making it an enjoyable read …
Melina Marchetta’s coming-of-age novel is a refreshingly mature young adult adventure that captures the feeling on the crux of growing up and watching all that was familiar with the world shift into something new. On the Jellicoe Road transports the reader to a world caught between the dreams of childhood and the horrors of reality, …
Skulduggery Pleasant – Playing with Fire is the second novel in Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant series. Following on from the events of the first novel (if you have not read the first novel, or do not want spoilers, please STOP reading right now), the novel picks up a few months after Skulduggery and Valkyrie defeated …
Skulduggery Pleasant follows herione Stephanie Edgley, whose uncle–a famed horror author–dies mysteriously, leaving Stephanie with his fortune and mansion, but as Stephanie spends the night in her late uncle’s house, she is thrust into a magical underworld full of murderous hunters, vampires, ghosts and monsters that appear to mirror those written about in her uncle’s …
The Bronze Key is the third instalment in the Magisterium series. Picking up a year after book three (The Copper Gauntlet), Callum and his best friends are now entering the third year of their magical training. Callum has now revealed the truth about his soul to his close friends, as well as his frenemy Jasper …
Margot McGovern’s Neverland is a complex look into mental health through the lens of a mythical world that most people will be familiar with. Kit, who has repressed memories from traumatic events in her past, finds herself on the island that was her childhood home, now a facility for mentally ill teenagers. As she struggles …
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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Skulduggery Pleasant follows herione Stephanie Edgley, whose uncle–a famed horror author–dies mysteriously, leaving Stephanie with his fortune and mansion, but as Stephanie spends the night in her late uncle’s house, she is thrust into a magical underworld full of murderous hunters, vampires, ghosts and monsters that appear to mirror those written about in her uncle’s …
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