The Darwin Elevator

I've been hearing buzz about this for months, so I was excited to receive the ARC through NetGalley.

The Darwin Elevator is smart post-apocalyptic sci-fi. It's gritty and dark, with enough humor to balance it from being utterly morbid. Comparisons to Joss Whedon's Firefly are quite apt. The characters do have that zing of chemistry, where they can banter even as they're about to die and it has a sense of realism to it.

And like Whedon--and George R. R. Martin--Hough holds no character sacred. This is an Earth obliterated by an alien virus that has left Darwin, Australia, and the station above it as the last sane remnants of humanity. Major events take place in almost the exact middle of the book that made me do a double take and say, "Oh show more no he didn't" out loud. Until that point, I had regarded major characters as somewhat safe; after that, nope. The tension escalated big time and stayed that way through the end.

Hough also manages to juggle viewpoints and settings in a masterful way. The characters carry distinct voices, though the bad guy is a bit of an mustache-twirling-with-an-evil-laugh type of villain. I also was left confused at times by the layout of the space station above the Elevator and could have used a map or diagram; however, I did read an advanced copy on ebook, so a map may be included with the published version--and if not, the publisher should consider it.

I have many books in my to-read pile and I'm very picky about which series I continue. This is one I definitely want to read, and Del Rey is actually releasing the whole trilogy in rapid sequence. The Darwin Elevator is out on July 30th, with The Exodus Towers on August 27th and Plague Forge on September 24th. show less

I am swinging into full summer reading mode now. Action packed adventure stories are my friends. The Darwin Elevator has been sitting on my Kindle for some time now. I have so many books to read that it isn't surprising that gems by authors I don't know take me awhile to get to. Let me tell you people. This one was a gem. It hits the ground running and never takes its foot off the gas pedal. It has everything a good summer read should have. Lots of action. Great characters to root for. Bad guys you want to see get theirs and an intriguing mystery wrapped around a great science fiction novel.

The first of three books in the Dire Earth series. The book is easy on the eyes. It is a fast and fun read. I loved this story in particular. An show more alien civilization does a fly by and drops a space elevator into the middle of Darwin, Australia and then disappears. Mankind begins to reverse engineer the technology and before you know it we are building space stations connected to the elevator. The only problem is the elevator didn't just bring technology. It brings an infection that turns anyone outside of the aura of the space elevator into a raving lunatic. Soon earth is a vast wasteland and the lone survivors are in Darwin and the space stations. Of course, there is also the looming mystery of where the hell did the aliens who dropped the elevator go and are they ever coming back.

Did I say I loved this book. I know I am getting a little redundant but really you should go read this. It reads like a cross between a space opera and a western. It has some of my favorite new characters in fiction. People you can really root for. The plot is great but Hough saves up some really nice twists. You think you know where it is going and the wham, left turn. Definitely a series I won't be waiting long to read the next book. Mr. Hough is a now on my must read list. He should be on yours also. show less

About the year 2257, aliens show up and give us a space elevator. A few years later they show up again, and they give us zombies. Oh, they’re not called zombies. They’re called subhumans. They’re creatures of all consuming emotion and not brain-eating cannibals. But they are mindless and usually aggressive. The alien Builders, however, have handily provided the solution to the problem they created. The 39,000 km. cable to space puts out the Aura – a field that mysteriously stops or, at least, arrests the disease that turns people into “subs” within hours.

The Aura’s effect, though, doesn’t cover much area, and the small remnant of humanity huddles in Darwin, Australia at the bottom of the cable and in orbital stations show more along the elevator. Locked in a resentful symbiosis, the clean, well-fed, well-educated orbital dwellers supply the slums of Darwin with food and get water, air, and scavenged parts in exchange. Many of the scavengers are like hero Skyler, a select few who are immune to the subhuman plague and go on dangerous missions to pick up requested items. The trouble is Russell Blackfield, ambitious, thuggy leader of the Darwin contingent skims off the scavenged hauls before the crews can sell them. Desperate to keep his crew together, Skyler takes on one more desperate mission to gather some astronomical data in a Japanese observatory.

What eventually unravels – and at much faster pace and in unexpected directions – is a story pitting Neil Platz, the billionaire who cunningly profited off the Darwin Elevator, against Blackfield and that tangles both up in the still unraveling alien contact with Earth. There’s battle, intrigue, double dealing and double crossing, explosions, snipers, mysterious alien artifacts, a beautiful scientist, and a warrior babe.

Yes, along with the subhumans, Hough gets close to cliché. But, as the subhumans aren’t conventional zombies, the romance between Skyler and Tania Sharma – that beautiful scientist – isn’t rushed and feels real in the way it plays out. Sure there’s a warrior babe – but she’s a giant of a woman which makes it more plausible. And, as nasty and ruthless as some of the characters have been in their past, they are not cartoonishly evil in their actions and capable of moments of kindness and sympathy. In other word, Hough’s skill is the aura keeping brainless predictability at bay.

Conceptually, this isn’t a significant novel. Apart from some advances in aviation, little seems to have changed technologically between now and 2257. There are certainly no significant differences in biotechnology or electronics and no transhuman elements. And, oddly for a former 3D artist and game designer, Hough’s description of the elevator is a bit sketchy at times.

On the other hand, that could have been me because I was so eager to continue with the story because this, with the above reservations, is a fine science fiction adventure novel. Del Rey, in an unusual move, has promised the second two books of the Dire Earth trilogy in the next two months. I will certainly be there for them. show less

Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over

The Darwin Elevator is old-style science fiction in that it's all about things happening and rushing us toward who knows what, but at the same time it's grounded in the science of the story, valid science or not. It reminds me a lot of reading Arthur C. Clarke as a kid and is very like the books that made it so hard to expand out of my favorite hard SF genre when my sister pushed a wide variety of fantasy and space opera at me.

That is to say, it's wonderful.

The Darwin Elevator is populated largely with characters who are imperfect and know it. There's one innocent, and even she gets embroiled in plots and secrecy.

The other book that came to mind as I read was The Windup Girl by Paolo show more Bacigalupi. That may seem an odd comparison, but the similarities were in the characters working their way through a bureaucracy gone Hobbesian in its primal nature. There are characters in positions of power due to circumstance, due to force, and due to innate ability. How they use this power, and whether their intentions are noble (regardless of the result) or selfish, it's fascinating to watch them and understand them.

On the surface, this is a simple story of Earth post alien contact centered around a small part of Australia which is protected from an alien disease while the rest of humanity (who didn't make it to the zone) are devolving. But that's the surface.

As you read, complexity after complexity is layered on. Characters just trying to get by are swept into twisted plots where everyone has a motive but the motives are rarely clear, and even characters who think they are well-meaning go about things in such a way as to mess everything up. However, before you start thinking the complexity translates to confusion, I can say that's not the case. You get enough of a glimpse of all sides to see things build up and see the clashes threatening soon enough to anticipate.

There are characters with whom I hardly identified, like Russell, but even so, I could see the reasons he behaved the way he did, what drove him to act in most cases...except for the parts of his nature that he chose not to repair. Then there's Skyler and Tania, both innocents in their own ways, and both not innocents at the same time, Skyler much more than Tania who was raised in isolation from everything.

Skyler is a fascinating character. I tripped over a short comment on The Darwin Elevator that compared Skyler to Mal in Firefly, but I can't agree with this assessment at all. Skyler is a young man forced into a position of authority that doesn't sit well when the scavenger team's leader leaves. He has people dependent on him when all he wants is to fly his ship and not worry about things like whether his choices will bankrupt them or worse, a very real possibility when their job is to cross out of the safety net into the wild where every person has been transformed into a ravaging beast intent on destroying anything not like them. He's complicated rather than confident, determined but willing to abdicate if the crew thinks it best, and consistent in his affection for the crew even when having to make hard choices.

And that's just a glimpse at one of the characters, one, mind you, that we first meet when he's playing around with a severed thumb they're bringing home as proof a transformed family member is dead, just one of the crazy scavenger quests they take on to keep food in their bellies and power in their ship.

This is not a simple novel. It's not a fluffy afternoon's read, but it's well worth the concentration. These are characters who will stick with you, a circumstance so incredible but at the same time with uncomfortable parallels, and a fun adventure that pulls out all the stops along the way.

I've mentioned in a few of my reviews lately that I felt uncomfortable with how the book ended for all I enjoyed it. Well, The Darwin Elevator is the proof that it can be done well. The way it ends, this is clearly the start of a series (something that makes me happy), but it's an ending that comes after the big stuff has been resolved, after the book has changed in state from the main conflict to residuals. And that's exactly when the pieces introduced at other points in the book, some early, some late, come into play, giving me a reason to look forward to the next book, some things to ponder as I wait, some opponents still lurking in the sidelines, and even a few questions left ambiguous.

If you like twisty politics, both personal and official, if science fiction peppered with aliens and astronomy get your attention, give Jason Hough the chance to entertain, and even amaze, you. I don't think you'll regret the choice.

P.S. I received this title through NetGalley in return for an honest review. show less

The Darwin Elevator had an interesting premise, and more than delivered on that premise. Set a couple hundred years into the future, aliens have approached the planet on three different occasions. They provided an amazing space elevator on their second approach, and a disease that nearly wiped out the entirely population on their last approach. Most of the humans either died instantly or turned into these hyper zombie type creatures when exposed to the virus, and only those near the space elevator are safe. Neil Platz, a billionaire businessman, was the first human to know about the alien contact and built a series of space stations in preparation. He suspects the aliens are making a fourth approach and enlists scientist Tania Sharma show more and scavenger, Skyler, to enact a plan to prepare for the alien incursion.

This was a terrific novel in many ways. The concept and ideas presented were thought provoking. The writing was tight. The flow was great. The two main characters, Sharma and Skyler, were strong characters and had good chemistry together on the page. There was a good buildup through the novel. It felt as if there were several different shifts in the story, starting off as an action adventure, then turning into a sci-fi novel, and then becoming a political thriller. There were lots of twists and turns, good conflict not only with the impending alien arrival but also with the human factions vying for power. This is a must read for anyone who likes sci-fi or post apocalyptic fiction.

Carl Alves - author of Reconquest: Mother Earth show less

I'm a picky reader when I take on light sci-fi/dystopias: I don't want to spend a long time trying to get up to speed; I hate fight scenes; I have a high squick factor when it comes gooey bodies, be they diseased or zombified; and loads of technical jargon make my eyes glaze.

Happily The Darwin Elevator worked even though it came with fight scenes, some gooey bodies, and a tiny bit of technical jargon. I was so invested in this book I stayed up until 3am to finish, because I had to know, and I sent about ten million emails to various friends every few chapters, squeeing about the fun I was having.

Set in 2283, the novel covers about 44 days, from January to February. Almost thirty years earlier, aliens built a 'space elevator' in Darwin, show more Australia, a massive structure that went 40,000 kilometers into space. It brought with it a plague that turned humans into 'subs' -- wild, savage, driven by base instincts like anger. An 'aura' around the elevator site made Darwin a safe zone -- the sub disease was halted if one was within the aura -- which made Darwin first a booming metropolis before it turned into a decaying, collapsing city.

A few humans were immune to the alien virus, among them Dutch pilot Skyler Luiken (thankfully, a character makes the same Luke Skywalker joke I did!) and his ragged crew of scavengers: Jake, his stoic sniper; Angus, his youthful pilot; and Samantha, his kickass security lead. Traveling outside the Aura for goods around the world, they're the much needed source of electronics and other supplies. (And they very much reminded me of the crew from Firefly.)

Humans have started using the elevator, building numerous habitations and farming and industrial stations to support life. Stunningly gorgeous researcher Dr. Tania Sharma is an 'orbital', protege to Neil Platz, the industrialist made a fortune with lucky purchases in Darwin just before the space elevator came, and who drives the secret research into the 'Builders', the aliens who made the elevator.

Things get messy when it seems a new strain of the alien disease breaks out, and there's a power struggle between the man who runs Darwin and those who run the stations on the elevator. Tania's research is teasing out details about the aliens and the elevator -- and might explain why things are suddenly changing.

I'm trying to think of non-cliched ways to describe just how wildly fun this book was. Relentless plot, which was great, and the kind of creepy tension that comes from wondering if our aliens have good or nefarious intentions toward us. The characters were a tiny bit thin, but whatever, I came to this for adventure, not a subtle exploration of the human psyche. The world-building -- and Hough's unspooling of it -- was fantastic: I was plunged in but didn't feel overwhelmingly lost, and the reader education felt subtle enough it didn't feel like reading a futuristic history text.

While the book doesn't end on a cliffhanger, it's clear there's a sequel, and happily, both books two and three are coming out in the next few months -- so no waiting. This is a perfect summer read for fans of alien-themed summertime action films (I'm thinking the Alien franchise, including a household favorite Alien vs. Predator) as well as those who like dystopia-ish settings but aren't in the mood for zombies (as the focus). show less

It is 2283 and Earth is very different. First, aliens (known as Builders) set down a space elevator in the city of Darwin, Australia, and a few years later, they released a plague that decimated humanity. The only safe zone is a nine mile plague-suppressing radius around the space elevator, and so Darwin is the last human settlement on Earth.

THE DARWIN ELEVATOR is an action-packed and entertaining book. We mostly follow Skyler, the captain of a scavenger ship whose crew is entirely immune to the plague, and Tania, a brilliant scientist who's come up with a theory concerning the Builders that could be world-shattering. When Tania's research needs data from long-forgotten laboratories, Skyler's team is sent to retrieve it. But as they show more work on solving this increasingly urgent mystery, the delicate political balance between the city of Darwin and the inhabitants of the space station is crumbling, and their time is running out in more than one way.

I loved the worldbuilding of the Darwin's Elevator universe. Many authors create fantastic but implausible worlds, but Hough centers his world on the essentials - food, water, air. There is no space on Earth to grow food to feed all the remnants of humanity, so food is mostly grown on special agricultural space stations, but water and air for these stations need to be supplied from Earth. This creates a robust trade between the "Orbitals" and the humans on Earth, but the leader of Darwin is not satisfied - he wants more power. I would hope that humanity's desperate situation would cut down on the individual power plays, but I'm not actually surprised by it.

Skyler is a pretty awesome main character. I liked him a lot because he's just a regular guy - he's not young, naive and just discovering his place in the world, and neither is he an old, grizzled veteran who's seen too much. He's just a guy trying to get by and take care of his crew. His motives are not especially noble, but he's not a profiteer Han Solo type either. His normalcy really came across well, and worked! Tania, on the other hand, was a bit of a Mary Sue, she's brilliant and also so beautiful that no man can look at her and not appreciate it, noble, brave, highly competent, had important parents etc. I have a special peeve for women that are described as so beautiful that it turns every man into a lecher, though (Leesha from Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle annoys me for the same reason). The side characters were more interesting and varied than the main two - Samantha, Kelly, the Platzes, Prumble, to name a few, not to mention the villains. I hope they get more story time in the sequels.

I really liked the more sci-fi aspects of the plot - the mystery surrounding the Builders and their artifacts and their plans, the malfunctioning elevator and the evolution of a new species of subhuman. I found all the subhuman battle stuff somewhat boring though - zombies aren't that interesting, and I would've rather had more sci-fi stuff. Technically, they're all related since they're all caused by the Builders, but still, meh, zombies. However, the end seems to set up a sequel where the sci-fi elements will be more prominent, so I'm excited about that.

The next two installments of the series - The Exodus Towers and The Plague Forge appear to be scheduled for release in the next two months. I think I'll be picking them up. show less