Lake of Darkness
★★★★★
The captain of a black hole research vessel makes contact with an alien entity and flips, killing all his crew. Apprehended, he’s interviewed by a historian who is seemingly infected by the captain, and further violence ensues. To find out what’s going on, a mission is sent to the black hole, but predictably, this also ends badly.
In an AI-enabled utopia with no need to work - reading, writing, and critical thinking are lost arts. Humanity is infantilised, parented by servile AIs, purpose is found in hobbies and hedonism. The utopians are precious snowflakes, so mindful of politeness, mental health, and consensus that I can’t help but perceive a satire of our culture wars.
These incompetents are laughably ill-equipped for existential risk. There’s comedic tragedy to their committee-driven responses to the situation. Throughout, I anxiously waited for a hero to step up, take charge, and impose order. But it never happened. There’s no coordinated response, there’s no comprehension of the threat.
On the face of it, Roberts follows well-worn SF tropes, but he refuses to follow the standard arc of anomaly encountered, monster unmasked, plan revealed. Instead, we’re presented with three radically differing understandings. Initially, this plays out as a scientifically rational first contact with a malevolent alien entity, but the second perspective sees a psychological challenge - evil as a virus, and the third has a religious worldview - Satan imprisoned in the oubliette of the black hole. What’s really happening, and what’s psychosis, is unclear as Robert’s blurs internal and external perspectives. We’re expecting an entity with a plan, but there isn’t one; just tactics of chaos.
It’s a novel that doesn’t resolve cleanly. Our protagonist’s differing realities lead them towards conflicting goals. Each perspective casts a shadow in Plato’s cave, but reality is never revealed. This is truly Bank’s outside context problem. An entity that both we and the utopians are inadequately equipped to comprehend.
