Mother of Eden

A Novel

By: Chris Beckett

Narrated by: Various

“We speak of a mother’s love, but we forget her power.”
Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden.

Just a few generations ago, the planet’s five hundred inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, afraid to venture out into the cold darkness around them.

Now, humanity has spread across Eden, and two kingdoms have emerged. Both are sustained by violence and dominated by men – and both claim to be the favored children of Gela, the woman who came to Eden long ago on a boat that could cross the stars, and became the mother of them all.
When young Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no inkling that she will become a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela’s fabled ring on her own finger—or that in this role, powerful and powerless all at once, she will try to change the course of Eden’s history.

Read by:
Jayne Entwistle
Bruce Mann
Heather Wilds
Suzan Crowley
Nicholas Guy Smith
Lucy Rayner
Hannah Curtis
Katharine McEwan
Emma Bering

Critic reviews

Praise for Chris Beckett's Dark Eden:

“Poetic…Beckett renders the terror of the darkness beyond the forests with a riveting deftness that evokes all primordial fears of the unknown…There’s plenty here to intrigue and entrance.” –New York Times Book Review

“A linguistic and imaginative tour de force.” —The Guardian (UK)

“Captivating and haunting…human plight and alien planet are both superbly evoked.” —Daily Mail(UK)

“A stunning novel and a beautiful evocation of a truly alien world.” —Sunday Times

“Pure astonishment and pleasure, a storytelling ride full of brio and wonder.” —Locus

“Dazzlingly inventive… superbly well paced and well written… packed with ideas.” —Reader’s Digest

“Brilliantly imaginative…a superb entertainment, a happy combination of speculative and literary fiction. Not to be missed.” –Booklist (starred)

“A fantastic novel…Beckett has created a bizarre world of astounding imaginative vision, grounded by fundamental human conflicts.” –Shelf Awareness

“Riveting…a keenly imagined vision of the interaction between human nature and a truly alien world.” –BookPage

Great read

Dark Eden is intriguing and this book kept that intrigue alive. The imagination of some people amazes me. The book was performed very well.

My Pick for Best Book of 2015

I'm actually surprised that Mother of Eden is my top pick of the year. It's a second book in a sci-fi trilogy that I was super excited to listen to - but I didn’t count on it haunting me all year long. Where Chris Beckett's first book intrigued with its tale of a small band of settlers in a strange world, the second book is grander in scope, and far more profound, tracking the next stage in the arc of civilization. For a relatively short work, this novel covers a lot of ground: it brilliantly captures gender role origins, linguistic development, empire building, and humanity’s innate tendency to seek out messianic experiences. It goes a long way towards untangling the question of how we got here as a society, and has led me towards works of nonfiction as well, fostering in me a new fascination with the history of human migration and colonialism.

I've both read and listened to this book, and while the print version is a totally fascinating mind bender, the audio version takes it to the next level. Following on the brilliant production of the first book, a talented multicast worked to become studiously aligned on the unique linguistic system that Beckett provides. Hearing the bizarre accents and turns of phrase puts the listener on the ground of this warring new world. I can't recommend this series enough - and it's not just for lovers of sci-fi. If you enjoy allegorical literature or speculative fiction, this story will pull you in.

Wonderful to listen to

This audiobook is fantastic. The voice actors are much better in this book then the last and they really bring the book to life.

The book takes place a few generations past when the last book left off and it is very interesting to see the progress of civilization in this book and the different ways on how they run things.

I am happy to say that there is much less sexual talk in this book.

I would recommend it to anyone who has read the first book or anyone who likes a story about power struggle.

Love the Eden series

For all the books I read about characters i don’t really care for, I am
Invested in these Eden folk, for some reason.

Outstanding!

Simply outstanding--in scope and story and epic timeline! Outstanding, too, in creativity and description, world-building, as well as wonderful narration! A Must-Read series of novels!