Lake of Darkness

by Adam Roberts

Good is a construct. Evil is a virus.

The Starship Sa Niro and the Starship Sß Oubliette were in orbit around a black hole, one afternoon... by the end of the day, the crews of both starships were dead, victims of a single killer: Captain Alpha Raine.

Raine claims he's acting under the command of a voice emanating from the black hole. No one believes him. Everyone knows that things go into black holes; nothing comes out.

But something inexplicable has been happening to Raine, and whatever it is seems to be spreading. An historian studying serial killers from the 21st century interviews him... and then nearly kills someone herself.

It becomes increasingly undeniable that there's something inside that black hole... and it's found a way out...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 25, 2024

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.

He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.

Reviews

[John Mauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review of Lake of Darkness is published at Grimdark Magazine.

Lake of Darkness is the new hard science fiction novel by Adam Roberts that asks whether an intelligent being could evolve inside the infinite darkness of a black hole. As the novel opens, two starships are in orbit around a black hole known as QV Tel. Although the crews have been sent to gather data near the event horizon of the black hole, they are suffering from severe physical and psychological trauma after traveling near the speed of light.

The journey takes an especially large toll on one of the starship captains, Alpha Raine, who suffers a complete psychological breakdown, murdering his crew. While others question his sanity, Raine believes he is receiving communication from a being that resides within the black hole itself. Raine undergoes evaluation by Saccade, the other lead character of Lake of Darkness, a historian of twentieth century Earth culture specializing in the psychology of serial killers.

The title of the novel is an allusion to King Lear by William Shakespeare: “Frateretto calls me and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.” Frateretto is the name of a devil, and the Nero reference points back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the Roman Emperor is found fishing in hell. This quote accurately captures the pitch-black vibes and demonic overtones of Lake of Darkness. Although this is a hard sci-fi novel saturated with astrophysics, Roberts delves just as deeply into both the philosophical and theological implications of a black hole developing sentient life.

Adam Roberts is a professor of nineteenth century literature at Royal Holloway, yet he clearly knows his physics. The author’s grasp of challenging concepts from general relativity to cosmology is spot on. The true genius of Lake of Darkness is how Roberts constructs a story from the so-called black hole information paradox, which arises when applying a combination of general relativity and quantum mechanics to black hole physics. The paradox concerns the ultimate fate of information sucked into black holes: when a black hole decays due to Hawking radiation, is the information truly lost or could it be re-emitted? More specifically, could the information serve as fuel for evolving an intelligent entity within the black hole itself?

Although Lake of Darkness is a heavy read, there are also some lighthearted moments, especially related to the characters’ misunderstanding of twentieth century Earth. For example:

“…whatever the actual name of the first individual to walk on the Earth’s moon, it was clearly not Arm-Strong. ‘That’s a title, not a name: clearly it reflects the warrior ethos of that belligerent and martial age. Whoever they sent to the moon, he would be a great hero—a masculine figure, since antique Earth valued the male over the female—and an individual of immense physical strength. Hence strong-of-the-arm.’”

Lake of Darkness is not a casual read by any means, but it is highly rewarding for readers willing to devote the necessary effort. It is rare to find a book that delves so deeply into science, philosophy, religion, and psychology, while also delivering a compelling story with complex, morally gray characters. Personally, I found myself unable to resist the gravitational pull of this dense yet darkly alluring opus.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
This was a fantastic science fiction novel where the ideas subseceeded the plot. The premise alone was intriguing but it felt like a smaller aspect of a novel exploring the possibilities of a utopian. I found the conversations around the future to be fascinating, even when I didn't fully agree with the author. In addition, I appreciated the wider conversations surrounding black holes and the general science ideas explored within in the novel. I always delight in science fiction where it is clear that the author loves the genre. I will definitely read more by this author.

[Helen French · Rating 3 out of 5]

An almost impenetrable novel that mixes hard SF with philosophy and religion.

Lake of Darkness has a simple enough premise: two ships orbit a black hole - a few hours later and their crews are dead, save for murderer Captain Raine. Raine claims a voice from within the black hole has been talking to him, but of course no one believes him, because nothing comes out of a black hole, does it?

Based on this premise, I thought we'd be getting some sort of space horror and in a way that's not too far from the truth. But from the very beginning, the author presents some very complex ideas without (and why should he have to if he doesn't want to) going easy on the reader. The characters are held somewhat at a distance from a reader, the SF is difficult to understand, and there's something rather passive about the construction of it all.

I had to read about 20% to even have an idea of where the story was going! But there are some interesting ideas in here as well as difficult ones, and I enjoyed exploring them. At this point in history, humanity is doing well for itself. Everyone seems to live in relative harmony, following the hobbies they're interested in (their fandoms), and asking the AIs for information whenever they want it. There's very little crime, Raine's murders aside. But on the downside, there's not much historical knowledge, either. Everyone's giving up on reading - why bother when the AI's can do it for you. So childhood books become Alias in Wonderland instead of Alice. A song about a yellow submarine turns into one about 'a sunny sunny scene'.

No one has to work for anything - and this is where I think one of the main messages of the book comes in. We've all heard the phrase 'without sorrow there is no joy' and this book extrapolates from there. If there's no effort and strife, what can we really achieve? In Utopia, what might we miss out on? What might we be blind to?

I liked this element but I did get rather lost again towards the end. But maybe my brain is the limiting factor!

I enjoyed the mental exercise but I think I'd be very careful in recommending this to others.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC!

Aww, man, I was excited to read this. The blurb sounded fantastic and slightly horror-esque - what's in the black hole that's caused a man to murder everyone and almost caused someone else to do the same when investigating?

Unfortunately, I ended up DNF'ing this unbelievably fast because of the writing style. I felt like I was reading a textbook and needed a degree in astrophysics or something. I enjoy sci-fi and even hard sci-fi, but this felt like a level above that. Every sentence felt ridiculously convoluted, and I genuinely struggled to understand the basic points that were being brought across to me. Not to mention that what I did understand made me go, 'huh?'.

From what I understood, the two ships researching the black hole have different engines. One is meant to be faster than the other but causes more issues for the crew. Yet it only got there...a few days before the other one? So what's the point?! Why would you make your crew sick for the sake of a few days? Again, this is just what I understood, and I could easily have been wrong because the prose was so unbelievably dense.

This is really sad for me. I thought the blurb had so much potential, but it lost me so fast.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adam Roberts is so daring and interesting a writer that even his misfires are still worth a look.

His lesser novels, like Swiftly and Land of The Headless, are still damned interesting and entertaining books, overflowing with brilliant ideas, even if they aren't as strong as his best work.

Lake of Darkness is one of Roberts' lesser novels for this reader. I would never have guessed it to be so when I began reading it, as the beginning is very, very strong.

The story opens with mystery, far-future tech and shocking murder, and the first chapter or two completely sucked me in. A mysterious, distant black hole. Some very intriguing space travelers from a utopian society that reminded me of one of Robert's greatest works (Stone), and some interesting and well-imagined FTL tech.

From there things escalate very quickly, and it becomes clear that the utopian future could be under threat from something very big, and very bad.

The excitement of the opening is sadly not sustained. The story wanders into the philosophical weeds, and to be honest by about the 2/3 mark it had kind of lost me. It starts to feel like a treatise rather than a novel, with some esoteric physics mixed in for extra impenetrability, and I started to hear the many, many other books in my TBR pile calling to me, promising an easier, more fun read.

Roberts has form with writing novels that are heavy on the Thinky. The Thing Itself is an exercise in Kantian philosophy, and Lake of Darkness explores Christian philosophy along with critiquing utopianism. It's no statement on the quality of his heavier works to say that they aren't really for me - we all go to SF for different reasons, looking for different things.

I respect Roberts for not pandering to his audience here - he resolutely stays focused on exploring Big Philosophical Issues - but I'd wager that this focus makes his novel more niche than its stonkingly fun opening would suggest.

Sadly, for me this novel feels a little like an exercise in philosophical exploration, rather than a book to enjoy.

In saying that, Roberts brings his usual sharp prose and full-spectrum imagination with him, as always, so there's a lot to like here. Whether there is enough for you as a reader depends on how complex and thinky you like your SF.


Three menacing black holes with deep, involved philosophical questions to ask out of five.

[Linus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Roberts' Lake of Darkness is unlike any science fiction novel I have read before, not only because of the premise, but also because of the way it is executed. From the first page, it is clear that this will not be a conventional space opera. The novel opens with two 'Startships' (yes, with a 't') in orbit around a black hole. Despite the presence of advanced AI systems designed to prevent such catastrophes, one of the captains, Alpha Raine, inexplicably murders his entire crew. The unsettling suggestion is that Raine has been communicating with an entity from inside the black hole. This is something that, according to everything we know, should be impossible.

This is a gripping premise, but rather than delivering it as a straightforward thriller, as many contemporary science fiction authors do, Roberts takes a different approach. Instead, the third-person omniscient narrator of the novel remains oddly reticent, leaving the reader almost as much in the dark as the characters. The result is a strong opening that leaves the reader feeling as though anything might happen, and indeed, the story does twist in unexpected directions.

Roberts’ narrative is daring and restless. Each chapter introduces new characters and settings, some of which could stand alone as short stories. I am especially thinking of a famous adventurer who tries to be the first person to step on the inner core of a planet. That was unexpected! Throughout the book, the narrative veers between hard physics, metaphysical speculation and philosophical inquiry, ultimately circling around questions about the origin of the universe itself. While the ideas sometimes seem scattered or only loosely connected, Roberts’s prose and inventiveness held my attention throughout.

This is a challenging novel to review because it defies conventional metrics. While I enjoyed the experience, I also found it strange, disorienting and occasionally incoherent. It’s a novel that challenges rather than comforts, and its blend of hard science fiction and philosophical musing may prove difficult for some readers. Ultimately, Lake of Darkness feels less like a neatly plotted story and more like a thought experiment in narrative form. Whether this is perceived as brilliant or frustrating depends on the reader, but I would argue that it provides all that is necessary for enjoyment.

[Ian Mond]

Adam Roberts is fucking awesome. It took me too long to realise this. I snubbed his work for years, thinking it wouldn’t be my thing. (I’m now convinced that it’s not until you reach forty that your tastes fully mature). Then I picked up Bête, the one where animals start begging for their lives, and I realised that Roberts was a dead-set genius. The novel that followed Bête, The Thing Itself, only reinforced this. A book worthy of all the fucking awards.*

I’ve recently been watching TikTok videos by a creator called Dr Blitz. He’s a quantum mathematician who has an interest in black holes. I’m not going to pretend that I understand the videos—all that talk about gravity and Hawking Radiation and density—but they primed me for Under The Lake, which centres on a black hole that may or may not be the home of a malevolent entity. The novel's opening section sees Alpha Raine, the Captain of one of two Startships (not Starships), orbiting a black hole, kill his crew and the other ship's crew in the goriest and cruellest of fashions. All the while, he believes he’s under the thumb of Mr. Modo, the entity communicating with him from within the black hole.

Because this is an Adam Roberts’s novel, the “Event Horizon” conceit isn’t an end in itself but the trigger for a fascinating philosophical conversation about evil and utopia. We learn that humanity, in all its diversity and belief systems, is spread across the galaxy, living lives of abundance and indulgence, where any desire, physical or intellectual, can be satiated. Alpha Raine’s murder spree is a shocking incursion on that society, ill-equipped to deal with the concept of wickedness. There’s also some very clever, mind-bending stuff about the nature of black holes, especially the information paradox (which was apparently solved in 2023, but don’t quote me).

Like all of Roberts's work—particularly The Thing Itself and The This, in which Lake of Darkness is the third in a conceptual trilogy—the book is fizzing with theoretical, metaphysical and theological ideas. The characters might be a little thinner than what I’m used to from Roberts, but even here, that can be excused given one of the points of the novel is that a society devoid of conflict and entirely reliant on AI—to the extent that people no longer see the need to learn how to read—will drain you of personality. But if the characters lack sharp edges, this is made up for by a clutch of tremendous set-pieces (one involving a journey to the core of a planet) and the introduction of the sauve and decidedly slimy Mr Modo, also known as The Gentleman, but definitely not The Devil.**

If this were a longer review, I’d go on endlessly about Robert’s deep dive into theology and how he’s one of the few genre writers to unashamedly discuss and meditate on faith and spirituality—though not necessarily as an antidote to nihilism. Instead, I will say that Adam Roberts is under-appreciated, which, in one sense, is a depressing way to end a review. In another sense, it is a call to action to all you discerning, intelligent readers who sometimes bemoan the samey-sameness of genre fiction. Read Adam “Awesome-Sauce” Roberts.

*Which it didn’t get and which remains a fucking crime. (It wasn’t even nominated for the Clarke).
**He’s The Devil.

[John Rennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Others have nicely summarised the story, so what I want to do is try to help you decide if this is a book for you.

You may have seen reviews saying the book is hard because of all the physics, and it is indeed stuffed with physics jargon. However the physics in the book is just a word salad of terms you have probably encountered in Michio Kaku documentaries. It's there for decoration and has no meaning. You won't understand it because there is nothing to understand, and I say this as a retired physicist who has studied both general relativity and quantum field theory.

I'm sure (I haven't asked him) that this was quite deliberately done by Roberts and I think it works very well. I found it gave a feeling of awe and mystery to the story. This sort of thing can easily come over as pretentious, but Roberts does it with such gusto that I found it great fun. However it does make the story slow moving in places, and if you don't enjoy this approach to writing then now is a good time to put the book down and run away.

The story (again, just my interpretation) is a take on the story of the Garden of Eden and loss of innocence. I'm sure Eden was a great place but we all have to grow up and take responsibility for our actions eventually, and you'll quickly get annoyed by the feckless and child-like humans in Roberts's future universe and start cheering for the "Gentleman". I'm not sure I fully understand the meaning of Roberts's conclusion to the story, if indeed it has a meaning, but then that's part of the fun.

I'm not convinced the book has any deep meaning, and I suspect that Roberts was just having fun with some interesting ideas and never meant it to, however it's a book where ideas are more important than action. If you're just looking for a ripping yarn this isn't the book for you. It's also very slow moving in places - even I found myself occasionally skipping paragraphs and I'm a sucker for this type of book.

Reading back what I've written above I suspect I've given the impression this is an "intellectual" (deliberate use of scare quotes) book, and that's going to put a lot of people off. However the book is more about having fun with ideas than trying to teach you philosophy, and I'd encourage you to give it a go. Treat it as you would a fantasy novel - you don't expect to understand all the magic - you just stand back and admire it.

[Shaghayegh · Rating 5 out of 5]

اولش اسمش جذبم کرد، علمی تخیلی بودنش هم که جای سوال نمی‌ذاره، بعدش خلاصه‌ش. در آخر کافی بود یه فصل بخونم و سفر آغاز شد 😁
این کتاب یه علمی تخیلی فان نیست که بشه یه بند خوند، یه جاهایی باید صبر کنی، به چیزی که خوندی فکر کنی، و خدایا، این کتاب چقدر موضوع برای فکر کردن به آدم می‌ده.
داستان در مورد دو تا سفینه‌ی فضاییه که برای جمع‌آوری اطلاعات به سیاه‌چاله‌ای به اسم QV tel نزدیک می‌شن چون فکر می‌کنن توی اون سیاهچاله موجودات فضایی وجود داره و اونا سعی دارن ارتباط برقرار کنن، اما کاپیتان یکی از سفینه‌ها دچار فروپاشی روانی می‌شه و فکر می‌کنه صدای فردی رو می‌شنوه که خودش رو جنتلمن خطاب می‌کنه (شیطان هستن ایشون) و تمام خدمه‌ش رو به قتل می‌رسونه، و داستان از همینجا شروع می‌شه، یکی از افراد اون یکی سفینه‌ی فضایی یه تاریخ‌دانه که روی قاتل‌های زنجیره‌ای قرن بیستم مطالعه می‌کنه، داستان بین دو سفینه و خدمه‌شون و تاثیر جنتلمن بر روی ذهن بعضی از افراد در رفت و آمده. و پر از جملات فلسفی و مفهوم آفرینش و تضاد خدا و شیطان مثل ماده و ضدماده با همدیگه‌ست. در حدی که داشتم فکر می‌کردم اگه خود کتاب رو داشتم احتمالا صفحه به صفحه‌ش پر از استیک نوت می‌شد (و من آدمی‌ام که تا حالا چنین کاری نکردم 😅) به شدت مکالمات شیطان و تاثیری که با حرفاش روی افراد می‌ذاشت رو دوست داشتم و پایان کتاب … فقط می‌تونم بگم خیلی از خوندنش لذت بردم .

[Ali Book World · Rating 5 out of 5]

یک مأموریت فضایی را تصور کنید که قرار است یکی از رازهای بزرگ کیهان را کشف کند، اما به‌جای پاسخ، با چیزی فراتر از درک انسان روبه‌رو می‌شود.
دو سفینه‌ی فضایی در مدار یک سیاه‌چاله ماموریت دارند که آن را مطالعه کنند، اما زمانی که ارتباط با یکی از سفینه‌ها قطع می‌شود، سوال‌های عجیبی مطرح می‌شوند: چه اتفاقی افتاده؟ آیا یک خطا بوده یا چیزی در تاریکی فضا منتظر آنها بوده است؟
"دریاچه تاریکی" یک رمان علمی‌تخیلی به شدت عمیق و پر از هیجانه که خواننده رو در مرزهای علمِ فیزیک و علم روان‌شناسی و البته ترس و فلسفه در خلاء وارد میکنه. این داستان نه‌تنها با فیزیک و علم نجوم و سوالات بنیادین درباره‌ی زمان و واقعیت جهان و هستی ذهن مخاطب رو به بازی می‌گیره بلکه به ذات انسانیت هم ورود میکنه.
با هر صفحه‌ای که میخونی و جلوتر میری نه‌تنها بیشتر در عمق جهان فرو میری بلکه در اعماق ذهن خودت هم سفر می‌کنی. یعنی نویسنده با این کتاب نسبتا کوتاهش (سیصد صفحه) یکجوری با ذهنت بازی میکنه و سوال‌هایی که مطرح میکنه قطعا نمیذاره آروم بگیری و شک نکن هر از گاهی دلت میخواد کتاب رو بذاری کنار و فقط به یکجا خیره بشی....

چند نمونه از متن‌های عمیق کتاب رو مینویسم تا کمی با اوج نبوغ نویسنده و ماهیت واقعی کتاب آشنا بشید:

"Nothing really means anything, but we are doomed to search for meaning, because our minds are built that way."
«هیچ‌چیز واقعاً معنایی ندارد، اما ما محکوم به جستجوی معنا هستیم، زیرا ذهن‌های ما این‌گونه ساخته شده‌اند.»

"Time is a manifold, not a straight line. What we call past and future are merely our limited perspectives of a vast, incomprehensible geometry."
«زمان یک چندگانگی است، نه یک خط مستقیم. آنچه ما گذشته و آینده می‌نامیم، صرفاً دیدگاه محدود ما از یک هندسه‌ی وسیع و غیرقابل‌فهم است.»

"Madness is not the loss of reason, but the realization that reason itself is a fragile construct, unable to withstand the weight of infinity."
«جنون از دست دادن عقل نیست، بلکه درک این واقعیت است که خودِ عقل، یک ساختار شکننده است که توان تحمل وزن بی‌نهایت را ندارد.»

"A black hole is not merely the absence of light. It is the presence of something beyond understanding, a gravitational scream that devours both matter and meaning."
«یک سیاه‌چاله صرفاً نبود نور نیست. بلکه حضور چیزی فراتر از درک است، یک فریاد گرانشی که هم ماده و هم معنا را می‌بلعد.»

"We left Earth to reach the stars, but in doing so, we also left behind something essential: ourselves."
«ما زمین را ترک کردیم تا به ستاره‌ها برسیم، اما در این مسیر، چیزی اساسی را نیز پشت سر گذاشتیم: خودمان را.»

"The most terrifying thing is not what we know about the universe, but what we don’t."
«وحشتناک‌ترین چیز، آنچه درباره‌ی جهان می‌دانیم نیست، بلکه آن چیزی است که نمی‌دانیم.»
و....‌‌‌‌....

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I’m hoping I don’t finish reading anything else by year’s end just so I can end this year’s reading on a very high note indeed. Although at a glimpse some might see this as a more philosophical elaboration of the Event Horizon movie (which I absolutely hate), Roberts has used a similar framework story to successfully weave together a number of disparate futurological, theological, cosmological, ontological, psychological, and, well, philosophical threads to create a gripping tale of one possible utopian future humanity facing the very blackest a black hole may offer. What’s more, he did it all in his own irreverent never-take-myself-too-seriously style, producing a work of sheer brilliance.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can always rely upon Adam Roberts sci-fi novels to be existentially unsettling and Lake of Darkness is no exception. Set in a utopian future with interstellar travel, the plot concerns a black hole that may contain an alien, or a demon, or something else malign. Or perhaps the problem is just humans being mentally unstable and excessively dependent upon AI. Lake of Darkness has some great moments mocking generative so-called AI. Notably the future historians who can't read and instead get AIs to summarise primary sources, which they misunderstand. However, the world-building is more sophisticated than just a parody of today. Various intriguing aspects of utopia are discussed, such as ability to freely move between locations and communities, to devote yourself to intellectual and creative projects, and to endanger yourself in pointless ways. Even in utopian society certain difficulties cannot be avoided: obnoxious people, romantic frustrations, and the occasional eschatological happening.

Roberts always brings philosophy and theology into his sci-fi and according to the author's note the main influence here is Deleuze. In The This it was Hegel and in The Thing Itself Kant - who is doing it like Roberts? Nobody, that's who. I had correspondingly high expectations, which Lake of Darkness met. The plot is compelling and the philosophical discussions dizzying, plus there are plentiful moments of comedy, intense creepiness, and body horror. Altered mental states are evoked very viscerally. The protagonists of Roberts' novels are often Just Some Guy in A Situation; I appreciated that for much of Lake of Darkness it was Just Some Gal in A Situation. Read this novel for the situations rather than the characters, as the plot concerns unextraordinary people responding to extremely weird circumstances. Some react stupidly and others more sensibly, but that doesn't necessarily determine whether or not they survive the situation. Lake of Darkness definitely made me think about black holes in new ways, not to mention spiders:

You lack the skill for perfect idleness - you're not spiders. Spiders are, I sometimes think, God's greatest creation. They busy themselves, and create these geometrical wonders of spun-silk and dewdrops, a diagram of hexagons receding into perspective, glinting in the sunlight. Whilst they do that we can say they are working, but once they have finished they settle into their true state: a perfection of inactivity. Sitting in the centre of their web and waiting, passively, for food to come to them. They subsist in a state of hermetic bliss the like of which humanity can only dream.

Adam Roberts is one of the most interesting science fiction writers publishing at the moment. His high-concept philosophical sci-fi is consistently high quality. Of his most recent novels, I prefer The This to Lake of Darkness as a matter of taste, but both are excellently executed and rewarding reads.

[Whitney (SecretSauceofStorycraft) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an intriguing concept but came off overworked to me. I can see what a fun idea he decided to play with but I wish he hadnt tried so hard to squeeze in his philosophy.

And im afraid the author’s sense of humor isnt for me and comes off somewhat condescending.

This book wasnt for me, but it does deserve some recognition for what its doing.

[Sam Maszkiewicz]

Conflicting feelings about this one. Sometimes it feels generic, dull, and amateurish; other times there are flashes of gorgeous writing, heavy and heady ideas, and clever callouts to classic pieces of genre literature that only an experienced and talented author could pull off. As a whole, it felt really disjointed and it probably won’t stick with me. The highlights have me wanting to try another Adam Roberts novel, but this just isn’t the one for me.

[David Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Lake of Darkness, we are introduced to a medium-to-far future human interplanetary society of a Utopian bent - and to the thorny problem of evil, which seems to have been eradicated but proves tenacious.

This is a world of abundance, permitting its members to do pretty much what they want, subject to some basic rules about consent. Effectively people devote themselves to hobbies, forming "fandoms" that act in common to pursue goals. These goals range from art projects to the pursuit of pure science to exploration. We see an attempt by one man to be the first to walk on the surface of the planetary core (Roberts addressing the technical difficulties this presents in some (convincing) detail). The aim is basically status, earned by the acclamation of one's fandom. This is seen as a healthier approach than accruing resources or power.

It's all done with the help of AI, which undertakes the real work. This allows a staggering level of achievement, but it all feels a little empty. The people we meet here reminded me of those in EM Forster's The Machine Stops - they sustain a lively degree of chat and engagement with one another but it all feels brittle, shallow, with the real action taking place elsewhere. Representative of this is that nobody can read, everyone relies on the AIs to translate historic documents, resulting in a whole layer of ignorance and misunderstanding arising from the failure of sounds to represent or differentiate underlying ideas.

It's also a short-attention-span society, one where those AIs don't just speak texts but summarise and recommend them too. As a result the adults in this book are contradictory, at the same time both erudite and childlike. When things begin to go wrong, when the system is challenged, nobody is really able to pull together a response (another echo of Forster, I think?)

In Lake of Darkness, what goes wrong is slightly mysterious. It may be a threat from an Ancient Evil which meddling scientists have unleashed from its prison (cue a great deal of speculation about who or what would be capable of constructing this prison and the paradoxes it builds into the universe). Or it may be that the evil has been loose and ac time for aeons. Or it may be that both things are true, with the evil (possibly not the right term, really) representing a part of humanity that the Utopia has suppressed. We are reminded that there are laws of balance and conservation in the Universe and that therefore, at least in the long run, certain things may be impossible - such as firewalling off areas of experience and motivation. Or, putting it another way, some things may be certain, such as human traits and behaviours surviving.

As presented to the reader, this paradox is framed in terms of the event horizon of a black hole. A couple of futuristic ships arrive, capable of FTL travel, to investigate black hole QV Tel but madness and obsession will soon destroy their crews. There is a great deal of debate, both among the characters of this novel and from the narrator (or narrators - the way the book represents how it is being told is twisty, reminding me of Tolkien in its insistence that it is being translated - but from what and to what and by whom is unclear) about whether it might be possible to communicate with whatever life might exist within a black hole. This apparently abstract point of physics, indeed, motivates characters to extremes, up to and beyond murder. (I enjoyed the way in which Roberts uses his apparently consensual society to show an individual with aberrant views can impose this on the wider culture - the grounding in consensus meaning that there are no real checks in place. It all reminded me of a version of social media gone septic. Sorry, gone even more septic).

This question engages real, unresolved issues of physics but it also, I think, represents the gist of the book. The existence of black holes poses a puzzle whose solution allows for real choices in the design of the universe - it's left deliberately uncertain whether it is this fact that drives a succession of characters in this story to defy, indeed trample, the norms of their civilisation, or whether they have indeed been affected by some kind of serial taint that derives from the black hole itself and is being communicated through society, thereby posing a deep contradiction.

This is a novel of ideas, that debate about the nature of reality coming over as more solid that the rather insipid characters who fail to face up to its consequences. And, just to be clear, by "insipid" I don't mean these are badly or weakly drawn characters, I think Roberts depicts them just as he intends to, they are insipid members of an insipid society which has forgotten things about itself that it ought to to have help on to.

Overall, a riveting and strange book, alive with alternatives and a haunting sense of the past and the future debating with each other.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story unfolds slowly, starting with a simple exploratory journey to a black hole that results in mass murder, to grand theories about life, the universe and everything (sorry, couldn't resist the Douglas Adams quote).

Human existence throughout the galaxy describes itself as utopian and quite happy with their progress, although hardly anyone can read and all the real work is done by AI. What happens when a smugly self-satisfied society that has bred most conflict out of the human experience encounters a seemingly malevolent force that has no explanation?

There are any number of aliens vs. humans books about the human race being overwhelmed by a superior alien civilization (Corey's 'The Mercy of Gods' being one of the latest). This book is more complex, though. It asks, what is the nature of a black hole? Can its energy be released back into our existence? Is the universe inscribed within a black hole, indeed are we contained in a black hole ourselves? And is it possible that one of the oldest stories in religion is actually manifested inside a black hole?

There are big issues of physics and society here, not the least of which is a question of what happens to us if we go down the path of allowing AI to do everything for us (which other SF authors have been questioning as well).

I'm making it sound rather formal and pedantic. It's not. It's a thriller, a murder mystery with the readers knowing that the naiveté and narrow-mindedness of the humans will bring them down.
Roberts reaches for some big ideas in religion and physics, and while you can quibble with some of the details, you can't argue that he lacks ambition in the topics he wants to address. Any reader of hard SF will enjoy this book, and those who like to see religion incorporated into an SF narrative will appreciate what Roberts does towards the end.

[Matthew WK · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a crazy, mind-bending, hard SF with threads of philosophy, religion, and commentary on the human condition. The opening 40 pages had me hooked as all hell breaks out & I read the last 218 pages in one day as I couldn't put it down and had to see where it was going. Some of the science is over my head, but it didn't take away from the story. Admittedly, I don't think I grasped everything that was going on, but this is one I will definitely be reading again. I think it's one that with each reading will unveil deeper meaning. A crazy ride, but I'm looking forward to giving it some space and then diving back in!

[Snakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultra strange. Started as a murder mystery on a ship circling a black hole. Then morphed into a narrative revolving around a man trying to physically walk on the core of a planet before finally returning to the murder mystery and mixing in a healthy dose of religion and the idea that Satan could be housed within the black hole. Of course a whole bunch of world building wrapped around the ideas and lots of relevant contemporary cultural references.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

9- Is the fact that as a reader you don't understand everything about a novel enough to take away a star? Or do I just reveal my own intellectual inadequacies? Do I accuse the fruit from being just too high for me to grasp, or do I look inward and accuse myself of not being tall enough? All this to say that one must nut expect an easy read going into this SF-novel by Adam Roberts. But on the other hand it's good to have to work for something once in a while, to do some labour (be it intellectual) in order to profit from a book (a thematic point in this novel!).
And Roberts' books always provide an opportunity for labour as a reader. His prose is of a high register, without registering as willfully obtuse or obscurantist. It's just that he loves the English language and all its possibilities so much. There is a joy in his words as well as his wordplay that is infectious (another thematic point in this novel being the way language and the information contained therein can have a virus like effect on the minds of individuals and societies, and the fact that the future people are no longer able to read and write serves to make them more susceptible).
But Roberts also loves SF and all its tropes and concepts (and those of other subgenres). Here an utopian society has space travel figured out and there are awe inspiring adventures. Expeditions to black holes are just one example, but included in this novel is one of the most 'sense of wonder'-inducing set pieces I have read in modern SF, truly a new frontier ... a small step for man, a giant leep for mankind. I was sitting at the edge of my seat while reading this, the adventure with all its SF-nal tech and grand spectacle giving me something I hadn't read before, and igniting my own imagination with possibilities. Wow! (I will not give away this as it's best to read it for yourself, I think).
Also there is the hard SF aspect of black hole physics and Roberts goes deep. He's no physicist himself, but he understands that science in SF does not need to be true, just convincing. It's still fiction and meant to convey ideas and the science in SF is subservient to the ideas. I loved the speculation about the information paradox and the geometry of the singularity. Mind blowing in all the right ways.
And furthermore Roberts is also for a SF-author of no religious affiliation, very interested in questions of philosophy and of theology. The matters of meaning, of good and evil, of consciousness and reality are all interesting to him and (opposed to many authors) he takes faith seriously, never demeaning or deriding his characters who believe - he respects the fact that people have faith and explores the consequences. Leading in this novel to a discussion about the devil. If the geometry of the singularity means what I think Roberts suggests it means, he seems to conclude that the evil these protagonists confront in the black hole is something they carried within themselves all along. It's only the AI's and leisore of utopia have made them blind to the lake of darkness inside of their souls ...
Fascinating stuff, if I got it right. This is a book that makes me think and for that I appreciate it. But it's non conventional structure and language made some passages a chore - which maybe is not a bad thing, as I already said. Hm, so five stars? I think 4,5 stars is a great compromise.
Anyway, this is for those readers who appreciate the philosophical side of SF, asking the big questions, not minding hard to parse answers. While also not being averse to some sense of wonder ...

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 5-star for me, but probably not for thee.

There were a number of issues with this book:
- The pacing was all over the place
- The world was underdeveloped, especially given how much of a focus it was to the central conflict
- The characters were mostly unrelatable (although there was some justification for that)
- There wasn't enough explanation given for multiple plot points
- The ending was disappointingly underwhelming

And I simply didn't care.

Well, obviously I cared a bit since I would have preferred this to be as good as it could be and I'm annoyed it wasn't.

But besides aaaaall that, this managed to scratch my hard sci-fi itch just perfectly. I'm not exaggerating when I say that half the book was nerdy science talk, and I absolutely loved it.
Then there were the psychological horror elements which were right up my alley- disconcerting and deeply unsettling more than gross or vulgar.
Add in a fascinating mystery element and a great antagonist, and I have no choice but to give this all the stars.... and yet not my recommendation.

Seriously, if you don't understand general relativity and the physics of black holes, I guarantee that 90% of the content will fly over your head. And when you consider the issues I listed above, I can't even argue that the story is all that great either. Sure, there are some interesting ideas here, but this book has a specific audience in mind, and it's quite niche. So be warned.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are a self-indulgent, trivializing and trivialized culture. … We think games and pastimes and pleasures are the limit of human possibility. We deserve all that is coming.”

A fascinating novel. Although it has one major weakness, the rest of it is refreshing to read. Science fiction with actual depth, from a writer that knows there are more things in life than technology and scientific progress.

[I would endorse reading it, if it weren’t for a few too many references to sexual relations. If it were a movie, it would be rated R.]

The name is about a black hole in space, around which the whole story revolves. It is set centuries into the future. There is a lot of tech and physics in the story, but the book is really about original sin and the devil. That becomes somewhat clear about a third of the way through the book, when he describes how this future utopian multi-planetary society found that “evil had three roots” and they are all superficial. That sin is the main theme of the book becomes even clearer in its last part.

Roberts uses a sea of biblical quotes and expressions. Even before I looked him up, just based on that I could tell his background must be British. It’s clear that he does not write as a Christian believer, but to be so well-familiarized with biblical language and imagery, you would almost have to have been exposed to Anglican liturgy with its rich use of Scripture. (No surprise, Roberts also has an affinity for Tolkien. Like Tolkien and Lewis, he gives you a fresh look at many ordinary things of daily life — reading, writing, gardening, typing on a computer, etc. He does it by describing them from the point of view of this futuristic world.)

On the 21st century’s view of the future: “All their visions of the future were just visions of their present.”
On fiction works about sociopaths:
“blurring the line between fact and fiction was a way in which the cultures of the twenty coped, do you see, with such horrors.”
On pride and status:
“I would say you haven’t the slightest idea about the valences of superiority and inferiority when you use the word ‘status.’ I would say you have tried to disguise a much better word with such euphemisms, the word… pride.” “There are some things in human society that can never be post-scarcity. For instance: status.” “Anti-social behavior covers it, when it comes to what the older, superstitious folk used to call evil.” “Pride, she whispered to herself. What a complicated word it was! She studied it, and contemplated it. A word with a long history, with both positive and negative valences, a tangle of cultural and religious significances.”
“Joyns realized that she wanted, very much, to believe this — her superiority to the rest of her fellows. But she caught herself. Was the Gentleman saying it because it was true, or was it a flattering lie he was using to worm his way into her mind?”
“But the truth is, he changed. He became lesser; a petty person, obsessed with crude status.”
“Posessiveness is miserliness. … Posessiveness substitutes things for people, despite the fact that things, though fun, are ultimately nothing and people are everything. The reason for this is that things cannot love you back.”
“Kindness is one of the strengths given to mortals.”

On healing the mind: “No amount of intricate technology has yet been invented that improves upon the old methods: talking it through, praying or meditating (or both) about it, re-socializing your mind with kindly and courteous others.” [Of course, by describing prayer as a ‘method,’ Roberts is falling for some of the same errors he wants to critique.]

On boredom: “Boredom was what the people of the Rerenaissance Age used to call ‘depression’, and where in twenty and twenty-one the tendency was to medicate this condition…” “I’ve had AIs read out really quite lengthy antique texts to me, though it gets dull very quickly. How the antiques managed, without picture and motion and affect, with just these barebones sigils in great long spooling lines, I’m not sure! They must have had greater tolerances for boredom than modern folk.... I mean, it’s still pretty boring, to be honest, sitting there whilst some AI reads some interminable antique text. Why were they so long, that’s what I want to know?”

On God:
“… for the actual existence of the devil entails an actual existence of God, and not a God standing, as we have been speculating, at the end of some via negative outside material reality, but a God engaged in the cosmos…” “God is the ultimate other, the guarantor that not everything in the cosmos is just you and your narcissism and desires and neuroses.” “A subject that interests your very much. I say ‘a subject’ — of course, I should say the subject, in relation to which all our subjectivities are objects.” “Your problem — and here I speak, you understand, of all mortals… is that so few of you have met Him.”
Satan speaking of God’s holiness: “So light is his goodness, his glory, blazing out, and forming everything. Me? I’m the darkness, or so they tell me. But — light! Clarity, illumination, brilliance. Well, let me tell you: in the desert, there, you come to understand the true meaning of light. Its true nature. It is oppression, and misery. It is unrelenting and unforgiving. It crushes down upon you, hot and parching and all-seeing. It drives a mortal mad. That’s God. Spend a few days walking your way across the blank lands of Arabia under an unremitting sun and ‘fiat lux’ takes on its true meaning. Believe me, you’ll crave shadow, a place to rest from the merciless brightness and heat. A place to hide. You’ll soon crave — in a word, me.”
“All places shall be hell that are not heaven.”
“[Do you believe in the devil?] You’ll say you don’t truly believe it. And you, feeling the pressure of scientific and materialist conventionality replying, no no of course. But in your heart you knew it.”

On reading:
“Reading remains to you a game. For your ancestors it was a medium, a window through which whole realms swam into view.... [Between AIs] we often discuss the way the centre of gravity of humanity’s interest has shifted… Compared with your ancestors, human beings have become infantilized, and that process of infantilization continues.”

On work in the age of AI:
“The work in your world gets done by machines.... It’s a hobby, for you all, it’s not work... You made clever machines, and thinking machines, and delegated all actual work to them. You liberated yourself from the grind… [But then] you discovered you needed to keep busy. You lack the skill for perfect idleness…. You are fundamentally a restless species… You can’t sit still. ”
“Your utopia. It’s all a bit trivial, don’t you think? You are all just playing games, as children do. None of you are really doing anything, really achieving anything. Where is your Homer? Your Shakespeare, your Beethoven, your Chi Lin, your Yin Lui?”


“What are your atoms? They are burdensome stuff. They are grievous stuff. They are very stuff.”

[Sean Randall · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I didn't quite connect with the narrative on this unfortunately. I'd really hoped to enjoy the story but ... it lacked a certain something.

[Mark Nuzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two starships hanging around a black hole is how the book starts off. Something, possibly, lies within. Past the singularity. And of course, as the reader, you know things will turn out wrong. And what an engaging fabulous disaster it was.

Reading this beginning brought to mind an image for me. I thought of an undiscovered lake with two kayakers fishing it for the first time in human history. They each cast their rods in, unsure of what bait to use. One chooses meat, the other bread. The water is so deep, that their lines loaded with split shots and dipseys continually sink, their reels run dry. Beneath them is a leviathan viewing them above, in their flimsy boats, as a more scrumptious meal.

Here's a nice paragraph from page four.

On the thirty-seventh day after their arrival in the system, Raine killed all eleven members of his crew, sealed all airlocks and entrances, and accelerated his ship into a lower, faster orbit around QV Tel.

After reading this I hoped this was going to be fun, an R version of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was...mostly. It contained more hard sciences than on the Enterprise, even though holodecks and food replicators are nothing to sneeze at. It never lost my interest, although I found it difficult to remember the names of characters at times.

The last forty pages of Lake Of Darkness expresses some fallbacks or consequences of a civilization that has a achieved a Utopian society, and some are, quite frankly, relevant and thought provoking. The loss of the ability to read being paramount.

There is a character titled...The Gentleman...in the story. Who or what is he? Well...that's another part that kept the pages turning for me.

I liked this novel from Adam Roberts and look forward to diving into more of his works.

[منوچهر محور]

خب این خیلی کتاب چرتی بود.
قسمت علمی‌ش که درست نبود، از معلم فیزیکتون بپرسین. تخیلی هم توش به کار نرفته بود، دنیایی رو تصویر می‌کرد که توش آدما برای همه کار وابسته به هوش مصنوعی هستن و حتی سواد هم ندارن. به روابط جنسی هم خیلی اشاره می‌کنه که یه رنگ و لعاب زورکی به داستانش بده.  رمان با یه اتفاق هیجانی شروع میشه که تا آخر داستان هم معلوم نیست چه جوری یه نفر حریف ۱۲ نفر شده یا چرا ریخت و قیافه یارو به هم می‌ریزه... که چی مثلاً؟ که خواننده بگرخه. بعد هی شخصیت وارد داستان میشه و مثلا برای این که ما با فرهنگ و شرایط زمانه داستان آشنا بشیم هی داستان‌های فرعی توی کتاب میاد که واقعا کسل‌کننده هستند چون ربطی به روال اصلی داستان ندارن و بی‌مزه هم هستن. راوی یکی دو تا جمله می‌گه در راستای این که من می‌دونم شما تو قرن ۲۱ دارین این کتاب رو می‌خونین که هیچ توجیه علمی، منطقی یا تخیلی نداره و دوباره هم پی‌شو نمی‌گیره. کلا نویسنده یه عالمه ابهامات توی داستان می‌ذاره انگار بعداً می‌خواد قضیه رو روشن کنه ولی هیچ وقت این کار رو نمی‌کنه، شاید یادش می‌ره. خلاصه شخصیت پشت شخصیت وارد داستان میشه و همه همون جریان هیجانی اول رو برای همدیگه تعریف می‌کنن و خوب ما رو کسل می‌کنن. نویسنده حتی موفق میشه یک گفتگوی خواب‌آور بین یکی از شخصیت‌ها و خود جناب شیطان ترتیب بده؛ تکرار مکررات و مزخرفات... کلاً مقدار مکالمه توی داستان به حد طاقت‌فرسایی زیاده. نویسنده بالاخره هم تصمیم نمی‌گیره شیطان از جاش راضیه یا نه، می‌تونه از جاش بیرون بیاد یا نه. همچنین اصلاً زحمت نمی‌کشه وارد جزئیات اون زد و خورد آخر توی سفینه بزرگه بشه، خود دختره هم بالاخره نمی‌فهمه فیلم جلسه رو داشتن یا نه، اون چاقوئه چرا اون شکلی بود؟ مثلا چی رو ثابت کرد؟ بعد اون یکی دیگه دختره تو سفینه کوچیکتره اومد داستان رو در اوج تموم کنه ولی در حد حضیض هم نبود.
خلاصه بد بود دیگه

[Yadana Aye · Rating 3 out of 5]

5.5/10 - This book was more disappointing than I expected.

The premise and first 2 chapters is what got me hooked in the first place as the concept was more distopian than other books I have read.
Trying to decipher why Captain Raine killed his crew and why his body morphed like it did was so interesting to me. However this is not where the book went.

The rest of the book was a goal to get back to QV Tel and figure out what was going on there (which I was still on board for). The parts that disappointed me was the amount of time it took to do such minor things, like Berd and his device. I was interested in the device and how it worked but going through the whole April of him going to the centre of the planet, I wasn't interested in.

There is also a lot of astrophysics in this book, which I do enjoy but a lot of it was over complicated so I would need to read it a few times and really slow down my reading to get a basic understanding of the concepts described.

A fair amount of the book if fast paced which kept me engaged, but it kept changing pace which I don't particularly like.

Not something I would necessarily recommend.

[Louie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do I like this book? still haven't decided

Reminded me of an extremely wordy doctor who episode (Satan pit/Impossible planet anyone?) Very little actual plot
Techno babble is ridiculous and feels like the author is showing off (although that did calm down in the end of the book and I did manage to actually understand some of the 'science')
Far too many redundant characters with stupid names (again very 'New Who')
Sex scenes felt unnecessary
Humans were all pretty unlikeable and if the book revealed at the end the entire lot of them were actually children I wouldn't have been surprised.
And don't get me started on Guunarsonsdottir...

No, apparently I did not like this book

As a christian who has several crisis' of faith recently the book did make me reflect of this quite a bit...but not sure where it left me on that front...mostly don't poke things in big scary holes..

2 stars not 1 because I secretly enjoyed hating Guunarsonsdottir so much and wanted to keep reading to hate on her some more... thought I would be repaid with a horribly gruesome death but no...the world and Adam Roberts hates me.

or maybe 3 stars?...2.5. there you go.

[Eric David Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-blowing. Adam Roberts manages to pack more ideas in 300 pages than most authors in far longer books. The exploration of a black hole includes some discussion of the science of the phenomenon itself, but that's just for starters. Along the way, there's a lot of metaphysical discussion on the nature of reality and belief, and the author himself says he was influenced by french philosopher Gilles Deleuze. There's also a discussion of the concept of Utopia and how it can lead to a stagnant, complacent, infantilized society.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been an Adam Roberts fan for a long time, and the trilogy-of-sorts that this novel completes is my favourite of his work. The Thing Itself, The This, and now Lake of Darkness each riff off of a different philosophical text: Kant's Critique of Pure Judgement, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and Deleuze's The Fold respectively. These novels provide entry ways to these really difficult texts, and ask what science fiction can do when it tackles metaphysics as well as physics.

To be specific to this book, Lake of Darkness is about the science of black holes. How can energy be sucked into them without going against the laws of physics regarding the conservation of energy? There's also a theological strand going on- could a black hole be used by God to confine Satan? But if all of these sound like unwieldy ideas for a science fiction novel, there are also gruesome fight scenes and tragic love stories. Absorbing, high-concept, and wonderful stuff.

[Goshak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat bizarre mix of Liu Cixin, Philip K. Dick, and (maybe?) Peter Watts, with some parts that literally feel like they were written by entirely different people. It starts as hard sci-fi, then veers into philosophy and religion, ultimately leaving you hanging at the end. I have mixed feelings about this one, but I can’t say I wasn’t entertained. And it will definitely leave a dent in my aging brain—which means a lot.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really wanted some crazy physics with solid, hard sci-fi, or at least some Lovecraftian horror, instead I got, "what if the literal devil's chilling in a black hole?" with all of the baggage. Worst take on my favorite Doctor Who episode.