Publisher's Synopsis
'Woven through with the tropes of space opera and hard-boiled crime noir, Dark Star is in fact a subtle meditation on the meaning of light and the reality of darkness, offered up to the reader in beautifully measured epic verse. Featuring a damaged detective named Virgil, battling his own demons as he pursues the stolen source of his lightless city's energy through an ever more treacherous web of competing factions, Dark Star does something that is both obvious and audacious: recycles an ancient narrative form to lend grandeur and gravitas to a gripping space fantasy. A saga for the galactic age.'
- Stephanie Saulter, author of the ®Evolution trilogy
'I was thrilled by Oliver Langmead's Dark Star. A sci-fi noir detective story told in verse (think Blade Runner meets Dante's Inferno), it's one of the most original novels I've read in ages.'
- Sarah Waters, Guardian Best Books of 2015
Welcome to Vox. A city of perpetual night, existing under a star that burns in darkness. Light-starved citizens shoot up on Prometheus, while the wealthy live in the radiance provided by three Hearts that beat light into the city. Aquila. Corvus. Cancer.
When Cancer is stolen, it falls to hero cop Virgil Yorke to investigate.
But Virgil has had a long cycle and he doesn't feel like a hero. The unsolved case of Vivian North, a promising student found dead with veins full of unnatural glowing, dominates his thoughts. The possibility of a connection between the lucent girl and the stolen Heart urges Virgil to shed light on the dark city's even darker secrets.
Tormented by the ghosts of his past and chased by his addictions, which will crack first, Virgil or the case?
Dark Star is hardboiled science fantasy written in syllabic verse, distinctive in form but accessible and immediately compelling. Langmead's tale of a flawed cop in the darkness recreates science fantasy as modern legend, epic verse as Virgil's voice.
