The penultimate clone pair goes similarly. At age 38, Kodiak dies of cancer, and in his final journal entry, Ambrose records that he will join him that night. Yes, it’s emotional and completely heartbreaking but it’s more sci-fi than romance which honestly I’m not mad about. They spend their time doing all sorts of maintenance work on the ship that the ship's OS (operating system) is asking them to. This book destroyed me. I think I experienced a lifetime of emotions in this book - grief, hope, terror, hopelessness, love... everything. I can't believe this book had me go from absolute cold from terror to crying my eyes out because of [redacted]. I am in a waiting room without end, without location, without time or place. If I go outside, I die before I get any answers. I exist only in a theoretical way, like a point on a coordinate plane. I am the simulation.”

The Darkness Outside Us (Literature) - TV Tropes The Darkness Outside Us (Literature) - TV Tropes

i found the plot to be a bit slow and there were plotholes here and there that made zero sense, but it was overall an okay and cute read. This book is truly bringing high quality science fiction content to the MM genre and is a must read for all MM fans. A Form You Are Comfortable With: OS's default voiceskin is that of Chairperson Cusk, Ambrose's mother, but can be customized to the spacefarers' preference. The thing is.... he has blank spaces in his memory. He cannot remember his launch and funny enough, he realizes that he isn't alone on the Endeavor - a fact that he wasn't told about when he prepared for the mission. Apparently, Dimokratia also sent a spacefarer to join the mission: Kodiak Celius.They Both Die at the End meets The Loneliest Girl in the Universe in this mind-bending sci-fi mystery and tender love story about two boys aboard a spaceship sent on a rescue mission, from two-time National Book Award finalist Eliot Schrefer. Stonewall Honor Award winner!

The Darkness Outside Us | Eliot Schrefer | 9780062888280 The Darkness Outside Us | Eliot Schrefer | 9780062888280

for months after finishing tdou, i searched for words to convey the extent of my love for it, to do justice to how deeply kodiak and ambrose have burrowed into my heart. how i did not anticipate for this book to impact me so deeply but not a day goes by where i don’t think about it. and yet, only elevator music. i find it hard to conjure words for what is definitely possibly going to be my favorite book of 2022. i don’t think i can find another book…. that makes me question everything, that makes me love, and feel afraid for everything i’ve grown close to. there’s so much i can’t say about this, there’s so much that is only for you to discover alone. but there’s also so much i want to say. this book is, as i like to call it, existentialism space gays. i don’t know how else to describe it. to quote my lovely friend cel about this book, “so often i’d would be mid-sentence, going about my silly little life, and then kodiak and ambrose would pop into my head asking whether i am truly alive and then ‘oh no i can’t breathe i must lie down’”. (she said it perfectly.) Burial in Space: Once a year, on the anniversary of their destruction of the other clones (which Ambrose dubs Annihilation Day), Ambrose and Kodiak #13 hold a ceremony where they send one of the bodies out into space.

Ambrose and Kodiak become good models of communication and teamwork by learning from negative experiences. They also model a lot of courage and perseverance in solving problems and overcoming hardships. First the sudden awareness that they're only clones with a short life span until they manage to complete tasks that the ship cannot handle itself. Then the violent deaths over and over and over again. Losing characters that grew on me, only to have the same guys - but different copies - wake up again, starting from zero. Has a Type: Ambrose specifies that his type are fey-ish, androgynous people (both his previous lover and the actor in his go-to porno are also indicated to be non-binary). It's somewhat of a surprise to him he is attracted to Kodiak. It would have been a five star read if not for the wonky pacing. It’s all over the place and the writing style changes in a few places which took me a while to get used to but I eventually ended up enjoying it a lot.

The Darkness Outside Us (Audio Download): Eliot Schrefer

Ominously Cut Tether: OS cuts Kodiak's tether while he's on a spacewalk when he and Ambrose have learned too much of the truth about their mission. With only the ship's operating system and each other to keep them company, Ambrose and Kodiak have to work together to make sure their journey is successful. Forget Sigourney Weaver chasing alien monsters in space. This plot is much darker and scarier than that. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close But this book isn't only impressive regarding the well constructed plot. It also conveys important philosophical aspects, successfully applying Plato's famous allegory of the cave to Ambrose and Kodiak's unique situation.Science fiction has always been my favourite genre (space operas in particular). That being said, there was something about the way Eliot Schrefer established the sense of complete isolation in space that I kept marvelling at. It was so easy to resonate with Ambrose’s feelings of loneliness, fear, and awe while he gazed at the vast nothingness beyond his spacecraft’s windows. There were times I paused in astonishment as I imagined being with the characters, in the centre of endless stars and galaxies. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close Cloning Blues: Predictably, Ambrose and Kodiak, over and over, don't take the news that they're clones very well. One pair of them finally kills off the remaining clones save for one pair so that they can live their own life together, even though they know they won't live to see the Coordinated Endeavor's destination. You think of love as dizzy electricity. You think if you aren't in this heightened state, that the relationship is failing. This is a lie, an infection you contracted from popular music and fantasy reels, that doomed all your short romances in the academy, like with poor Sri. The bonded support you and Kodiak feel for each other isn't about skin skin skin, though it's related to that. It isn't the heat of his body against yours at the bottom of the water tank. Instead, it's the fact that you two are together at the bottom of the water tank.” Ambrose describes his skin as "molten bronze" and Kodiak as having olive skin and tan eyes. Strong, positive LGBTQ representation in Ambrose, who's been attracted to male, female, and "third-gender" people; and in Kodiak, who's been intimate with men; and in the romance that develops between them.

The Darkness Outside Us - ebook (ePub) - Eliot Schrefer The Darkness Outside Us - ebook (ePub) - Eliot Schrefer

Her younger brother Ambrose Cusk is assigned the delicate task. On board of the space vessel Endeavor, he is on his way to save his sister. It's through his eyes at this point in time that we enter the story. Artistic License – Military: In-Universe. Dimokratía's military is entirely men, but that doesn't mean that the themed porn of them is. Because this is absolutely not a YA romance. It’s significantly closer to horror. With every arc of this story, I spent my time wondering, adjusting, mourning, and repeating the process. I was devastated often. Then relieved, then devastated again. You really have to read this and get to know Ambrose and Kodiak, two absolutely unique characters who need to play a role much larger than they signed up for.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing is his own sister. so i don’t read a lot of sci-fi. i enjoy it but with the world building and complicated words that sound like static in my head, i don’t often have the cognitive capacity for it. but every once in a while, a book like the darkness outside us comes along, demands to be read, and leaves you feeling a little bit empty, a little bit weird, and very contemplative. I’m splitting this review into three parts: the worldbuilding, the plot, and the characters/relationship. These are probably going in decreasing importance for how they affected my rating, i.e. the worldbuilding was the big one, and the characters were pretty much negligible in comparison. But all of them contributed to the 3.5 star rating.