Review: The Light Within Darkness by David C. Jeffrey

Pushing the sci-fi adventure genre and this ambitious series into uncharted space, The Light Within Darkness by David C. Jeffrey is a tremendous third chapter in the Space Unbound saga.

The voidoid portals may be safe from destruction for now, but the greatest threat to humanity has fled into the unknown chasm of space, gathering power and hiding from the Alliance. Aiden Macallan is more than the intrepid mission commander sent to find this existential enemy – he is also seeking his own long-awaited revenge against Cardew, the monster responsible for his mother’s death.

The scrappy crew of the Sun Wolf is secretly tasked to navigate the uncharted vastness on the other side of Astrocell Beta, racing against time to find the homicidal dictator of the Posthuman empire before he can launch a full-out assault on the scattered oases of humanity. As fears of Cardew’s cloneborg army run through the Earth/Mars alliance, the eccentric crew desperately searches for any sign of the mastermind’s base of operations, exploring new habitable systems along the way, and sneaking their way through one tight squeeze after another.

With just over a dozen star systems to explore, the Sun Wolf embarks on a planet-hopping hunt, offering the author space to creatively expand and play with this universe. The sci-fi world-building and creative future tech elements, as well as the author’s slow-drip exposition style, make the reading experience immersive and addictive. The narrative is also heavily based in known science, including the accepted laws of physics, star system classifications, material properties, astrographic calculations, propulsion forces, energy consumption, and more. For sci-fi lovers who appreciate a solid basis in hard reality, this series delivers that visceral authenticity.

There are also plenty of delicious theoretical details, such as sentient black holes, self-colonizing “mother planets,” and cyborg-eating fungi – fictional stretches of the imagination, which Jeffrey’s language brings to visceral and fascinating life, seeming as plausible as the hard science that forms the core of the novel. Needless to say, the novel is a cornucopia of ideas – without letting those ideas overwhelm the story of exploration and fighting a well-drawn enemy.

Thematically, this series has been a long-form warning regarding our planet and how we treat it; the author details humanity’s collapse and Die Back timeline as the context for this story, setting a grim foundation for the narrative that follows. The author is quick to note that some things never change, even in the 23rd century: “Unfortunately, Earthers had short memories and little taste for lessons of history.” Even so, the tone of the book isn’t nihilistic or pessimistic; the characters are driven by a deep desire to survive and thrive, to pass on the legacy of our species to the stars, and that admirable quality makes them likably heroic.

There are some pacing issues, with certain planet-exploring chapters coming off as redundant, and the dialogue can be leading and exposition-driving, which is not always believable in the context of actual conversation; however, longer stretches of narration are typically balanced with engaging action sequences. On a technical level, there are occasional mistakes throughout, from spelling and grammar to incorrect words that a spell check wouldn’t necessarily catch (“tuned” vs “turned”). That said, Jeffrey ends chapters with subtle cliffhangers and mounting tension that continually compels the reader to read just a few more pages.

Despite some small polishing and execution issues, this novel crackles with creativity and some serious scientific clout to perfectly blur the line between fiction and our possible future.