Will and the other 6 teens who were cured of their debilitating phobias in Patrick Carman’s Dark Eden have been reunited in the sequel, Dark Eden 2: Eve of Destruction. Will and Marisa convince Ben, Kate, Alex, and Connor, who are all now suffering from “elderly” ailments like arthritis, dementia, and hearing loss, to join them in a trip back to Fort Eden after Will receives a letter from the hated Mrs. Goring. Ostensibly offering them a new “cure”, this time for the problems ravaging their bodies, Mrs. Goring convinces the teens to descend into an abandoned missile silo below Fort Eden in search of vials of blood taken from them during their last visit.
Still the focal point of Mrs. Goring’s plots and schemes, Will is again separated from the group and forced to serve as intermediary between Mrs. Goring and the rest of the group as they face the treacheries of the silo. Trapped in a locked observation room while his girlfriend Marisa and the others face countless dangers, Will is brought to the brink of madness at his inability to help the group. Too soon a terrible secret is discovered in the silo, throwing everyone into greater peril than simply the radiation, electrified pools, and cavernous holes in the deep, dark tunnels. Certain death seems the only possible outcome in this cat and mouse game against the clock.
There’s little more than almost pointless frenetic page turning going on in Dark Eden 2. Readers don’t get to know any of the teens any better than we did in Dark Eden, so there’s really no point in caring about what happened to them and why. Keeping Will trapped in the observation room lessens the tension that the rest of the teens face since it removes the immediacy and impact of any actual thrills or life-threatening danger. Focusing on Will also ensures that only a superficial amount of character development, if you can even call it that, does occur. Of course, maybe you don’t want much character development in your thrillers. That’s fine, as long as there’s pulse-pounding, visceral action, imminent danger, and actual thrills to experience. Dark Eden 2 falls short on this count too, which is disappointing because there’s an interesting premise at the core of the Dark Eden series, but so far it hasn’t gotten the treatment it deserves.
- Posted by Cori