Edge of Oblivion by Joshua A. Johnston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Edge of Oblivion has it all – a big looming unstoppable threat, a race against the clock, a grand adventure that would do Indiana Jones proud, a range of developed and unique alien cultures and a great deal of mystery concerning the past.
The story opens with the arrival of Malum, a planet-sized object/entity of unknown origins that consumes planets and ships. It’s on course for an inhabited world, but it’s in no hurry. It will destroy all that lies in its path along the way. This creates huge stakes right off the bat. Malum reminded me of V’ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or Unicron in the animated Transformers: The Movie. Really creepy.
Our hero is the captain of a minor confederacy starship. Rather than joining the battlefleet to fight a hopeless battle again Malum, he is sent in search of the fragments of an ancient alien parchment, belonging to a long-dead religious order. Seems the ink on the parchment is made from the same material as Malum’s hull.
This quest takes the crew to various exotic locations around the galaxy. On their travels, they find this religious order is not so dead as was thought.
This book kept me engaged and entertained all the way through. I’ve been on the search for a book that pushes the same buttons as Star Trek for me. Edge of Oblivion did this nicely. At the same time, it pushes all those Indiana Jones buttons. Wonderful blending of the sci-fi and adventure fiction genres.
The book comes to a big and satisfying conclusion, which still leaves scope for future stories, and plenty of remaining mystery to be uncovered. I’ll be reading the sequel the moment it comes out.
Behind all of this was a fascinating spiritual analogy. What C.S. Lewis did with fantasy in the Chronicles of Narnia, Joshua A. Johnston has done with science fiction. The result was really interesting.
Highly recommended.
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