I've just re-read this before going on to the second novel. In addition to what's below, I want to add that there is a vividness to Henry's writing that is critical to the impact of this story.

Original review:

What a trip. I feel like I'm still recovering.

Dark Space is as far from a typical romance as any I've ever read. Hard SF, gripping and ugly but for a thread of human goodness stressed to breaking. That thread dips and unravels, reappears then gets lost so many times, just before it gets really creepy. This is a quality work, well written, great plot and world-building, harrowing consequences no matter where Brady turns. I cannot recommend it enough. ( )

A short scifi romp with violence, homophobia (internalized and otherwise), as well as rape (both as a threat as well as actualized on page.) Also suicidal ideation.

So, this is not a feel good romance book, if that's what you're looking for. There is also a thread of familial love, as well as the overarching bond between the main characters (which is insta-lovey, but with reasoning that makes it less annoying).

I love Henry's writing, and this was a pretty solid story. The reason for four instead of five stars is the fact that while I read this, I mostly felt anxiety and gloom. So while this was a decent book, the reading experience was pretty unpleasant for me, personally. ( )

I really enjoyed this sci-fi world, it was both creepy and intriguing at the same time. ( )

Brady is a guy who just can't get a break. Everything that happens to him (and it mostly happens to him, without his input) goes to s*it really fast. He hates the space, hates that he's been conscripted and can't help his father take care of his younger sister. The reason he won't get training that would eventually lead him to an officer position (even though he's very capable) is because that would mean he'd have to spend 5 more years (together with the compulsory 10) in space. He is young and lonely and afraid, but used to nobody giving a crap about a recruit, a kid from a refugee camp. The anger gives him energy to keep pushing on.

Cam is... I didn't quite get a hold on Cam. He's a good guy who's been through some serious nightmare-inducing stuff. But even after all that happened to him, he still feels love for space and stars and piloting. He came to an understanding of what happened to him and why, and so was at relative peace with it.

Their love was intense. It would fall under the category of insta-love, but when you're in each other's thoughts and memories and emotions and dreams, when you're not even sure where your emotion begins and his ends, I'd say insta-love is the only possible result (that is if the guy in your had is not a total a*shole).

It was not quite clear to me what happened at the end - (view spoiler), but I'm hoping those (and other) questions will be answered in the next installment.

I loved this book! The writing was excellent (the kind of writing where some parts were so beautiful they made me cry), the story and the characters captivating (I read it in a day, and I'm a very slow reader!) and I'm really looking forward to reading the next book. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Brady Garrett needs to go home. Brady’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. Brady is angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.

Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.

Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.

Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR NON-CONSENSUAL SEX

My Review: Grimdark story of Humanity with its back against the wall. It's set on a rustbucket improvised and patched-together space station where the only thing for its conscripted grunt crew to do to wile away their mandatory ten-year hitch is wait for the Faceless to decide to kill them and everyone else on every other station then destroy earth's population.

The Faceless have already attacked Earth, destroyed our large cities, and left a bare billion alive on the whole planet...so more like the mid-19th century in population terms...and although it's not stated, the planet's horrifying losses came after global warming was biting. I infer this from the altered climate of Australia, where Brady Garrett is a reffo, that's refugee to us 21st century Amerikinz. He's living a life of near-slavery in a camp where his father mines unstated minerals and is dying from the un-labor-lawed nightmare conditions. Then he's conscripted to serve aboard a space station laughingly called "Defender Three." His ten-year stint starts when he's sixteen...child soldiery is not new nor will it be eradicated from the face of the Earth in any future I can see...and also just as his twelve-years-younger sister Lucy is about to be orphaned by his father's inevitable death. So he's facing a lot.

Add in some rape, some torture, oh yeah and the aliens have one of us they've held for four years! But now he's back! Cameron Rushton arrives on Defender Three in a weird alien...thing, a pod of some sort, and it falls to Brady as the station doc's chosen assistant-cum-trainee to decant him from it.

Hijinks ensue.

Cam damn near dies because no one understood how to operate the Faceless tech that brought him "home." In fact, he's dying in front of Brady, who uses the empathy he'd vigorously deny possessing to reach out and comfort Cam in his last moments. Strangely enough this is enough to establish a psychic connection between the men, and allows Cam to live...with wildling Brady as his literal, soon metaphorical, heartbeat. It's quite a turn-up, poster boy Cam the Captive returning from the tender mercies of the Faceless (awkward!) and then getting hitched to a low-class lowlife reffo as his sole means of staying alive (embarrassing!), as well as bearing word from the Faceless battle-regent Kai-Ren that the enemy is calling off their insect-extermination level "war" with Humanity. Funny thing how he's less popular now than when he was enduring...whatever it was he was enduring at the hands of an enemy so little understood our name for them is "the Faceless."

Humanity is, as always, irredeemable. The Faceless are right to exterminate us.

The world-building is excellent, but the sex scenes...*serious* non-con, very explicit rough play...will send the straight boys screaming. Too bad, too, because there's good space opera in here. I'll read the second one for sure, especially after the ending of this one.

This was a group read in the Goodreads Gay SF group. Thanks y'all for bringing this book to my attention. ( )