Pitch Dark

Reviewed by: Jennifer Lance - Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, S, Central Maine Library District

Review Date: July 10, 2018

Review

Tuck Morgan is a member of the crew of the U.S.S. John Muir, and he has been for 400 years. In the process of transporting a chunk of Earth from their dying planet, the spaceship John Muir is sabotaged and the crew can only survive by going into stasis. When Tuck finally awakens, he is shocked to find that only about 150 crew members of the original 10,000 have survived. Here's where it gets really creepy: the rest of them aren't all dead. A sizeable chunk have slowly been transformed while in stasis (possibly by the chemicals from a very polluted Earth) and have become, for lack of a better term, space zombies, and they are terrifying! While Tuck is someone out of the past, Laura Cruz is very much in the present. Laura is from a family of archeologists, searching through space, trying to find shipwrecks and rescue relics from Earth's shattered past. When Laura's ship happens upon the John Muir, it seems like a boon for both crews. Oh, except Laura is being forced to act against her will by her evil ex-boyfriend and his mother, who have implanted a device in her that forces her to obey them. They want the family's rich archive of treasures and will stop at nothing to get them. How does Laura get out from under their thumb? How can Tuck survive a ship full of zombie creatures? When an onboard terrorist crashes the Cruz ship into the Muir, things get very interesting, and Tuck and Laura work together to try to save both themselves, the family, and the treasures. All the pieces fit together very well in a story full of suspense and danger!

Overall Book Score: very good