DARK THEORY | Wick Weckler

 

Well, this one took me a bit by surprise I tell you!

I really didn't know that much about this book and caught it on Perrick Leo's you tube channel. 

Let me tell you about the book.

A robot yearns to remember. A thief struggles to forget. A galaxy on the verge of collapse.

On the fringe of a broken civilization, a robot awakens with no memories and only one directive: find his creator. But in the village of Korthe, Beetro finds only radioactive pestilence, famine, and Miree—a tormented thief with dreams of retiring after her final score. Meanwhile, the fiefdom is plunged further into chaos when a new warlord seizes control, recasting serfs as refugees and leaving derelict robot peasants in his wake. With a shared interest in survival, Beetro and Miree team up to pull off an impossible castle heist: steal a single flake of dark matter, the world’s most valuable and mysterious ore.

But as they trek through the feudal wasteland in search of answers, they realize the true extent of the chaos surrounding them: the stars are disappearing from the sky and the entire galaxy is unraveling. As he uncovers his origin, Beetro discovers he may be the key to the salvation of the cosmos—or its destruction. Time, space, and loyalty become relative as he learns the real reason he was created.

A mind-bending science fiction epic with the bones of a fantasy traveling quest, Dark Theory unfolds through a journey of betrayal, identity, and unlikely friendships in a world of darkness set at the edge of space and time.

Dark Theory is the first book in the Dark Law series. Now, I don't want to give too much away, so to tickle your fancy I am going to turn to the words of the author to give you a flavour of the story. Awoken in a junkyard, Beetro, a self aware robot awakens with no memory and only one thing in his programming; find his creator. He is brought back to life by Lucy and Miree in the city of Korthe. A dustbowl of a city on the edge of a broken civilization, the three eke out a meagre living scavenging for scrap. However, their life will forever be changed when the fiefdom forcibly changes hands when a new warlord takes power, plunging the city into chaos. With an interest in survival, Beetro and Miree are thrown together to try to pull off a daring heist and steal a single flake of dark matter, enough to get them a mound of gold and set them up for life.

Right, that's it. Not another word is going to pass my keyboard about the plot. The only way that you are going to find out what this book is about is to grab yourself a copy.

Mashing together elements of fantasy quest fiction with science fiction this book works so well. It has all the things that I loved. Found family, redemption arcs, dubious characters, and robots. Yes, there are loads of other themes in there but the characters in this book steal the show, along with an engaging plot and some damn fine writing.

Mainly, the book centres around the two main characters, Miree and Beetro, two polar opposites of characters. Miree is selfish, self serving and totally out for herself, whilst Beetro is trusting, concerned for others and is ultimately a nice guy (well robot!). Now for me, I loved Miree. Yes, she is totally annoying, especially in the first half of the book. However, she is completely engaging and when you actually get to learn more about her, you realise that there is something in her background that made her the way she is. 

The other character is Beetro, the robot with a heart, who when he is first awoken by Lucy in Kvothe is a total innocent. Initially, he is quite a vanilla character that we get to see the world through. However, through the rest of the story we see his development as he searches for his creator. How he goes from innocent to more world wise. 

Whilst, that covers the main characters, no fantasy book (not even a science fiction/fantasy book) would be complete without travelling companions, and there are numerous secondry companions throughout this story, but the main party is made up of more companions. There's Ribcage, the girl with the cool disappearing trick, and Arym. Now, Arym at first seems quite unlikeable, and not much use, but as the story moves on and we see the world of the Cribmen, the subterranean culture that Arym comes from through his POV, we see that he is not as he first seems and he grows into the story. 

Now, every story needs a big bad, and this story has numerous big bads, each of them adding to the story and being the necessary bad guy to move the plot along. 

I have to say, that I loved this combination of science fiction, hung on an epic fantasy structure. It kind of satisfies both camps, having those elements of hard sci Fi mixed in with the questing elements.

I totally enjoyed this ambitious book by Wick Weckler, and on the whole the story works extremely well. The only fault that I had with it was that at times there were some elements of repetition, particularly when explaining what the main antagonist was and the reason for the disaster that affects everyone. However, due to the rest of the book being amazing I can accept these little faults and it doesn't stop this being one of my favourite reads of the year.

I know that I haven't told you much about the book itself, but in all honesty, going into this book dark is the best way in order to experience the story as it unfolds.