The Gap Into Conflict : The Real Story

Author: Stephen R. Donaldson

I admit to making like a U.S. baseball player and cheating again on this one - The Gap Into Conflict is actually a novella, but it's such a freaking amazingly structured story, and so popular with sci-fi aficionados that we had to include it on this list, and for that reason it comes in at number ten here. If you're a fantasy buff as well as a science fiction buff, Stephen R. Donaldson will come as no stranger to you, being the author of one of the most acclaimed fantasy series, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.In the Gap Into Conflict, Donaldson takes the reader on an adventurous, almost Shakespearian tale of the internal struggle we face between good and evil as we follow the story of Angus Thermopyle, an ore pirate and murderer who arrives at Mallory's Bar and Sleep with a stunning woman on his arm, who turns out to be Mom Hyland, a cop in a former life, before she met Thermopyle. When Nick Succorso, another pirate and owner of a nice frigate kitted out for deep-space, notices Thermopyle, this is when the story turns to one of revenge and rivalry, with devastating effects. Aside from the interesting structure (the novel tells a short scene and goes into its ramifications from the point of view of the casual bystanders who bore witness to the scene), this book is fascinating with its dark characters who go from hero to villain and back again, and how it succeeds in making you care about a main character who seems, at first glance, to be utterly unlikeable.The sequel books in the series are The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge; The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises; The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order; The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die.If you like your science fiction dark, then there is nothing darker than the Gap series. This is the science fiction answer to fantasy's grimdark.