A science fiction detective story in iambic pentameter transports the reader to an analogue world plunged into darkness – but more illumination is needed
Dark Star is an SF epic poem heavily influenced by noir detective stories, written in four-line-long stanzas of iambic pentameter, and set on a world called Vox whose sun doesn’t give out light.
Let’s have that again.
Time to waste, so I escape the city
At one of those seedy establishments
They call ‘Glow Shows’ because they fill the girls
So full of Pro’ it nearly burns their veins.
Dante checks the address, puts his hat on.
We step out and eye up what we can see.
I’m following up on a buried case
With zero backup, barely any leads
And a whole different major case to solve
And for the life of me I don’t know why.
Well I’ll be damned. Maybe I should have known
The two cases were linked.
A dark took up residence in my head:
Some unmovable piece of nothingness.
