Dark Eden is a social science fiction novel by British author Chris Beckett, first published in the United Kingdom in 2012.

The novel explores the disintegration of a small group of a highly inbred people, descendants of two individuals whose spaceship crashed on a rogue planet they call Eden.

Years have passed, and although Angela and Tommy initially held out hope for rescue, they begin to raise children, forming a new society which becomes known as "Family".

Nearly all plant and animal life on Eden is bioluminescent, allowing the humans to see, while overhead the Milky Way can be easily seen at all times.

Killing a deadly leopard proves to be an epiphany which opens his eyes to the Malthusian catastrophe facing Family, which has grown too large for its tiny valley.

[3] Beckett said he adopted the unsophisticated, childish language of the Edenites after realizing he had crafted a society in which "the Eden settlers were a bunch of kids and two adults... .

[1] Stuart Kelly in The Guardian called it a "superior piece of theologically nuanced science fiction", although he noted that the novel drew a little heavily on Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and Will Self's The Book of Dave.

[5] Author Paul Di Filippo, reviewing the book for Locus magazine, described the plot as uninventive but "so splendidly [written] it feels brand new and remade".

[6] He pointed out that the novel's "harsh oasis" plot device resembled the work of Fritz Leiber, Stephen Baxter, Larry Niven, and Karl Schroeder.

But that didn't matter: "[A]ll this heavy categorizing misses the essence of the reader’s first contact with the book, which is pure astonishment and pleasure, a storytelling ride full of brio and wonder.

"[1] Author N. K. Jemisin, reviewing the novel in The New York Times, praised Beckett's method of rendering "the terror of the darkness beyond the forests with a riveting deftness" and the way he "cleverly" introduced new challenges and threats to keep the reader interested.