The verdict
Cold, clever and deliberately uncomfortable, with a trick in it that earns its place.
Quick facts
- Author
- Stephen R. Donaldson
- First published
- 1991
- Publisher
- Bantam Books
- Series
- The Gap Cycle, book one of five
- Best for
- Space opera that takes cruelty seriously, if you accept being manipulated on purpose
- Skip it if
- Sexual violence is a line for you, because it is central rather than incidental
Author Stephen R. Donaldson
The Real Story is the first book of Stephen R. Donaldson’s Gap Cycle, published in 1991, and it is a short, nasty, deliberate trap of a novel. It opens on a space station with a man who is a monster and a woman he has ruined, tells you one version of what happened, and then quietly indicates that the version you have just read is not the truth.
The idea behind it
Donaldson’s subject across the five books is power: who holds it, what it costs, and what people will do when the only alternative is to be destroyed. The Gap itself is a human-run interstellar region policed by a company, which means law is a service and coercion is a business model.
This first volume is about a third the length of what follows, and it exists to set a question: which of the people in it is actually in control, and what does the reader’s confidence in the narrator say about the reader. That is a genuinely unpleasant trick and it is executed well.
The story, spoiler-light
Angus Thermopyle runs a mining tug and is disliked by everyone who has to deal with him. Morn Hyland is a security officer who comes aboard, and Nick Succorso is the charismatic captain who appears afterwards. What passes between them is the novel, and describing it further would spoil the only thing the book is doing.
Two things are worth knowing before you start, and the first one is not a spoiler but a warning. The Gap Cycle contains sexual violence, and it is central rather than incidental: if that is a line for you, this series is not for you and there is no way to read around it. The second is that the five books are one continuous story, so this is a prologue rather than a self-contained novel.
What makes it science fiction
The setting is doing real work rather than providing scenery. Faster-than-light travel requires drugs and a pilot who can survive them, which makes the people who can do it both valuable and expendable. The company that owns the gap has an interest in keeping the machinery running, and the politics of the later books grow directly out of that.
It is also worth saying that this is space opera with almost no comfort in it. Donaldson came to the genre from epic fantasy and brought the same seriousness about damage and consequence. There are no quips, and the technology does not save anybody.
Who should read it, and who should give it a miss
Read it if you want a space opera that takes cruelty seriously and you are willing to be manipulated on purpose. The Gap Cycle is genuinely one of the more ambitious things in the genre, and the first volume is the door.
Give it a miss if you want a likeable character to hold on to, or if you read for pleasure rather than for the argument. Nobody here is admirable, the first book is intentionally confusing, and the series does not lighten.
Where to start, and what to read next
Start here, and read them in order. The five books are one story told across a single arc, and the first volume is short enough to treat as an opening chapter. Donaldson has said the series was written as a single work.
The two to pick up next are Forbidden Knowledge, which is where the series becomes a large-scale story about a war and a company, and A Dark and Hungry God Arises, the middle volume where the pieces that the first book set up finally start moving.
The rest of the sequence, for reference: Chaos and Order and This Day All Gods Die complete the five. There are also two short stories set in the same universe, collected elsewhere, which are not required.
The verdict
Cold, clever and deliberately uncomfortable, with a trick in it that earns its place. Read it if you want space opera with teeth.
Frequently asked questions
Does The Gap Cycle contain sexual violence?
Yes, and it is central to the story rather than incidental. That is the honest answer and it is worth taking seriously before you begin.
Do I need to read the whole series?
It is one continuous story across five books, so the first volume is a prologue rather than a standalone. If you finish it and want to stop, the ending is open rather than satisfying.
Why is the first book so short?
Deliberately. It is an overture that sets a question about who is telling the truth, and the four volumes that follow are much longer and much wider in scope.
Is it connected to the Thomas Covenant books?
No. They share an author and a preoccupation with damage and responsibility, but the settings and stories are entirely separate.
Where can I buy it?
It is available in paperback and as a Kindle edition, and the buy links for Amazon.com and Amazon.in are on this page.