Dark Eden is on Daily Mail’s books of the year list too. Harry Mount writes:
“I reviewed this first novel [sic] in January and it has haunted me all year. It’s set on Eden, a horribly ill-named distant planet that is freezing-cold and sunless, lit only by the stars and weird trees that give off a little light and heat.
“Humans have colonised Eden by accident after two astronauts were marooned there. Now, 163 years later, their descendants eke out a desperate existence, hemmed in by forbidding mountains, trapped by fear and the cold and the loss of centuries’ worth of knowledge and technology.
“Our hero is John Redlantern, a bold teenager who breaks away from the rest of his hopelessly maroooned tribe and heads off to explore the frozen wilderness that lies beyond the mountains. His expedition, the plight of the rest of the tribe and Eden’s alien landscape and fauna are all marvellously well done in a book that’s assured and truly memorable.”
Slightly more arcanely, it’s also on the Lowy Institute’s books of the year list here.