Hugh Howey

For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the 23rd century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren't supposed to.

The Complete Novel

Beacon 23

For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the twenty-third century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren't supposed to.

Tobias V. Langhoff

Lately I’ve become fascinated by the solitariness of lighthouses. I’m not sure why, but it might be because of Alan Wake and Life is Strange. That Salty Air. Myst! Lots of fiction featuring lonely lighthouse keepers, looking out at the infinite and haunting sea. I even kinda want to read The Light Between Oceans just because it features a lighthouse. And the only thing more lonely than being stationed alone in the middle of the sea, is of course to be stationed alone in the middle of space.

This is in part a kind of military sci-fi novel, but it takes place after the action itself and deals with PTSD instead. It reads like the diary of a decorated, antiheroic veteran living the quiet life of a space lighthouse operator, while dealing with the ghosts of his past. He’s a fairly unreliable narrator, but there’s no big reveal at the end which makes us reconsider the truthfulness of the entire account in retrospect. Instead, we’re kept guessing from the outset what details he’s lying about or withholding, and what experiences are external and which ones are just inside his head; for stuff does happen here, there’s action and adventure and love and loss. The lighthouse is old and malfunctioning, and like in The Martian, peril awaits in every corner.

It’s a short book, at times flat and emotionless, although it’s fitting considering the subject matter. The universe is never fleshed out and there’s little lore, because it’s just used as a backdrop for philosophical musings about war, depression and loneliness. There is a short epilogue that I felt undermined some of what I thought the book was trying to do, but overall this is a nice little thoughtful novel.

A series of space weird shorts collected into a book.

A lighthouse keeper in space, sitting alone in a beacon in an asteroid belt, working through PTSD. 

Some chapters/stories are stronger than others. Themes about humanity and war and the death of a few now to same many later and how does that decision scale… what makes a hero… who decides… a lot of the long suffering sci-fi themes, ex-soldier turned spaceman themes, but in a new setting and with a new set of complex circumstances in which to grapple with these questions. 

Apiecalypse Jen

A series of space weird shorts collected into a book.

A lighthouse keeper in space, sitting alone in a beacon in an asteroid belt, working through PTSD. 

Some chapters/stories are stronger than others. Themes about humanity and war and the death of a few now to same many later and how does that decision scale… what makes a hero… who decides… a lot of the long suffering sci-fi themes, ex-soldier turned spaceman themes, but in a new setting and with a new set of complex circumstances in which to grapple with these questions. 

Rocky4ever.

Beacon 23 The Complete Novel

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