Darkness of the Light
Peter David
528 pages
Okay, before anyone gets made at me, yes, I picked this book up at the used bookstore thinking it was a fantasy novel. Twelve races that sound a lot like dragons/dragonmen, cyclops, a form of vampires, and two aquatic-type races I found hard to pinpoint (one is kind of like sentient whales, the others ma be more like a merfolk race, but they can live out of water? I don't really know...), and even a satyr that takes a prominent roll, to mix with what seems to be a human and a lizardman on the cover. However, as I read the book, I started to realize this is actually more like science fiction disguised as fantasy, with other worlds, time travel, and even something that I am fairly convinced was a nuclear weapon. So, please do not pillory me, I put it up here as an offering to science fiction fans, though it is not so far removed from fantasy that I think lovers there would enjoy it.
So, the novel actually crosses all of the races, which can be a little confusing to read, hoping from one race to the next from chapter to chapter, though most of the story pieces do seem to line up or cross at some section, and the few that do not, I am assuming will in the later books, as this one says book one of The Hidden Earth on it. The main character, if you can narrow it down to just one, is actually that fiesty female on the cover, called Jepp, who happens to be a Pleasure Slave. For those who are Star Trek: The Next Generation fans, there is an episode in season five called "The Perfect Mate," featuring an empath who can read men's desires and conform to them; think of Jepp as being along those lines, but with a little bit of extra oomph, like in the fact she can go into berserker rages if the person she has bonded with is in danger and slaughter people with her bare hands, a la the book cover. However, there is a lot more going on in this world than you initially would think, and the tale is a lot bigger than just Jepp and her new guardian; in fact, there are some pieces that lead me to believe that the "damned world" (excuse the language, that's a direct quote used to refer to the planet) is actually Earth at some stage in the future, now used as a prison for troublesome other races. This is not openly confirmed in the book, but the summary posted on amazon states that it is "formerly Earth," so I'm going to assume my extrapolation was correct.
When getting down to the nitty-gritty, this book is not a very simple read. It's not really a language or subject-matter issue, per se, but more the fact that any book leaping around amongst members of at least eight of the twelve races, some feature more than one character's point of view at different areas, can be very hard to follow. Yes, I get that they are all intersected, or will be intersected, but it can make the reading very disjointed, and there are times I honestly wondered to myself if I really wanted to finish the book that badly... and yet I did keep reading until the end, and even with the complicated interweaving stories, I do find myself contemplating getting the next book to see what happens, especially as the earlier-mentioned supposed nuclear weapon and it's fall-out is going to make things interesting.
Overall, while something featuring a "pleasure slave" seems like it should be X-rated, I think any adult could read this book, and maybe some young adults, though go into it with your eyes open that you will want to keep mental notes about who's who (though this does start to simplify toward the end of the book). I can see those of any gender reading this book equally, but I do think those into alternate-Earth sci-fi would enjoy Darkness of the Light more than most others, with probably fantasy readers as a runner up. While not a huge sci-fi fan, myself, I am still considering looking into getting the next book, Heights of the Depths, and seeing where that takes me... I'll let you all know if I do.
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