Darkest Hour - Mark Chadbourn

Whatever variety of the flu it is that is making half of Europe sick at the moment has hit me hard this weekend. I have two books waiting to be reviewed but right now I am no condition to write a coherent text about either of them. I pulled one from the archives I meant to add later this year anyway. Books one and three of this series have already been added to to Random Comments. It was originally written in May 2009 and needed only mild editing.

I read World’s End, the first book of Mark Chadbourn’s Age of Misrule trilogy a while back. World's End was published in the UK in 1999 but the books didn't make it to the American market until Pyr has released them in 2009 with about a month in-between the books. They have gone on to publish The Dark Age, a second trilogy set in this universe, as well. I thought World’s End was a decent read, Darkest Hour is better. Chadbourn maintains his fast pace and deep mythological connection to the land but lowers the D&D content. Being the second book in the trilogy, it does of course leave you hanging, so I'm trying to get my hands on the third book.

At the end of the first book Church and his companions have managed to free the one force that could stop the Formori, the Tuathe de Danaan, only to find out they are not interested in the job. In fact, they think Church and his companions unworthy to even make such a request, tainted as they are by failure and the corruption of the Formori. The Brothers and Sisters of the Dragon will not give up though. Formori plans for the return of Balor, the one-eyed god of death have been delayed, there is time to regroup and plan. A little time, but not much, the world as they know it is falling apart rapidly, technology is failing all over the place and the authorities seem to have no response to the difficulties they face. At the next festival, that of Lughnasadh, the Formori are sure to make another attempt to drag Balor back into the world and end it for all time.

Under the guidance of Tom the company goes in search of means to convince the Tuathe de Danaan to help them defeat the Formori. Again Church, Ruth, Ryan, Laura and Shavi will have to dive head first in a world that is unknown to them. When they ask the dead for help in a ceremony in the Highlands of Scotland, the trail leads to Edinburgh. The dead not only set them on the right trail, they also mention one of the five is a traitor. This of course, does not nothing to ease the already mounting tensions within the group. It is their darkest hour indeed.

In this book Chadbourn develops his five main characters further. Where in the first book they are mostly trying to stay alive, they now begin to assume certain roles in the company. Ruth gets a crash course in following the craft, Shavi’s shamanistic talents are put to the test, Ryan is turning into a warrior, and Church appears to have overall command (much to his disliking). Only Laura doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself and makes no secret of it. It puts her in conflict with Ryan in particular, but her relationship with the other members of the company are strained as well. We also learn more about Tom’s history. There is a lot more to him than the old hippie front we get to see in World’s End. This increased attention to character development does the trilogy a world of good.

As with the previous book, Chadbourn adds a lot of mythological references to the book by introducing a lot of supernatural creatures. He also delves into the history of Edinburgh Castle and Old Town district and visits the chapel at Rosslyn; a site that may be familiar to people who have read The Da Vinci Code. I think I prefer Chadbourn’s handling of the myths surrounding that building. With Church and his companions avoiding population centres whenever possible, we also get quite a bit of landscape descriptions. Scotland and Yorkshire in particular receive attention. They visit some of the lesser know neolithic sites, trying to find the old places of power and bring them to life again. The first book mostly leaned on the big, and well known sites with a collection to Celtic or early Christian mythology. This book dives in a lot deeper. If you are interested in in that aspect of the story and of Britain’s cultural and natural heritage this book is probably more satisfying than the first one.

One of the aspects I liked less about this novel is the tendency of the companions to go off on side quests. Even trying to avoid people they run into them from time to time. These people inevitably have problems dealing with he collapse of technology and the appearance of large numbers of quite dangerous supernatural beings. The temptation to fix a smaller immediate problem and ignore the big picture is always there. I guess you could say that if Church and his companions are to become the heroes of the land they will eventually have to deal with issues like that. In some cases the author throws these things in to develop the talents of one of the members of the group further. They don’t always lead to actually resolving the problem however, and they are quite often dropped when the character is being forcefully reminded of the big picture. This makes some of these scenes rather unsatisfactory to read.

All in all I liked this second book in the series better than the first. A lot of people will mention the problems middle books usually suffer, but personally I never really felt these weaknesses occur quite as often as many reviewers seem to believe. Darkest Hour doesn’t suffer from them anyway, unless you count ending on a cliffhanger as a problem. Given the improvements over the second book I am very curious where Chadbourn will that the third one. Always Forever has just placed itself high on the to read list.

Book Details
Title: Darkest Hour
Author: Mark Chadbourn
Publisher: Pyr
Pages: 469
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59102-740-9
First published: 2000

World's End - Mark Chadbourn

I've been a wee bit busy this week, with a labour law exam and a new kitchen being placed on Monday and Tuesday. I've managed to read quite a lot of Stonewielder by Ian C. Esslemont but it doesn't look like I'll finish it in time for a review this weekend. Instead I am running this older review. It was written in April 2009 and as usual, it needed a bit of editing. I'll put the second part of this trilogy up on Random Comments as well some time in the next year.

World’s End by Mark Chadbourn is the first book in the Age of Misrule trilogy. The book was first published in the UK in 1999 and in 2009 Pyr has released all three in with about a month between them for the American market. The trilogy is set in the UK, probably just before the end the 20th century. Although in some ways it is a typical fantasy novel, the choice of characters and the use of contemporary British English set it apart somewhat. Which is what saves the novel from mediocrity, thematically it is not ground breaking.

Nobody knows it yet, but the world as we know it is about to end. After millennia of absence the Faery are back in town. Some of the darker elements among the Faery are preparing to take over the world. Their presence is still unnoticed by most of the population but strange things are happening all across Britain. Jack “Church” Churchill and Ruth Gallagher are unfortunate enough to witness one of these strange occurrences. What seems to be an ordinary murder at first glance clearly has a supernatural aspect to it. When Ruth and Church begin to understand what is going on, they wish they’d never found out.

Soon the two of them find themselves on the run from all manner of supernatural beings trying to silence them. Fate has another role in store for them though. Ruth and Church are the first two members of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, a group of people bound to the land and humanity’s only hope of survival. While the darker elements of the Faery are already loose, the only force that can oppose them is still bound. It is up to the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons to free them. To do that they need for ancient artefacts hidden in several places in Britain and they need to do it before the Beltane festival. With all manner of monsters in hot pursuit and time running out, a desperate search for the artefacts begins.

So… a group of unlikely heroes in search of mystic artefacts that will help them save the world from eternal darkness. All pretty standard D&D stuff really, the only thing that is missing is the pseudo-medieval setting. Still, I am pretty sure that if you like that sort of thing, this will not be the book you are looking for. Chadbourn’s story is firmly rooted in our present world, with characters who are very reluctant to release their troublesome everyday lives. They are half believing things will go back the way they were on the one hand, and pitying those who do not yet know things will never be the same again on the other.

The Brothers and Sisters of the Dragons are not a happy bunch. Each of them is dissatisfied with their life in some way and deep down, none of them really want the world to return to normal. All of them feel guilty, usually related to a (violent) death in their surroundings. Perhaps that makes them a bit more likely to eventually embrace their new world, especially when they find out the deaths are not a coincidence. The way they discuss this in British English, using a lot of slang at times, really drives home how different British English and American English is. Schools around here teach British English but we are exposed to American English a lot more, blurring the lines for a second language speaker. I guess it takes a native speaker to demonstrate the difference.

There is a library full of fantasy books out there that rely on Celtic mythology as a theme or source of inspiration but I have rarely read a book that does it so thoroughly. Chadbourn introduces us in rapid succession to a number of mythical creatures, gods and objects, usually accompanied with a brief explanation by Tom, the man who serves as a guide to the brothers and sisters. The Wild Hunt, the Green Man, Lugh, the Maiden/Mother/Crone, the Formorians, the Tuatha Dé Danann and of course the Arthurian legend are all worked into the story in one way or another. Many of these will not be entirely unfamiliar to readers of fantasy, several of these figures are used in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series for instance. It may sound familiar but not many authors explore these myths to the extent Chadbourn does.

All this Celtic myth does not slow the story down however, Chadbourn takes us at the speed of a car chase through a number of locations significant in Celtic Mythology and the Arthurian legend. I have visited a number of these locations myself twenty years ago (Dartmoor, Tintagel, Stonehenge). Chadbourn’s description of the places and the route the party takes is described in such a way it would be possible to track down for the real fanatic reader. The way he describes a number of places I haven’t seen, Glastonbury in particular, makes me wish we had taken a detour back then.

What to make of World’s End? After reading it I am left with mixed feelings. There are aspects of the story I liked a lot. Chadbourn is obviously very versed in Celtic mythology and he uses this to great effect in the novel. He also makes sure not to make his story into a black and white, good versus evil kind of book. On the other hand the plot is pretty standard in fantasy. I didn’t entirely escape the feeling I had read this book before. The final part of the book suggests the plot of the second part in the trilogy, Darkest Hour, will be more interesting. For me that is enough to tip the balance, I guess I am on board of book two.

Book Details
Title: World's End
Author: Mark Chadbourn
Publisher: Pyr
Pages: 419
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59102-739-3
First published: 1999

Always Forever - Mark Chadbourn

Earlier this year I read World's End and Darkest Hour, part one and two in Chadbourn's Age of Misrule trilogy. I tried to get a copy of the final book as well but for some reason that took a lot longer than expected. I hate to leave a series unfinished so when my to read stack approached manageable proportions (meaning the stack is not quite as tall as I am) last month I decided to finally order a copy. Always Forever was first published in the UK in 2001. Pyr recently reissued all three with some new and very nice cover are by John Picacio (the cover for World's End has got to be one of the best of the year) with about a month between the books. In 2010 will be reissuing Chadbourn's Dark Age trilogy in the same fashion. These books are set in the same world as The Age of Misrule trilogy.

The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons have never been in worse shape. Shavi has been killed and Laura is presumed dead too. Tom and Veich are still in the north of England trying to decide how to proceed while Ruth and Church are on their way to the Cornish coast. There they hope to be able to find passage to the Otherworld, hoping to convince the Tuatha Dé Danan to join them in their struggle against the Formorii and their plans to bring the destructive god Balor back into the world. Time is quickly running out, the night of Samhain or Halloween, the time will be right for Balor's return. All five of the Borthers and Sisters of the Dragon must be there to prevent Balor from bringing about the word's end.

The Formorii are not content to wait until Samhain.As soon as Ruth and Church are trying to cross over to the Otherworld they are attacked. In England they are also wreaking havoc on the land, in particular on the now totally depopulated capital. London is turned into a ghost town, filled with ruins and burnt out vehicles. It is the place where Balor's power manifests itself most clearly and the place where he will eventually enter the world. If the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons can persuade the reluctant Tuatha Dé Danan to join them, this is where they must face the Formorii to decide the fate of the world.

In the previous two books the action was mostly set in different locales in the UK. Large sections of Always Forever are set in the Otherworld. One particularly interesting location is the vessel of the sea god Manannan. Church and Ruth hail it to get passage to the Blessed Isles. I very much enjoyed to part of the book set there, and he curious descriptions of the ship's interior. These scenes are something of a turning point for Church too, as he doesn't have Tom around to bully him in the right direction when he needs it.

The quest Tom and Veitch undertake to bring back Shavi from to the dead was a little less convincing. Generally, I feel that if you kill a character they ought to remain dead. Very few authors ignore this and really manage to get away with it. There was nothing ambiguous about his death, there for attempts to bring him back, especially when they succeed feel like a cop out. Chadbourn has made it quite clear on several occasions in the book that each of the five is vitally important to succeeding, more or less giving away the result of the quest. Chadbourn wraps all this in a wonderfully Gothic description of the land of the dead but it still feels like a bad choice to me.

Like in the first two books Chadbourn sets a brisk pace, in their race against time the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons can't really afford to lose any time. Being harassed by the Formorii every step of the way makes for plenty of action scenes. He also adds quite a bit to his already large set of mythical creatures and gods. If you enjoyed his approach in the first two books then Always Forever is going to be a fitting conclusion to the trilogy. I think the writing in the final part of the novel felt a bit rushed but it did suit the atmosphere of the book.

The Age of Misrule trilogy is not without it's flaws. It is light on character development and the way the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are chased from one quest to the next takes on a Dungeons an Dragons quality, especially early on in the series. The great attraction of these books is the way Chadbourn deals with British mythology, the secret history of the land as he puts it by voice of Tom. There is a whole library worth of fantasy novels that borrow from this rich source but I don't think I have read anything that does so in such a comprehensive way as Chadbourn. The books takes us through a variety of myths associated with specific places in the UK. Having been to several of those places in person makes it even more interesting to read. Not perfect but all in all The Age of Misrule series was certainly worth reading.

Book Details
Title: Always Forever
Author: Mark Chadbourn
Publisher: Pyr
Pages: 469
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59102-741-6
First published: 2001