Gods in Darkness

Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: After reading much of the reviews of these books, I decided to give a try. A long time fan of sword and sorcery, I wanted to find a character that could meld the action of Conan and the thinking of Elric. Sadly, Kane failed to complete this. Instead, what Wagner creates is a pathetic combination of the two, a character who has promise but due to Wagner's lack of writing skill, absolutely fails to meet this. On one page, he must use the word cyclopean at least six times to describe six different things. Furthermore he uses about 10 pages to describe something that should have taken about a page. It seems he was trying to show how intelligent he was by using big words. I'm sorry, but when I'm reading heroic fantasy, I don't want to pull out a dictionary.
Now onto the story. It is only so-so and is brought down by the pathetic writing of Wagner. We are introduced to a the character of Kane, the same one from the bible. Now that sounds pretty kewl, I mean, the concept of the man cursed by God to wonder the Earth should be a straight foward, awesome character with clear adventurous stories in historical settings. Sadly, this doesn't happen. Wagner fails to use the religious aspects of the character and instead of taking off of Howard's Hyborean age, he mixes ancient civilizations with Alien artifacts. then at the very end, Wagner remembers that Kane was cursed by God and has Kane say something absolutely stupid, after killing these aliens he says, "Oh how horrendous it is, to be cursed by a god to live forever!" A god?! Try the only God!
To wrap it up, don't believe the hype. This book is written for the literatti who would be too embarrased to read Robert E Howard. The writing style totally goes against the grain of the Swordplay and sorcery type and wastes an excellent character. If you, like I, are looking for good s&s, try Robert Adams' Horseclans series, Robert Howard's Conan, Casca the Mercenary, and even Edgar Rice Burroughs. But overall, DON'T BUY THIS BOOK, IT'S A WASTE!!!!

Rating:
Summary: dark fantasy at it's finest!
Review: Gods in darkness is stunning dark fantasy containing three novels about unforgettable anti-hero named Kane.Kane is cursed to wander the world immoral until he is destroyed by the violence that he himself has created!the first book:Bloodstone, Kane has found a ring that part of ancient alien empire that will give him incredible power which he will use for conquest not knowing that he himself is being used by the Ring's sinsister masters in the bid to enslaving the planet! This story itself has terrifying scenes of monsters, magic and battles as Kane uses his army of froglike beasts in pursue of his goal!
Second Book: Dark Crusade finds Kane joining forces with fanatical cult leader who seeks to conquer kingdom with the use of dark magic and finally in Darkness Weaves: Kane aids a depraved and hideous sorecress who wants to reclaim her empire
by using a ancient race of aquatic demons and their advance technology! This book is brilliant marriage of horror of Lovecraft with violent swashbuckling of Robert Howard. Wagner's world-building skills are awesome and lyrical prose which heigtens the atmosphere of his dark world!Wagner's descriptions of gruesome and bloody battle scenes and intrigue and betrayal will have you turning pages all through the night! You may not like Kane, who acts more of a villian than hero but you can't stop reading about him and his dark adventures as his hunger for power almost consumes him and his world!

Rating:
Summary: dark fantasy at it's finest!
Review: Gods in darkness is stunning dark fantasy containing three novels about unforgettable anti-hero named Kane.Kane is cursed to wander the world immoral until he is destroyed by the violence that he himself has created!the first book:Bloodstone, Kane has found a ring that part of ancient alien empire that will give him incredible power which he will use for conquest not knowing that he himself is being used by the Ring's sinsister masters in the bid to enslaving the planet! This story itself has terrifying scenes of monsters, magic and battles as Kane uses his army of froglike beasts in pursue of his goal!
Second Book: Dark Crusade finds Kane joining forces with fanatical cult leader who seeks to conquer kingdom with the use of dark magic and finally in Darkness Weaves: Kane aids a depraved and hideous sorecress who wants to reclaim her empire
by using a ancient race of aquatic demons and their advance technology! This book is brilliant marriage of horror of Lovecraft with violent swashbuckling of Robert Howard. Wagner's world-building skills are awesome and lyrical prose which heigtens the atmosphere of his dark world!Wagner's descriptions of gruesome and bloody battle scenes and intrigue and betrayal will have you turning pages all through the night! You may not like Kane, who acts more of a villian than hero but you can't stop reading about him and his dark adventures as his hunger for power almost consumes him and his world!

Rating:
Summary: An amateur production
Review: I've read the first of the three novels in this omnibus edition, and it was something of a disappointment on two levels. The first level is a matter of taste; I don't really like the writing style or the characters. (The plot is average for this sort of thing.) Wagner is very wordy, constructing long descriptions that employ "fancy" words like "eldritch" and "coruscating" and labor much too hard to build up an oppressive and dark atmosphere. (Wagner seems to be working under the influence of H. P. Lovecraft, but in my opinion the Lovecraft bleakness and over the top verbosity don't mesh well with an invincible-and-immortal-like-John-Carter lead character.) Kane is some kind of superhero, the best swordfighter in the land, the best archer in the land, a skilled diplomat and spy, a gifted scholar and expert on occult subjects, etc., as well as an unsympathetic brute and backstabber. The rest of the characters are cardboard cannon fodder. If you want to read sword fighting adventure stories with monsters and/or wizardry, I recommend trying Burrough's Mars books, Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser "Swords" books, or Moorcock's Elric and Corum books before this. Even Lin Carter's silly Callisto books were more fun.

Even if I had liked Wagner's tale, I still would have been disappointed with Night Shade Book's poor production of this omnibus edition. The part of Gods in Darkness that I read is full of typos; I swear every third page has a glaring error on it, like a period in the middle of a sentence, a spelling mistake, or what have you. (Could these be artifacts of the electronic scanning of an old manuscript?) Also, different pages are printed in different fonts; compare pages 17, 28, and 29... I swear these are three different fonts. Anyway, I have a first edition, perhaps Night Shade will resolve some of these issues in later printings.

Rating:
Summary: An amateur production
Review: I've read the first of the three novels in this omnibus edition, and it was something of a disappointment on two levels. The first level is a matter of taste; I don't really like the writing style or the characters. (The plot is average for this sort of thing.) Wagner is very wordy, constructing long descriptions that employ "fancy" words like "eldritch" and "coruscating" and labor much too hard to build up an oppressive and dark atmosphere. (Wagner seems to be working under the influence of H. P. Lovecraft, but in my opinion the Lovecraft bleakness and over the top verbosity don't mesh well with an invincible-and-immortal-like-John-Carter lead character.) Kane is some kind of superhero, the best swordfighter in the land, the best archer in the land, a skilled diplomat and spy, a gifted scholar and expert on occult subjects, etc., as well as an unsympathetic brute and backstabber. The rest of the characters are cardboard cannon fodder. If you want to read sword fighting adventure stories with monsters and/or wizardry, I recommend trying Burrough's Mars books, Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser "Swords" books, or Moorcock's Elric and Corum books before this. Even Lin Carter's silly Callisto books were more fun.

Even if I had liked Wagner's tale, I still would have been disappointed with Night Shade Book's poor production of this omnibus edition. The part of Gods in Darkness that I read is full of typos; I swear every third page has a glaring error on it, like a period in the middle of a sentence, a spelling mistake, or what have you. (Could these be artifacts of the electronic scanning of an old manuscript?) Also, different pages are printed in different fonts; compare pages 17, 28, and 29... I swear these are three different fonts. Anyway, I have a first edition, perhaps Night Shade will resolve some of these issues in later printings.

Rating:
Summary: Three Books in One!
Review: Kane fans probablly already have the 3 books that have been bound together in this one: "Bloodstone", "Darkness Weaves" and "Dark Crusade".
But if you're new to Kane books or don't have any of the above novels, it is a great collection. "Darkness Weaves" and "Dark Crusade" are two of my favorites, but I was hoping for a COMPLETE collection of his stories and felt a tad cheated. There is a new collection of Kane stories coming out in September, so if you're undecided you might want to wait and see what that one contains before forking over the money. Of course, this book does have a great map on the inside cover showing Wagner's Elder Earth.

Rating:
Summary: Three Books in One!
Review: Kane fans probablly already have the 3 books that have been bound together in this one: "Bloodstone", "Darkness Weaves" and "Dark Crusade".
But if you're new to Kane books or don't have any of the above novels, it is a great collection. "Darkness Weaves" and "Dark Crusade" are two of my favorites, but I was hoping for a COMPLETE collection of his stories and felt a tad cheated. There is a new collection of Kane stories coming out in September, so if you're undecided you might want to wait and see what that one contains before forking over the money. Of course, this book does have a great map on the inside cover showing Wagner's Elder Earth.

Rating:
Summary: The Mind of an Immortal
Review: Wagner's stories about Kane are not simply dark fantasy at it's best. It shows the influence of immortality on a human being. From our (mortal) point of view Kane looks quite evil until you understand that for Kane reality is totally different. He is the only constant thing in a world of change. Empires rise and fall but he stays the same. It's Wagner's greatest achievement to give us a look into the workings of a mind you can no longer consider simply human.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Dark Fantasy
Review: What I'm Reading: GODS IN DARKNESS - Karl Edward Wagner

When Karl Edward Wagner began writing his Kane stories in 1970 he inherited the legacy of the barbarian hero from Robert E. Howard. Howard had almost single-handedly created sword-and-sorcery with his works, but Wagner - in creating his character of Kane - not only went back to the roots which had been planted by Conan and Kull (as so many other pale imitators had done), but also infused those roots with the rich traditions of fantasy and horror which had blossomed in the forty years since Howard had died.

Kane is one part Elric, one part Conan, but a creation all his own. His tales inherit the purity of Howard's barbarism, but also reach back into Howard's own influences to crank up the elements of Lovecraftian horror. You can feel the influences of Moorcock, Leiber, Moore, and Tolkien bubbling beneath the surface.

To this rich tradition, Wagner brought his own natural talent for the fantastical and the horrific, telling his stories with a brutal, beautiful prose.

GODS IN DARKNESS, from Night Shade Books, is a collection of all three of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane novels: BLOODSTONE, DARK CRUSADE, and DARKNESS WEAVES. It has a sister volume, THE MIDNIGHT SUN, which collects all of the Kane short stories.

BLOODSTONE
Unfortunately, the first novel in this collection is almost certainly the weakest. Perhaps the most persistent and grating problem here is Wagner's infatuation with the thesaurus, coupled with an inordinate amount of obvious pleasure taken in finding the most obscure terms possible. The intention appears to an evocation of Lovecraftian prose, but the effect which Lovecraft so expertly crafts is rendered impotent through the sheer tenacity with which Wagner pursues it.

The plot, while strong in many regards, is conveyed in an episodic fashion - with many events relegated off-stage with description or narration. The effect, in later works, is to keep the action focused on the primary cast of characters - seeing their place and their reactions within a large world. In BLOODSTONE, however, the effect is disjointed and further weakened by the fact that most of the characters (with the exception of Kane himself) have strong taints of the cliché about them.

Coming to BLOODSTONE I had heard that Wagner was something of a hidden gem in the sword-and-sorcery genre: A writer whose talents compared favorably to Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock - but whose career had been cut tragically short by an early death. Reading BLOODSTONE, I was disappointed to discover an author of only mediocre skill.

DARK CRUSADE
Fortunately, the second novel in the collection is DARK CRUSADE, which should be on the reading list for any fan of sword-and-sorcery.

I don't know if BLOODSTONE was just an early work which took its time getting into print, if Wagner was simply rushed or off his rhythm while writing it, or if Wagner had a major breakthrough between '75 and '76: Whatever the case may be, everything which was only nascent mediocrity in BLOODSTONE comes together in DARK CRUSADE to craft a top notch novel.

One of the interesting things to note about Kane is that, unlike his fellow heroes-in-arms, Kane frequently finds himself on the wrong side of a conflict. Conan finds a crown when he joins a just rebellion against a tyrannical king. Kane seeks empire, and frequently allies himself with any power which becomes convenient or available. He believes that he can overcome whatever flaws or corruption exist within the power base he takes advantage of, but finds - time and time again - that the flaws and corruption are inherent to the power. As a result, Kane often finds himself in a role which would be villainous if it were not for his own nature as an anti-hero: Often he destroys his own dreams in an attempt to purify them of a tarnish which cannot be removed.

It is this dark depth of contradiction and tragic flaw - a wisdom and strength coupled with folly and weakness - which makes the character of Kane so infinitely fascinating. Like all of the great sword-and-sorcery tales, it is not the plot of pulp adventure which makes the stories of Kane a compelling read: It is the careful drawing of their larger-than-life protagonist.

DARKNESS WEAVES
The third novel in GODS IN DARKNESS is on the same playing field as the second. If anything, DARKNESS WEAVES represents an improvement over the craft and skill which went into the telling of DARK CRUSADE. Notably, a more complex cast of characters is invested with more detail, drawn in more depth, and (as a result) given greater significance.

Ultimately, none of these novels impressed me with the quality of Howard's THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON or Leiber's "Lean Times in Lankhmar". But DARK CRUSADE and DARKNESS WEAVES are both classics - and if I want to see more of the war in DARK CRUSADE and more of the twin romances in DARKNESS WEAVES, that's only a testament to the strength of what's already on the page.