Shadows of Falling Night

Shadowspawn #3

by S.M. Stirling

She’s back....
 
Near-purebred Homo nocturnus Adrian Brézé and his human mate, Ellen, thought they had dealt with his twin sister, Adrienne. In fact, they thought she was dead.
 
But she survived and now leads a faction of the Shadowspawn—the ancient, shape-shifting, blood-drinking breed who secretly control the world—that wants to leave just enough of the human race alive to satisfy their hunger and serve their needs. She has nothing but hatred and contempt for her brother, who remains on the side of humanity, fighting with the Brotherhood against the Shadowspawn.
 
To defeat him, she has suborned his mentor—the greatest warrior of the Brotherhood. The man thinks he’s bringing a weapon to the Council of Shadows that will wipe out the Shadowspawn’s leaders. In truth, his actions will make Adrienne demon-goddess of the world...unless Adrian and Ellen can turn him back in time.
 

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Fiction, Vampires, Horror, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

448 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2013

About the author

Stephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.

MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)

I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.

Reviews

[Star · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received ‘Shadows of Falling Night’ from the publisher for review, but I’d never read the first two books in the trilogy. When I started the book, I felt really lost and I couldn't get into the story or the characters. I feel you have to read the first two books to understand and enjoy ‘Shadows of Falling Night’. This was a ‘Did Not Finish’ for me.

Shadowspawn series: A Taint in the Blood (1), The Council of Shadows (2), Shadows of Falling Night (3)

[Kathy Davie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Third in the Shadowspawn urban fantasy series about a Shadowspawn plot to take over the world.

My Take
This story finds Ellen and Adrian sharing near-equal billing with Adrian's children with a little genetic selection at the very start of this tale. Why do wanna-be bad guys always think they're immune?

It's a series of chases involving various groups with the logistics of who is chasing whom and the whys of it constantly changing. It's also a trip through our own nightmares as wolves chase down the children and their guardians through the dark and scary woods. Betrayal, assassination, and pure selfishness abound.

I do love Stirling's attention to food in this series. Reading his stories always makes me so hungry, at least when I'm not being grossed out.

A nice step out from the horror of it when Ellen explains Bouguereau's painting style to Adrian. I also enjoyed Stirling's incorporation of really ancient history---Stone Age-ancient---to explain evolution, stability, humanity's path. Although, Stirling's more recent history in the naming of various monsters of history as Shadowspawn is rather terrifying and would certainly explain a lot!

The backstory in this one includes more about the Brézé family and the part individual members have played in the past. I love the underground "lair" Adrian has beneath his Santa Fe house.

"Now his aetheric form has perished as well. Just as one might expect, his death came at the most inconvenient possible moment and has cost and will cost us all a great deal of trouble. Would he have wished it any other way?"

Stirling uses a lot of psychology in this. Practical applications: the difference between emotional patterns and logical ones. The Stockholm Syndrome that finds Monica accepting her role as part of the natural order! Ick..!! Whatever would Darwin think?

The Story
Harvey has hijacked the nuclear bomb with the intention of destroying as many of the Shadowspawn adepts as possible at their Council meeting in Tbilisi. The humans in the area? There's collateral damage in any war. And it is war with the choices between Trimback One, a global EMP pulse, and Trimback Two, plague.

It's a case of one side believing they have some leeway while the other side is carefully herding them all where she wants them. That there are additional traps along the way are simply a bonus.

The Characters
Ellen Brézé is Adrian's now and future while Adrienne views her as her past---and future victim. She's also a submissive married to a dominating adept, Adrian Brézé, the most human of the Shadowspawn, even if he can shapeshift into a sabretooth tiger!

Eusebia "Cheba" Cortines and the former-detective Eric Salvador are guarding Adrian's children, Leila and Leon, at Adrian's Santa Fe house. Eric feels as though he's back under fire in Afghanistan without support while Cheba simply wants payback and a chance at a better life. Dr. Peter Boase is the scientist kidnapped by Adrienne and then allowed to believe he had escaped. He's been working with DProfessor Duquesne, another physicist, on a presience-blocking generator---the Boase Effect. Now he's on the run with Cheba, Eric, and the children.

Harvey Ledbetter is one of the Brotherhood and the man who kidnapped, then raised Adrian with human morals. Anjali Guha and Jack Farmer are also with the Brotherhood, but they're hunting Harvey to stop him, worried that he's under Adrienne's control. Greta Hannay is the grandmother who better understands the old ways.

Adrienne Brézé is Adrian's evil twin. She's beautiful, brilliant, and a psychopathic Shadowspawn totally addicted to sadism. Monica Darton is one of Adrienne's human, well, servants addicted to Adrienne's brand of pain. Josh and Sophia are Monica's children. Theresa Villegas is a renfield, Adrienne's household manager. Her family has served the Brézés for centuries back on Rancho Sangre. David Cheung is another of her renfields.

Dale Shadowblade is a Shadowspawn assassin and working for? with? Adrienne; he shifts into an owl. Kai is the psychopathic b8tch with a small ability to Wreak Dale keeps around to feed from, to almost kill. Dimitri Pavlovich Usov is another of her gang.

Étienne-Maurice Brézé is the Duc de Beauloup, lord of the Council of Shadows, and the twins' great-great-grandfather; Seraphine Brézé is his wife. Arnaud Brézé is his brother with an unexpected flexibility in preferring a modification of the past rather than a strict return to it. He's also Adrian's great-great-uncle.

The Tōkairin currently rule California after taking it over from the Brézés, although Michiko and Grandfather are dead. The al-Lanarkis have a preference for shapeshifting into cave hyenas. The von Trupps are into wolves. Standartenführer Alberich von Trupp was part of the Wannsee Conference. Now he's simply post-corporeal.

Henri is a human idiot about to be lunch. Jessica and Todd Bertsch were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shadowspawn are what we readers would consider vampires, loup-garou, sorcerers, oni, ghouls, incubus/succubus, and more. This particular brand is simply more psychopathic, and most are post-corporeal. They rule the world from behind the scenes.
The Council of Shadows are the leaders of the Shadowspawn with a plan to take the world back and rule it openly. The Order of the Black Dawn formed when Shadowspawn recognized what they were; they have been manipulating their genes and training in the use of their magic since the turn of the 19th century. The Albermann scale measures one's ability to manipulate energies, to do Wreaking. Mhabrogast is the demon language the Shadowspawn use to work their magics.

Lucies are food; renfields are humans who choose to serve. The Brotherhood started out as witch-finders, humans with an ability to Wreak. Too much ability and they became Hitlers, Pol Pots, Leopolds.

Catching up...
Jose is married and retired from the lucy business.

The Cover
The cover is a golden glow as Adrian, with a knife in his hand, prepares to battle a wolf as choppers approach in the skies of Paris.

The title does not hold out hope, as even at the end there are Shadows of Falling Night.

[Jon]

This third installment in the Shadowspawn series doesn't seem to quite have the (pardon the expression) bite of the first one. It's as if Stirling has gotten everyone hooked on the series, and now can settle in to make it as long as possible, selling more books along the way. I remember something similar happening with the Left Behind series towards the end, when one day's worth of events would fill and entire volume, putting us no closer to the resolution of Revelations.

The Shadow Council is on the move, coalescing to a gathering in Tblisi, where they will vote on which option to take with regards to "thinning the herd" of humans; EMP to destroy technology, or plague to kill the masses without spoiling the fruits of industry. Harvey Ledbetter, of the Brotherhood, is also moving towards that dark reunion, with a nuclear weapon in his back pocket, figuratively speaking. He hopes to detonate it near the conference, killing a large portion of the Shadowspawn and making the Brotherhood's overall mission of defeating the remainder much simpler.

Adrienne Breze wants Harvey to succeed in his plot for her own reasons. If the old discorporeal leaders are killed by the radiation from the nuclear blast, she can assume leadership of the council and have her own reign of terror when she releases the plague. Adrian Breze and his wife, Ellen, are trying to foil both Harvey and Adrienne's schemes, while behaving reasonably politely towards the rest of his relatives. Adrienne's minions attempt to kidnap back hers and Adrian's children, which prompts a nightmare flight by Eric (the former detective), Peter (former renfield and physicist who has discovered a way to mask humans from the power wielded by the Shadowspawn), and Chiba (peasant girl who wants vengeance on Adrienne) across the face of Europe, trying to reunite the children with their father before another assassin gets to them first.

Some good twisty plot elements and a very surprising ending which should twist things in an interesting direction in the next book, which I trust will be forthcoming when Stirling needs some more money.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the thrilling conclusion of the Shadowspawn trilogy. And SM Sterling gives us the best book in the series. Murders, deceptions, plots and threats consume the shadowspawn in this novel and our hero strives to save the world form the monsters. It is harder to describe the plot in this one as almost anything I say will be a spoiler for the previous two books. Sterling gives a masterful conclusion to the story, rewards characters for being the good guys, gives the bad guys their just deserts, and leaves the world a better place. At we think so. I find myself wanting more and can think of ways to take ends that look wrapped up and unravel them just enough to give us more stories in this world, but if we never return we can feel satisfied with this conclusion. Thank you Mr Sterling for a great tale well crafted.

[Michael Nalbone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rushed Ending.

[Carl Palmateer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously a sequel is to be expected. Remember Chekov's gun.

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I'm glad that's over. I'd say the Shadowspawn trilogy is a case where there's a lot of promise at the start and things rapidly go downhill after, but that's wrong both because there wasn't actually that much promise in A Taint in the Blood, and the fact that the ending of this makes it pretty clear that Stirling wants to write more books. Which is frustrating, because it definitely feels like with an editor and much better pacing, the story of this trilogy could be condensed to one or two volumes, and whatever full story Stirling wishes to tell could be told in a sensible trilogy. This isn't quite as bad as the previous novel, since there's an actually kinda coherent plot in which stuff happens. And yet it's almost as boring. I don't really care about most of the characters, especially not Ellen and Adrian - they're far too good and flawless to be interesting. Oh, yes, they do allegedly have flaws, but they're told, not shown, and they don't make our "heroes" any less annoyingly overpowered. Adrian's evil sister is almost an interesting character, but she doesn't quite make it - maybe if she was the protagonist instead of her insufferably "good" twin. There are some kinda neat bits in the plot, but all too often pages are wasted on what everyone is eating and what sort of art or architecture they're looking at. There's a sequence in the last quarter of the novel in which one of Adrienne's walking bloodbanks initiates a couple on their honeymoon into the world of being food for vampire wizard monster things. And it would actually be pretty good - if it had been in book one. By placing it here, it just further robs the novel of the space to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. Instead, there's a muddle of a climax in which little actual interesting or exciting stuff happens, and there's very little of an idea of what's actually happened as a result of the characters' actions. If I was more emotionally or financially invested in this book, I'd be pretty pissed off. As it is, I'm too bored and uninterested to care. I do still want to try Stirling's alt-history novels some time, because I've heard good things about them, but based on this, it seems safe to say that he's totally awful at writing vampires.

[Chris Bauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the final installment of Stirling's "other" series. I've read the first 2 books and largely enjoyed them.

Stirling does an admirable job of weaving together ancient mythology, folklore and occult with notions of quantum physics and other high end theoretical sciences to create a pretty unique world-setting.

In addition his attention to detail is impressive, almost like walking through the streets of Istanbul, Rome and Florence.

There were, however, a couple of aspects which prevented me from enjoying the work completely;

- Some of the dialogue was so insipid and pointless to the story, it became amusing. While being chased by bad guys the two protags would muse upon the nature of a particular architecture or discuss other esoteric topics.

- While the fight scenes were very detailed, they also became tedious at times. Just because a character has heightened perceptions we don't need to be provided with exhaustive details during such action scenes.

- The climax of the book (series?) was predictable and seen hundreds of pages before via heavy handed foreshadowing, like a heavyweight champ actually winding up their right arm to throw a haymaker.

The series itself is worth it in terms of pure originality and scope. Furthermore some of the technical aspects Stirling uses in his books are worth reviewing just for the novelty of how an accomplished author can "bend the rules" of writing to create a good story.

But, all in all, I'm afraid this final book was the weakest of the three.

[Leons1701 · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, the title's a bit silly sounding. But it's also quite deliberate that it could be a synonym for twilight. Because you can't do a supernatural romance (and this is one, just with Stirling's typical nasty twist to it) without people thinking of Twilight (and there's even one direct reference in the story). The stakes are pretty high on this one as Ellen and Adrian must chase down their former ally before he can set off a nuke under the Council of Shadows. Which sounds like a pretty good idea, until you realize he got it from Adrian's utterly evil twin sister, who certainly has something sinister in mind. Oh, and of course the Council is meeting in the middle of a city, so lots of "collateral damage" is likely. Perhaps a bit overly focused on what people are wearing or eating at times and you know it's obtrusive if I took notice of it, but still a pretty good installment. Certainly not a finale however.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this is in fact the final book of the series, it was a pretty lousy ending. There's a lot of travelling, a character changing sides for no apparent reason, finally some real action in the last forty pages and a resolution that still has me scratching my head and wondering just whose body was the body at the end.

I will assume, since nothing is really resolved, that this is just the conclusion of a first trilogy, and that there will be more books later. I'm just not sure I'll be reading any of them. I really enjoy Stirling's books, but this one just left me shaking my head and wondering why I bothered to read all the way to the end.

(of course, part of the problem may be that I don't think I even read book two, but didn't really realize that until just now)

[Kurt Vosper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good follow up to the previous two books, but I had thought it was supposed to be the last book. The end however left me thinking that this isn't the last book?
Regardless, I enjoyed the majority of the book, it was much more action packed than the last two but I felt the end was rushed. Based on the pace of the rest of the book the final chase from the shores of the Black Sea to the church and the confrontation between the Breze's felt very quick, almost as though a deadline needed to be met. Very un-Stirling in that way.
Overall, a good read if you are a fan of Stirling or the supernatural.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brain bleach. Sigh. I read Stirling so I read his vampire horror. Clearly a mistake. At least its a different sort of vampire series - it also includes shape-shifting and torture and a certain amount of BDSM usually off-screen but only barely. And it's slow moving on top of that. And yet I do like some of the characters - this could have been an enjoyable story. Call it 2.5 of 3.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think this is Mr. Stirling's best work. If this is the end of the trilogy as it claims to be it was rushed and the ending was not nearly as satisfying as it could be. Of course the ending as written allows much more to be written at a later date. I'd like to see that happen because there are questions to be answered in a future book.

[DeAnna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I've completed this trilogy is that I usually enjoy S.M. Stirling, but this was really not his best work. Also, the end makes me suspect it's not going to be a trilogy after all. I think this series is just a little too lurid for my taste, and I don't plan to continue reading any future novels in it.

[Billie's Not So Secret Diary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointed in this book, but if you like blah, blah, blah, explanation, explanation, and a very quick ending to the book and the series, then you may enjoy it. The first book in this series was good, the second, OK, this one, I should never have bothered. As for reading other books by S.M. Stirling, no. Twice now he has disappointed me, not wanting a third.

[Jenny Clifford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually enjoy books with vampires that are somewhat scary (as opposed to glittering...), and I was intrigues by the genetic breeding element to these creatures, but I didn't find the books all that interesting. Probably because I just couldn't get into the main character, Adrian. It was an interesting enough series to finish it, but that's about it.

[Starfire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I gave it a couple of chapters, but it's just not where my brain's at right now and I don't have the patience for it.

Much like the first two - I want to like it... but the writing just isn't working for me, damnit

[Jeffrey Schmieder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the Shadowspawn world Stirling created, rich vampire families living large and preying on us mortals, but the story seems to be running out of gas by book three. Would love to see some good authors let loose in this world.

[Hank · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good ending for the series. A little wicked.

[David Marshall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost completely unreadable.

http://opionator.wordpress.com/2013/0...

[EJ MACK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really happy about this ending because it held too many strings. Book 4?

[David Weems · Rating 3 out of 5]

I good finish to the series ... same comments apply to this volume as to its two predecessors.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good ending. Wraps enough up to BE an ending, but leaves enough room that Stirling could write more if he wanted. Enjoyed this series a lot.

[Mike Ratner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a strong as the second book but the ending deserves its own star.

[Heather Larcombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

He could probably continue this world. I probably wouldn't read it if he did.

[Nicole Luiken]

Another Sunburst Award read, so no rating or review.