Into the Darkness

Darkness #1

by Harry Turtledove

When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness.

For modern magic is deadlier than in ears past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime.

Against this tapestry Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

Genres: Fantasy, Alternate History, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, War, Science Fiction

607 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.

Reviews

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First and foremost I have to say I've tried reading this book since the seventh grade. At first I was impressed by the dragon and what not on the cover, but as I actually tried to read it I was severely daunted by the fact the character listing is five pages long. Despite that, I still tried to read and only managed to get past the first chapter before deciding this was not worth my time and considered it confusing and very boring. Years later I bought the book, and soon the other five followed and they've been sitting on my bookcase for quite some time.

Well, I picked it up again and though it was still a ridiculously tough read; boredom struck whenever character development was attempted. I finished it and am now going to read my way through the remaining part of the series. And I don't know how that happened. I'm not particularly interested in alternate universe type of stories and nor am I savvy in the elaborate and intricate histories of World War 2. There is just this sense of...charm, I guess, to it that made me grudgingly want to read the others. I mean once you figure out what countries in the book reflect the ones in real life, you pretty much have the whole general story summed up.

So why am I still drawn to it? There's too many characters to become attached to so you pretty much stay away from liking anyone of them because you're more concerned with keeping names straight rather than worrying about what fresh hell they're going through. But yet, you still feel bad for the viewpoint characters when something does happen; like this unwanted love some how sprang out of nowhere like some disease. Sure you don't like being around people who are sick, but you still love and feel bad for the guys anyway when they become worse or, karma cap, die. Chapters drawl on for pages where, quite literally, nothing develops. It's supposed to expose who the designated viewpoint characters are, but you find yourself flipping forward a few more pages to see how much is left until a new view point character is brought in.

I find myself drawn into this world thinking about how it relates to actual history, but I soon forget completely that this is based off of a real situation and get sucked in. It doesn't make any sense. I enjoy how he replaces "modern" technology with that of the fantasy realm, however, despite all of my mindless nit picking.

Which also makes Turtledove a good author if he can pull that off. If can't be the only person in the world who actually thought this way and yet still chugged through the rest of the series. I just hope the next book won't be a let down considering I've got a lot more books to read...

[Helle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 100 or so pages you get a complete people and location overload. I guess I should have seen that coming, considering the detailed map and the five and a half pages long list of characters…
Then there are all the political relations between countries, which are changing all the time as well. Wars are ending and starting all over the place.

So I expected it would be hard to keep track. For some people it may even be a reason to stop right there, but strangely enough it was pretty entertaining, probably because of the diversity of the characters.

The stories are told from the perspectives of a lot of different people (ref above mentioned list) with all kinds of different characters, functions and levels in society. Because of these differences the storylines are easier to keep apart than I expected and it also makes it interesting. The viewpoint characters are smart, irritating, boring, nice, naïve, arrogant, stupid, mean and everything in between.

So, all these different characters and cultures were a lot of fun, but as a result there is no real (group of) “hero(es)”, no obvious person(s) to identify with, to support through hardships and adventures. Does it matter? I don’t think so, but it is definitely a change from other fantasy I’ve read.

There is plenty of fantasy: Harry Turtledove does a marvellous job replacing technology with magic. Using dragons as bombers is pretty cool, as well as slightly insane.

The similarities to WWII dawned on me rather late. Comparing the fictional countries to real-life added some fun to reading, although some are still a mystery to me. Possibly because I’m no expert on WWII: my knowledge is limited to a few countries.

All in all I really enjoyed reading Into the Darkness, but I find rating it rather difficult: 3 or 4 stars? My feeling says 4 stars, but when I compare it to some other fantasy I’ve read I think it’s more like 3. I’ll stick to 3 stars for now, but may consider improving when I have read more of the Darkness series.
Update July 2016: I realized that I really enjoyed this book very much and it made me look forward to the rest of the series. My initial feeling was right: it is definitely worth 4 stars!

[Sjoerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent read, and it was quite interesting at certain points. There were parts that I liked, but also things that I disliked.

One of the things that I really enjoyed, and which quite surprised me, was that the dragons (which function as a substitute for air planes) are not portrayed as mythical or wise creatures. They are basically treated as normal animals, and portrayed as very stupid animals at that. This might seem a weird thing to like, but I found it to be quite refreshing. It's an original aspect of the story, and, in my opinion made the concept of dragons far more interesting.

Another part that I liked were subtle ironies (or at least what I perceived to be ironies) that Turtledove put in in reference to WWII. For example, for Adolf Hitler, the ideal soldier was tall, blond and had blue eyes. In "Into the Darkness", the Kaunians (whom are the substitutes for the people of the Jewish population) are the tall blondes instead. I don't know whether Turtledove did this on purpose, but I noticed it and I liked it.

Things that I did not like were that the author seemed to have a very limited vocabulary for certain aspects of the story. Eggs (the equivalent of bombs) for example, are forever thrown by "egg-tossers", I don't think he used a different word for it even once. Furthermore, when the eggs were carried by dragons, they were always "dropped". They did not just fall, or rain down from the sky, they were just dropped. Now this might seem like only a minor thing, but at a certain point I had read these words so often that they actually started to annoy me. I think it's a shame, because I feel like it would have been just that much better had he put in a little bit of variety in his choice of words.

This was also the first book where I could not actually distinguish between characters. When I'd start reading a new part with a different viewpoint again, for example I'd think the character that was 'telling the story' was a Valmieran, and then he'd turn out to be an Algarvian (Valmiera and Algarve are on opposite sides in the war). Some of the male characters especially were sometimes hard to distinguish from the others, since they mostly all had a single goal; they were all hoping they could win the war so they could get some sexual intercourse with some pretty or willing lady.

In the end, however, this was not a bad read at all. I will definitely finish the series someday, because the concept interests me quite a lot. Some story lines especially managed to capture my attention, and now I am curious about how those will continue. We'll see about that when I start book II, Darkness Descending.

[C. Scott Kippen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a 2.5. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I love the idea of re-telling, re-seating World War II in a fantasy settings. It has all the ingredients for a really cool re-telling. Dragons, behemoths, leviathans. unicorns with nations using them as tools of war. However, Turtledove has never been an easy read for me. His writing is neither evocative or clean or beautiful. It is serviceable. History for him is what is important, and that is fine.

Where this novel (and I expect series) fails is there are too many places, too many characters in too many places going on. He fails because he tries to re-tell the entire war with a gigantic cast of characters. I had to have cheat sheet with all of the POV characters and where they reside, so I could keep track of them. With such a big cast, everyone but a tiny few (like a couple) are just flat, cardboard characters and never grow. Maybe this improves as the series moves on, but right now, its disappointing. So much could be interesting here, but it is a cool setting full of uninteresting people in the midst of war.

I will try Darkness Descending and see if it improves.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this would be really great since I've heard that Turtledove is a great writer of alternate military history, and being set in a fantasy world full of dragons, behemoths, unicorns, and sorcery,where would I go wrong? For me, there were about five different nations to keep track of, and unlike The Lord of the Rings, which I gotta say, towards the end of the series....I was getting bored. Get to Mordor already! But I digress...
I am able to mostly keep the characters straight, the storyline just isn't keeping my attention, which mostly surrounds how each nation strategizes to wage war on the other. That, and the characters are out of the middle ages, but have sorcery....but still have to deal with headlice? Isn't there a spell for that?

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

World War II certainly looms large over the modern day, and it's no surprise to have stories influenced by it in many genres. And of course Turtledove has written plenty of alternate history takes on it and other wars. But this book stands out in a fun way for being pretty literally fantasy World War II. Yes, there are other books out there that are World War II with magic and monsters, but here many of the conflicts and figures of the war are used as the basis for a global war in a fantasy world.

This allows you to have some sense of the broad strokes of the plot and get pleasure from recognizing parallels while still being invested in the story because you don't know exactly what will happen to specific characters. Even in an alternate history, you've got a good sense what to expect of the major historical figures, and minor characters that might get introduced can have surprises but there's still a sense that you know somewhat how this will play out based on how close it hews to the original timeline. Here, though, I have some sense of what certain things are leading towards but it's hard to guess exactly.

And there's a ton of varied characters at different levels of the war, which helps keep me engaged as the story bounces from viewpoint to viewpoint. There's everything from a magical theorist involved in the wizard Manhattan Project to a teen boy in occupied territory with a cousin who seems like he's bound for the fantasy Hitler Youth. There are nobles and common soldiers and diplomats across all the different nations involved in the war. It helps the whole thing feel like a fantasy novel and not just a dry history.

It's also fun seeing how the weapons of World War II are adapted into a fantasy world. There are things equivalent to guns and bombs and tanks and fighter planes while carrying a distinct fantasy flavor. Admittedly, the magic staffs that exist just to shoot people are a little on the nose, but I'm a big fan of the dragons, behemoths (giant rhinos to judge by the cover art), leviathans, and unicorns that all come into play. While there's a little part of me that thinks it would be fun to have non-humans running around too, I recognize that elves and dwarves could quickly wind up with dicey implications depending on their side of the war.

I do feel like I was often left a bit vague about place and time. It seems over a year passed over the course of this book, but there's not a lot of specifics of dates and so while events are being told chronologically I wouldn't be able to begin to put together a timeline. And while there is a map at the front of the book, I still tended to feel somewhat unclear on details. This can be tricky when dealing with a war. It might've been nice to get a few smaller scale maps sprinkled in.

Overall, though, this is an enjoyable book whether you like fantasy or World War II, and especially enjoyable if you like both. This does end up feeling very much like a long story was chopped into chunks for publishing purposes, rather than coming to a proper climax at the end of this book. But that isn't inaccurate to how an actual war goes, even if it contrasts from the usual pacing of fantasy novels. I do want to read the rest of this series, though with all the other reading I've got on my plate, I'm not quite sure when I'll be getting to it.

[Globe · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8/5
This book itched a very particular spot for me in giving me a multi-pov perspective about living in war-time, that doesn’t stick to the same boring ww1 and ww2 time setting. Something that shows all the diplomatic, political and military moves made by the various actors involved. All of that with a pinch of magic and world-building.

Characters
The story follows a huge cast of characters. You have your pov characters and each has a large supporting cast of characters of their own. I can’t understate just how big a cast it is - ASOIAF level of depth. That will be an issue for some for various reasons such as not spending a lot of time with all the characters and the sheer madness of tracking everyone, who they are, what they do, what they’re about. Turtledove tries to mitigate that by having some of the military povs be present at most of the biggest battles and events. The utterly large cast of character imo gives the story a sense of realism. The world generally is vast and complicated - we all know many people; a lot of what we do depends on the actions and choices and views of many others individualsetc. The author having such a large cast gave a realistic insight into these peoples’ lives. In a sense, this book is several books in one.

This isn’t a character development focused book like other books, rather in this case, war is the main character. We gain insights from many types of people like soldiers, diplomats, “scientists”, ordinary village folk, - how their lives are touched by a war that seems to keep spreading, and essentially changes everything. Multiple pov adds richness to this.


I have two primary critiques. If you have a cast of 200 characters, who are living and experiencing a continental-wide war, perhaps more of the characters should be in more danger and at risk of losing their lives, than what we find happening in the book. The stakes don’t feel high enough. Everyone felt too safe. And that notion is kinda never dispelled. It needed to be a lil more asoiaf here imo. The second critique is the sameness of many, if not 90% of the male characters. I understand men are horny and sex is important, but like almost every man in this book constantly thinking in almost the exact same way about screwing the closest women in the vicinity, almost every one oggles and thinks derogatorily in the exact same manner. Most are crude and kinda got that r***ey mindset. Firstly, it essentially blends a bunch of povs together and makes it difficult to follow along. If you can’t differentiate between 5 different povs, they all become bland and boring. Nothing makes them stand out. And this isn’t a super clever meta commentary by the writer about men, bcs beside maybe 3 of the 12ish male POVs , all are written to think and react in the exact same way. In a similar sense, non pov women are written to be screaming swooning hordes ready to throw themselves at soldiers and allow them to be fondled etc. It’s just lazy bad writing imo, and give/ Turtledove an incel dimension. Or some mf living vicariously through his writing.

World-building
Most stories that are set in a different world tend to simplify the world building and make it too small. Whilst this world, or rather the southern continent of this world is still technically small, it’s bigger and has more variance and rich world building than other stories. I could easily see it being much smaller. It is essentially a fantasy version of ww2 but has a few other wars influences mixed in. There’s alot of parallels to our world, but it ain’t a straight up rip off. I love that the Algarvians are a mixtures of Germans, Italians and Scots. The Kaunian people being like the descendants of ancient romans but also a representatives of Jewish people. I see a lot of the historic parallels of what happened in our world with what is happening and where the story may lead to in the sequels. It won’t be the exact same, for that would be boring, but I’m also interested to see how it will all shape up. There’s also a lot of smaller stories that are more connected with the fantasy element that I’m interested in following too. I will give one world building critique though. The southern continent is essentially a version of Europe (yawn). You got Scandinavian/Northern European equivalent in the south, with the more Mediterranean/south European in the north. And then tacked on the north, nearer to the equator, you have a tiny peninsula where the black people live. And like they make a point that these are BLACK people that stand out from the rest of the southern continent. It’s just weird and makes no sense. A huge continent of Caucasians and a small peninsula of weird black people screams of orientalism. It really reads to me that Turtledove is a classic old white man and whilst didn’t have a problem writing this varied rich history for the white folks, he quickly added this small black nation to the edge of the map who have a unique trait of walking about their daily life naked bcs it’s too hot. It truly feels very disconnected in terms of world building, and reads like it’s written by an old fashioned white man. Oh also there a random island in the south with “slant eyed people”. “Blacks and Asians - check. Ok so back to the hordes of culturally rich white people.” It just doesn’t seem realistic, screams of outdated and bad writing. At least make the world building realistic and add depth to it. Away from that, the magic aspect and how it replicates some to the technological advanced stuff from our world is really interesting stuff. Can’t wait to keep exploring that stuff.

I enjoyed it a lot. Fast-paced, with some unique characters.

[Daniel Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author and editors made some choices in this book that really didn't work for me. Firstly, I have re-read the back of the book jacket to refresh myself on what it said to make sure I'm not putting expectations on this book that it isn't putting forth to the reader. I am happy to admit that I may have written checks for this book - note that I'm not referring to it as a novel - that it wasn't prepared to cash, nor volunteered to. That being said, I still don't like it very much for several main reasons I'll elaborate on below: it's too long, it's too repetitive, the cast of characters is too large, the author doesn't appear to have anything to say, the plot is predictable and uninteresting, and the fantastical aspects are incredibly underwhelming. Finally, this is a war book in which none of the multitudinous characters die. That felt unrealistic in what is otherwise a very realistic book. Perhaps we're only hearing from the perspectives of those who survived, but if so it would've made more sense to format the book as if it's being told around a campfire, or as if someone is reading a memoir of a survivor.

1+2) It's too long and to repetitive:
This book was a real slog for me to finish. I try really hard to finish books even when I'm not enjoying them because I get a weird sense of satisfaction from being able to articulate why I didn't like them and perhaps dissuade others who might not enjoy them to steer clear. Into the Darkness was hard to read. Harry Turtledove has taken WWII and reflected it through a mirror (almost verbatim from back of book) into a fantastical world that contains magic, dragons, and mythical beasts. This had enormous potential, and I was hoping for something similar to the also very long Century Trilogy books by Ken Follett. While Follett's books are even longer than the 684-page Into the Darkness, I found myself flying through the first one much faster than Turtledove's war story. The reasons for this are myriad and are detailed below, however suffice it to say that the characters and events feel both more impactful, unique, and just downright interesting than those in Into the Darkness. My opinion is that a lot of this book could've been cut out. Honestly, based on the extremely disappointing "ending" (it kind of just cuts off rather than ending naturally) I am struggling to understand why this book was written at all. It seems to try to adhere too much to real-world WWII events, and I think taking some more liberties with the chronology and plot would've been refreshing. As far as being repetitive, I understand that Turtledove gave himself a very difficult task by writing this book, and I tried very hard to respect it for what it is rather than what I was hoping for. Despite this, I found myself frequently reading almost identical passages as the Algarvians (the equivalent of Nazi Germany) practice the unheard-of art of Blitzkrieg again and again. This may be an accurate reflection of the Nazi campaign in the opening days and months of WWII, but it's really uninteresting to read over and over when the settings, characters, and events all feel like they've occurred before several times. To support this, I found a quote from the last 20 pages of the book: "[The Unkerlanters] weren't responding well, either, any more than Forthweg, Valmeira, or Jelgava had when Mezentio's men struck them." It's apparent just from this small snippet that the same battle tactic is used at least four times throughout the book. Each time, the characters react the same way, and each time the result is identical. Even the descriptions from each parallel passage are almost the same, and this got boring to read over and over. One additional related issue I had with Into the Darkness is that all the personal stories or momentous events that might have saved this type of book happen off-screen. We are treated to many scenes of the conquering Algarvians parading through almost identical capital cities, but we almost always skip over most of the interim between invasion and victory. The short passages we do get are all almost infuriatingly similar in tone, scope, and even actions. I think it's possible that Turtledove has become so prolific (like Stephen King), where perhaps editors are scared to say "no" or to tell the author that large portions of his work don't add anything to the story. This was a big problem for me that had me gritting my teeth trying to finish this book. If it was half a star worse, I may have abandoned it for the first time in years. Fortunately, Turtledove's excruciating attention to detail and relentless realism (mostly) brought just enough light for me to avoid giving up.

3) The cast of characters is too large:
There are 168 characters in this book. The Dramatis Personae section at the beginning of the book is seven pages long. 17 characters have their own unique viewpoints and chapters. This was too much. In a series like Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, or the aforementioned Century Trilogy, this many characters is more excusable (although I'd argue 168 is STILL too many) to convey such an expansive story that these authors are trying to lay out. They also do it over several books rather than one, which I'm grateful for. Turtledove's characters all felt like they were the same person. Even male and female characters from opposite ends of the fictitious world felt identical. This was a big problem for me when the cast is so large, because it's hard to tell which perspective we're following. Additionally, the small reference phrases like "coming from a farming background" or "the lifetime soldier" felt clunky and slapped on to try to mitigate this problem. It didn't work (for me). Every character felt as though he was a cookie-cutter and 2-dimensional. Maybe this was intended to convey to the reader that deep down, we all share similarities. If so, this was done in a ham-handed way that in my opinion didn't really shine through the avalanche of these characters' mundane moment-to-moment internal monologues. If these characters were significantly different from each other, this would maybe have gone down better. But as is, most of the characters are either career soldiers or have been pressed into service on the front lines. This extravagantly large cast of characters introduces another problem: I don't care about any of them. We spend so little time with each character as Turtledove tries to shoehorn all of them into the text that we never really get to know - and therefore care - about any of them in any depth. Even amongst the characters who got the most focus, none of them are likeable enough to root for. I would say there were three who felt they would've been good main characters: a volunteer in one of the first armies to be defeated who becomes a POW, a mage-turned-spy who genuinely seems to have a good heart and a sharp wit (we unfortunately almost never hear from him), and a naval special operations soldier who has a very sympathetic path.
I think it would've been beneficial to just focus on fewer of these perspectives since they all seem to have the same reactions to the same events, regardless of origin or allegiance. Just hearing the same thing from the opposite side of the battlefield isn't interesting to me.

4) The author doesn't appear to have anything to say:
This one really hurt my ability to suspend disbelief and follow along with Turtledove on his journey. Perhaps this is again due to my expecting a true novel, rather than what felt like a military planning exercise and I want to try to be lenient on this point, but I really felt disappointed by this and it may show through despite my efforts. I'm of the opinion that the best war stories have a message, or at least highlight a specific aspect of war that the author felt was so important that he needed to write a book. At the beginning we get the sense that Turtledove is saying "war is bad." I think most of us already know this, and it didn't feel like enough of a message to write nearly 700 pages. Additionally, he waters down this message with some of the characters who he seems to glorify, or at least not condemn, despite their often despicable actions and opinions. At the risk of going off-topic for this section, one of the more pervasive and despicable opinions expressed by almost every male character is that women are objects to be used as desired and forgotten. Only one of the characters in this book seems to have any sort of loving relationship, and he's almost immediately estranged from his pregnant wife by the events of the war, and never sees her again for the duration of the book. I understand that throughout our history we've had a pretty dismal track record in this area, but it felt like it was unnecessary in this book. The book is supposed to follow the track of WWII, but these characters' attitudes feel as though they're from the Middle Ages rather than the '40s. I suspect this is an attribute taken from most fantasy novels' taking place in this time period, but it felt like it didn't fit here and just added uncalled-for misery to an already dark book to no purpose. As I mentioned prior, this book really felt like it was a fantastical military action plan written just for the sake of being written. It felt as though the author challenged himself to do something difficult, and to be fair to him he did a great job at what he set out to do. I just don't understand why he set out to do it, or, having finished it why he felt it needed to be published with no underlying message or purpose. I'm sure this was an interesting, involved, arduous process for him and I truly want to congratulate him on something that feels internally consistent and real. That being said, it just wasn't for me.

5) The plot is too predictable:
After the first 4 or 5 times Algarve overwhelms its opponents with Blitzkrieg, it gets boring. I understand that this is a reflection of historical events, but some compression here would've been helpful. This bullet point also circles back to the point I made earlier about perhaps deviating more from real historical events for the sake of readability and smoothness. At no point is the outcome of the war, or even any individual battle, in doubt. This made me lose interest fast in the actual events and begin to try to glean some enjoyment from the characters themselves, scant as this was. I think this was intentional by Turtledove and his editorial team, but it really fell flat for me as each character feels like any other character and almost none have any agency in their story or the main story. Perhaps this is yet another point Turtledove is making about the futility of all sort of things in war, but it wasn't fleshed out enough for me to pick up on in any meaningful way.

6) The fantastical aspects are incredibly underwhelming:
I think there was a large missed opportunity to take some liberties with the technology that was present in WWII when translated into this fantastical setting. Almost everything seems to be a direct equivalent of an actual technology present during WWII. For example: sticks/wand = guns, dragons = warplanes, behemoths = tanks, and "eggs" = bombs. This is a good translation from real to imaginary, but I felt that it could've gone further. Just seeing these things rehashed from a different perspective wasn't enough (in my eyes) to justify the immense effort Turtledove put forth to create this book. I think this criticism can be broadened and applied to the book as a whole, as I've mentioned a couple times now in this review. One or two interesting aspects (magical one-way glass as camouflage, for example) were introduced, but the author waited until the last quarter of the book to bring them in and even then they're fleeting and far between.

Overall, I can't recommend this book to anyone other than hardcore historical fiction readers. Even those, I think, will be thrown off by the fantastical aspects of the book. And those seeking high or even medium fantasy will want to look elsewhere. The magical aspects of this book do not justify the immense slog it will take for these readers to get their magic fix, and even then that fix is likely to go unsatisfied as it's so sparse. I truly don't get who this book is for. I think it's primarily just for the author himself. If I were him, I'd be incredibly proud of the effort I've put into making something of high quality, if dubious purpose. His writing style doesn't really gel with my expectations, and I think the editors and publishing team responsible for the blurb on the book jacket did Turtledove a disservice by giving readers expectations the text couldn't fulfill. I maintain that this is more of a thought exercise than a novel, and while I will certainly be reading more Turtledove I think I'm probably going to drop this series and not continue to the next book.

[Maloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

WWII thinly reskinned as a fantasy setting.

[BobA707 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summary: This book is a bit of a mix. A huge diverse plot and a magic system that gives its armies modern type warfare - it should be good, but I just found its breadth too wide, too many actors from too many regions. The actors are not really introduced and I didn't feel any connection to them. I never got any feedback on why every nation was at war with every other nation. The author maintains seemingly hundreds of threads each only a few pages long. Its an incredible feet of storytelling, but just too complex to follow. I constantly had to look at the map to see who was who, I would have had no chance finishing this book if it was an ebook. I somehow finished the book expecting at least some answers, but no ... nothing. Oh dear. I've ended up giving it 1 star as I really wish I'd never picked it up, but their are elements of the book that deserve 5 stars. I won't be reading the sequel.

Plotline: Incredibly complex, huge breadth.

Premise: Stunning magic system, really clever.

Writing: Too complex without enough depth of character

Ending: Abysmal.

Pace: Boring from start too finish.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was not an easy decision to stop reading this book. I like the way Turtledove writes, and his easy way of telling a story is pleasant to enjoy.

Unfortunately, the story itself is not of my taste. The overall misery of neigh every character is monotone and to me too close to normal to be thrilling - but that's likely only true for the likes of people who've known dark times for real.
War, in my experience and view, is a matter of logistical and economical conflicts. War fought for glory, grudges or madness, does simply not convince me. And most of the dialogs, especially those among common soldiers, where entirely disconnected from what happened around the characters, increasing the sensation of a dampened thrill which the events should have given.

I admit that the whoring and squabbling did nothing to improve my time with this book, but want to point out these minor inconveniences had no influence on my final opinion. Turtledove certainly knows his craft, alas, he's writing the wrong genre for me.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

Well, after sitting on my shelf for many years I've finally read this book. It was okay? Not that great, but far from the worst book I've read. My main complaint was the sheer number of POV characters this book had. 16 POV characters in a 700 page book. 11 main countries are involved in the wars going on, and there were some characters that I always forgot where they were from whenever I got to one of their chapters. Some of the soldiers seemed to blend together in my mind. At the end I was just skimming some of the viewpoints that didn't seem to have a lot happening.

I would be more tempted to continue the series if there was less unnecessary viewpoints. I can't think of anything major that happened to the farmer living in small village in Unkerlant. Was he really needed? Nothing would have changed in the story if you left him out. The story could have been told just as effectively with a fraction of the characters used. There are a few of these characters that I'd like to know what happens to them, but I think I'll just be left wondering.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much going on, way too many characters to keep track of and only the first of many in a series. Of the dozen or so plot threads i only enjoyed 2 of them...they were what kept me going to the end. Once i got to the end and realized that this book was the first of a few in a series I decided to not read any of the others. Very disappointed after reading "ruled britanica" by the same author. I usually go thru a book a week or so and this took me 1 month to read, very hard to really get a good page turning going when you only get 3-4 pages per plot thread before you have to read another dozen plots to get back to what just got your attention. By the time i get back to an enticing thread i have forgotten what has happened. Almost like reading 12 differnt books at one time. Just could not get compelled enough to keep going before the author put the brakes on and switched gears on me:(

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I normally love Harry Turtledove and own several ( around 20) of his books but theis was one series that I stopped dead on at the first book. I forced myself to finish this book picking at it over the course of several years and plan to sell it now that I've finished it. I normally love his technique of following several characters over a large landscape but for some reason the fantasy charaters and especially the different countries were confusing for me. I never seemed to be sure where I was in this landscape or what culture the characters were supposed to be from and who was at war with who. I read a lot of fantasy and alternate history so it wan't just the strange names or the number of them. This book just never hooked me and I had no desire to find out what happened next.

[William Tracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I keep wanting to like Turtledove and I keep being disappointed. If you do want to read an alternate history of WWII, I would instead recommend Turtledove's Worldwar and Colonization series, which takes WWII and plays on what would happen if aliens attacked.
Into The Darkness is basically a find/replace of the historical events with too many forgettable and heavy-handed characters with unfamiliar names. If you want to read that King Mezentio fought the Valmierians with Behemoths and imprisoned the Kaunians, instead of Hitler fighting the French with tanks and imprisoning the Jews, then this is the series for you.
I scanned the last two hundred pages, as I felt I knew what was going to happen, and I don't plan on reading the other six books.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like many of Turtledove's later works (looking at you Sentry Peak) there's little fantasy or innovation and a lot of bad copying. It would almost be a better novel if the author had just written an original story with war dragons and war elephants instead of such a poor (and implicitly racist) parody of World War II. In this alternate version the "Kaunians" attack first thereby justifying Hitler, hmm... Multiple times I was sure I would just give up reading it entirely but somehow I pushed through (many many pages) and was rewarded with more repetition. Two dimensional (and maybe even one dimensional?) characters abound, especially every female character.

Do yourself a favor, skip this one.

[Arthur Chappell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this frightfully dull, despite being a war story with dragons as tanks and cavalry who ride unicorns. The huge cast of characters all talk and behave the same and there is a great deal of talk, even in battle scenes. The royal catchphrase 'efficiency' gets irksome and the previous six years war is pointed out just about every other page. There is no sense of awe about the magic and monsters - or real emotional reaction to the war - Turtledove is very centred on maps, strategy and tactics, and the people are rather generic.

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

So far, this book is all over the place. It goes from one scene to another, not letting the reader fully grasp what is happening. The cast of characters is humongous and it's hard to keep track. It becomes overwhelming at times.

I'm torn on whether I should continue to read this book. I wouldn't recommend this book for those who dislike scene jumping and large sums of characters. However, for those that love stories where it is chaotic, then this book might be for you.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it's a sort of WW2 recreation with magic, the Darkness series is also fantasy with a feudal structure, nobility and a different ethos than the 30-40's Earth.

One of the best Turtledove series so far - as writing and structure goes if you read other sprawling Turtledove series you will know what to expect but here there is nothing overtly annoying so far and I got fond of many characters while others are morbidly fascinating...

[Crys · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about a fictional world, unfortunitly the reader has no connection with it.(compared to his alternative history worlds)
The characters feel distand, and very constrained in their role, usualy limited to following orders, or their ordinary lifes.

Its very difficult to connect to the characters, which makes the book less interesting with each chapter.

[Hunter Janes · Rating 2 out of 5]

The prose is incredibly clunky, the characters are pretty lifeless, and the pacing is limp. This is a real shame because it has the potential to be exciting in more capable hands. I mean just look at the cover! How a book about a world war with dragons, magic, laser guns, and sea monsters manages to be a drag is beyond me. Did not finish.

[Micol Bussolesi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't make it. Too long, with too many characters and too many random kingdoms thrown into the story one after the other.
It probably gets better after the first half, but I couldn't bring myself to continue it.

[Clay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I don't know if Turtledove has written anything compelling since his world war series.

[Katherine Coble · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

Feels more like an exercise in cleverness, with “tell interesting story about well-developed characters” not even registering.

[Tegan Boundy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty boring start, glad I'm finished.

[Mattie Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Just wasn't super interested, which is somewhat surprising as the book is a fantasy retelling of WWII. Still, the writing style is flat, and it just felt bland.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the usual Turtledove type of story-telling. An episodic narrative seen from many viewpoints; very similar to, indeed indistinguishable from, his Great War, American Empire and Settling Accounts series as well as his four Colonisation books. Only the setting here really differentiates it from those.
Unlike in those though everything is prefaced by a map. This world has seemingly only one major continent, Derlavai, though there is a counterpart to Antarctica to its south and a minor one to its northeast. Only the latter (plus a few scattered islands) is situated north of the planet’s equator. To the east of Derlavai is the Bothnian Ocean. This presumably goes all the way round the world to Derlavai’s west but there it is labelled on the map Bothian Ocean.
Magic or sorcery (both terms are used,) not technology, is the driving power in this world and there are frequent references to its governing rules of similarity and contagion. Since the discovery of ley lines from which power can be drawn (it’s not clear if this source is purely magical or if it derives from magnetism) travel has tended to follow those lines. Adding to the fantasy factor we have dragons, unicorns, behemoths, leviathans, and sticks firing energy beams. Rather than bombs, artillery fires eggs, also able to be dropped from dragons. Military units can be accompanied by mages. Beyond the range of ley lines magical energy needs to be procured by the sacrifice of human life. (Despite the exotic setting the people described are in effect humans - or as much as anyone in a Turtledove book can be said to be human.)
Dragons of course take the part of aeroplanes here, behemoths are in effect large rhinoceroses adapted and armoured for warfare, leviathans are counterparts of whales and take the role of submarines though with only one crew member. The unicorns are just glorified horses and don’t seem to have exotic uses. In amongst all this make-believe, names like Algarve, Cottbus and Ventspils do tend to break the spell a little.
Sometime in the past Derlavia was dominated by the Kaunian Empire. It was overthrown though, and now its successor realms of Unkerlant, Algarve, Forthweg, Valmiera, Jelgavia, Gyongyos, Lagaos and Kuusamo form various and variously shifting alliances. Each of these are monarchies with social hierarchies embedded in them. Ethnic groupings are frequently referred to in what amounts to racist terms, blonds, redheads etc. Those identified as of Kaunian descent are particularly disdained. There is also a high degree of sexism or outright misogyny in the way female characters are spoken about and treated by the male ones. Very few men here show any kind of respect towards them.
The story revolves around a war of revenge instigated by the Provinces of Algarve and Unkerlant but anyone with a passing interest in the Second World War (not as the back blurb has it, the First World War) or who has read Turtledove’s ‘Settling Accounts’ trilogy can spot resemblances and the tactical and strategic manœuvres to come. There even promises to be, in further instalments, a magical equivalent of the Manhattan Project whose nascent stirrings are given here.
As usual, Turtledove’s “characters” are no more than cyphers, in place merely to push the overall scenario forward or illustrate attitudes. Often we find them saying the same things over again in only slightly different ways. Unlike in Kate Atkinson’s Human Croquet, which I read immediately before, this is not beyond the purpose of emphasis, with the result it feels like being beaten about the head with words. Moreover, it reads as if parts of the book were written by different authors who did not know what the others had already told us.
There are five (five!) others of these ‘Darkness’ books to go. At least they’re not demanding reading.
(This is rated a three only because I can't give it 2½ .

[Lauregul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gute Military Fantasy mit einer Vielzahl an Charakteren!

Mit Into The Darkness beginnt die Geschichte eines brutalen Krieges um die Vorherrschaft auf dem Kontinent Derlavai. Dabei ist offensichtlich, dass das Buch stark vom ersten und zweiten Weltkrieg inspiriert ist. Im Gegensatz zu Flugzeugen, Panzern und Gewehren kommen hier dafür Drachen, Behemoths und Magie zum Einsatz.

Besonders außergewöhnlich ist dabei die enorme Vielzahl an POV-Charakteren. Gerade anfangs fiel es mir schwer, mir zu merken, wer wer ist und auf welcher Seite die Person überhaupt steht. Obwohl das zunächst nur verwirrend erscheint, nutzt Turtledove dies sehr gut, um die verschiedenen Seiten des Kriegs zu beleuchten und – anders als in vielen Military Fantasy-Büchern – auch das Leben der normalen Bürger in dieser schweren Zeit zu zeigen.

Gut gefallen hat mir außerdem, wie Turtledove die verschiedenen Fabelwesen als Kriegsfahrzeuge mit verschiedenen Stärken verwendet. Anders als so oft sind die Drachen keine außergewöhnlich mächtigen und klugen Wesen, sondern eher dumme Fahrzeuge, die nur aufgrund ihrer rohen Kraft und ihrer Abrichtung nützlich sind.

Die unterschiedlichen Nationen sind glaubwürdig und man lernt ein wenig über die verschiedenen Kulturen, allerdings nicht so viel, dass es vom Fokus des Buchs, der Kriegsführung, ablenkt. An einigen Stellen würde ich mir zu den Kulturen der einzelnen Nationen mehr Text wünschen, jedoch ist das nur ein kleiner Makel in einem sonst sehr guten Buch.

Alles in allem ist Into The Darkness ein Buch, mit dem jeder Liebhaber von Military Fantasy auf seine Kosten kommt.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally do not enjoy reading books like many others do but Into The Darkness written by Harry Turtledove really got me pulled in due to its storyline evolving around a fictional land called Algarve. I enjoyed this book so much I would probably read it again since it is really different from a lot of books with its storyline jumping to different nations/characters and not really focusing on certain people for a while. At the beginning you follow a boy named Ealstan in a place called Forthweg where everyone in the town just learns that the Duke of Bari suddenly dies. At the beginning of the book you jump around from different character at different random points in the book and it is confusing but once you get into the book you will understand it’s movement. After everyone hears this new news all the people get scared because they know a war is coming. Many people that are soldiers, mages, wizards, and whatever reinforcements they have go off onto a journey to keep peace within the land. There are many pages of explicit and greatly detailed wars throughout the book that will definitely give you a good image of this fictional land and everything surrounding it. I would definitely recommend this book to someone that adores fiction anything that revolves around magical fairy tales that could never be true and I like I have stated before I believe greatly that this book is related to a game called Skyrim greatly.

[fae · Rating 1 out of 5]

i could not finish this book. it was so incredibly overwhelming, i began to feel stupid. mind you, i am an intelligent person and i have read LOADS of books in my 40+ years of being alive. this book was so difficult for me, i genuinely began to wonder if i was losing myself! it’s literally midnight right now and the sole reason i am here is because i was so disturbed by my inability to handle this book, i picked up my phone and googled goodreads so i could see what other people were saying about this book. i haven’t been on goodreads in years!

well.

i am breathing many sighs of relief after reading the reviews on this book. IT’S NOT JUST ME. really, i am so delighted to learn this. i have always had a policy of finishing a book no matter how tough it is but in my older age, i have adopted a NEW policy of not wasting my time on things i’m not enjoying when i don’t have to.

honestly, thank goodness for that new policy (incorporated in the last two years) because otherwise, i think i would have been reading this one for the rest of my life!!!

his writing is charming but there was way too much going on and i could not keep it straight and it became a slog. i got a few chapters in. i just couldn’t hack it. but now i don’t feel so bad saying so, as i’m one of many who felt that way.

the good news? this book got me back into goodreads. i downloaded the app and everything. 😁😁😁