Customer Reviews

Dark Destiny: Proprietors of Fate

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Dark Destiny shows off some of the good stuff from White Wolf's early years. Not all of it is great, not all of it is accurate, and not all of it is even related to the WOD as it stands now . . . but I will admit that it is fun. The art by John Cobb is nothing short of phenomenal, as usual, and the opening essays by Edward E. Kramer and John Mason Skipp are brilliant, not only for being highly literate and interesting, but also for the light they shed on the World of Darkness and it's origins.

Oh, and Harlan Ellison is still a sick, sick man with a wonderful ability to write very, very scary things. So what if he's obviously never thrown down at a gaming table. Some of the other stuff, especially "But I feel the Bright Eyes...", the Poe story by Bill Crider, are really, really good - and Robert Bloch's "The Scent of Vinegar" won the 1994 Bram Stoker award for a very good reason.

If you dig looking at a book that was written in V:TM's infancy just to see how really great authors understood Mark Rein-Hagen's vision back in the day, go ahead and knock yourself out: buy the book. You won't be disappointed.

Dark Destiny is a very twisted book. In it readers will find everything from werewolves who are controlled by the whims of their ancestor spirits to a vampire owned and established blood bottling plant that conveniently delivers its wares to local Kindred. Many of the stories were entertaining, but few held up to the way things really work in the World of Darkness. One such story shows a human who becomes a werewolf by eating a scrap of lupine flesh given to him by a friendly Garou. Totally stupid.

Despite this, the stories "Night Games", "One of the Secret Masters", and "But I Feel the Bright Eyes" make this book worth the price of admission. "Bright Eyes" tells of how Edgar Allen Poe became a vampire only to battle the Kindred on their own terms. It's a wonderful story of the human spirit triumphing over the Kindred's corrupting embrace, and I was nothing less than inspired after reading that one.

This book had everything I was looking for in a Fantasy novel. It has a story about Jesus being a vampire and Peter and Paul taking their traveling tent show on the road. It has a story about The Zodiac Killer being this girls father and describes in detail at least one of the crimes and the afterlife where he had been keeping his slaves. All in all its a great book and I recommend it to everyone.

When I first picked up this book, I was reluctant. But the more I read, the more enchanted I became! Being a Vampire myself, I grew to love reading what many others find amusing about Us.

My favorite story in this book was the story of Maria the Vampire. I'm sorry, but I can't remember the title right off hand but it's an intriguing story of the love a vampire has for a mortal woman. And in the end she dies for that love. It was a wonderful tale of vamprism, lesbianism and straight up love.

I would recommend this book to anyone with a love for thrilling stories and a dark heart.

Enjoy.