Customer Reviews

Dark and Hungry God Arises (Gap Into, Vol 3)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

All good myths (or operas, if you will) must have the characters travel into the underworld, for only there lies the key to solving the problems in the mortal realm. Billingate *is* Hades--take special note of the Bill's physical description and his manner of dealing with people. The Devil you say? I read in one review of person complaining regarding Davies' whining. Wouldn't you whine in his place? Milos deserved his fate--he sold his humanity years ago. Angus's walking crib is painful to endure, but his being let go is as wonderful as when Mhoram came into his power. Remember Mhoram from Thomas Covenant? I've always thought he was one of the truly great fictional characters. Notice how similar Mhoram and Vector Shaheed are? Donaldson continues to excel--each book is a masterpiece.

"A Dark and Hungry God Arises" is an expansion from the second book as much as the second is an expansion from the first. The structure changes from mostly-Morn-and-occasionally-Angus to swapping between many different characters over the course of the long and dizzyingly complex story. Donaldson's world expands to include politicians and leaders, both power-crazy and honest, all driving at their own aims and all caught in utter deadlock by each other. The theme of all the plots and complex intentions of every character in the book concentrating in one spot and acting like a "critical mass" is a good one, and gives a suitable background for a highly explosive ending. The structuring is brilliant - unfaultable, in my book - and if you try listing all the characters the story swaps between after you've read it, you'll find a couple of interesting "nuggets" for the really attentive reader . . . This is true of the third and fourth books, as well.

In my review on here of the second book in the Gap Series, "Forbidden Knowledge", I stated that my considerations of readers of a more squeamish disposition forced me to mark down. In the third book this is less true - the darkness is still there, but the utter horror of the second (particularly the "force-growing" of Davies Hyland on Enablement Station) isn't so much in evidence. Only one particular scene - where an important conversation is conducted to the background of a woman gutting herself for the pleasure of a crowd - is particularly vile. I think that is the only example of horror in the series which can be considered entirely gratuitous. It is unnecessary, and rather wince-worthy. That it elicits disgust from me is testament to that. But there is none of the intense and ghastly - though never gratuitous - horror of the second book. At any rate, it is a minor complaint.

This book is superb. It is chock-full of characters in situations unbelievable in their horror and tense extremity, but which Donaldson somehow manages to *make* believable. I state categorically that he is a master story-teller - one of the best who has ever lived. All the characters are larger than life. They run the story, rather than the other way round. The opening concept of Norna and the crib inversion with Angus is particularly good, and intriguing; not to mention excellently executed.

This is a superb third book to the series. I have this to close with. You may have read the first two, and been left unsure as to whether the series gets better. Believe me, it does. Once you start reading the third book you will be so gripped you'll forget reading this.

Tension and plotting reach a high point in this third novel (following 'The Real Story' and 'Forbidden Knowledge'). Angus is reunited with the other main characters in a fantastic series of scenes, each outdoing the one before. Political intrigue merges beautifully with the stories of individual strife with a grace Donaldson's contemporaries should take note of.

The continous sequence of characters' schemes outdoing one another left this reader shaking his head in wonder. I may never reread the entire series, but I'll give careful thought to coming back to this one.

WARNING: due to language used within the story children should not read. However the story is wonderful and exciting. Mr. Donaldson has a gift of putting you in the action.. All five books make up a telling tale of the human condition transcending time..

In book 3 of his Gap series, Stephen Donaldson ups the ante quite a ways. The first two books of the series were merely a prelude for this explosive turning point in the series. The plot is exceptional, Donaldson takes his main characters on a roller-coaster ride through the dark and corrupted Billingate. Unlike most Donaldson books, the plot can actually stand up and compare to his characters, which are still typically dark, brooding, and human

Nick, the swashbuckling spaceship captain, rescues Morn from Thantos and the creepy aliens. The mood is (again) dark and rancide - isn't there some kind of fun in the futures? Humans are still engaging the aliens but everyone seems to be running around doing their thing.

Angus, the likeable sadist from prior novels, gets his comeuppance. His mind is controlled by a company computer and in particular, by a loathsome representative of that company who has Angus do all sorts of sickening stuff. (This is not for the faint-hearted but remember - it is fiction.) At the end, the secret word is said and Angus is freed to start down yet another fateful path.

My biggest complaint - a common one with Donaldson readers - is that you can't see the forest for the trees. There are too many melodies all at once, the actions overlapping and intertwining, going off in several directinos. A coherent, straight-arrow story was never realized and yet it still remained a great, though not remarkable, work.

This series is one of the best ever. The first book is kind of 'Space Pulp' but it is a fun read. The series becomes truly engaging and very entertaining as it continues. This books is probably one of the best in the series.

This is a great series of books - and I am thouroughly enjoying them, but this 3rd installment is so full of twists and turns, that I often found myself reading and re-reading sentences and paragraphs to figure out exactly how the numerous plot-lines (betrayals) intertwined with each other. What I'm trying to say is that the book can seem as if it was written in fast-forward; you really never have a chance to absorb the story - there's just SO much going on. But I really am enjoying it and will definitely read to next two. I have just newly discovered S.R.D., and he is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite authors! (At least there's not so many words I've never heard of before, unlike the Thomas Covenant series)

I had high hopes after the climax of the previous book in this series, Forbidden Knowledge. Unfortunately, I got a bit too carried away with my expectations. I expected a continuation of the climax of the previous book - I found continuation, but very little of the tension or urgency. Instead, A Dark and Hungry God Arises starts with a widening of scope. This isn't necessarily bad, but the pace gets slowed down alot, and a quicker start here would have been preferable.

Again, the scope of the story is widened significantly. The main plot from the previous book is here (and I would urge anyone reading this review to see my reviews of those other books), but it's tempered a bit more with the larger arc of the second plot expanding. Complexity is quickly added in both plotlines. New deceits are spun, new mysteries are presented, a few are solved.

Once again the characters are quite good. They remain, for the better part, realistic. I found a few actions of some characters pushing the bounds a little, but not too much. Most of the characters develop a bit more depth throughout the course of the novel as they're confronted with various truisms about themselves. It's still not enough to get me to really love the characters - most of them stand in the same place.

Additionally, the main viewpoint character from the last book gets a very small amount of page space; about three or four chapters. However, there are alot more characters here, and alot more viewpoint characters. These are indicated with the characters name instead of a chapter number. It tends to jump around alot, and there isn't much continuity with single characters.

One thing that I didn't like, however, was how several times throughout the story several characters made miraculously accurate guesses as to what other characters were doing, in extensive detail, with very little information, let alone reliable information. I just didn't believe it. Deductive reasoning only gets anyone so far.

There's a climax here, and the ending is more conclusive than the previous book. As you'd expect, being the third book in a five book series, it's not really conclusive, but it serves to at least partially tie up the events of the previous books.

Once again the ancillary documentation chapters are put in. I don't like them. I don't see them serving a purpose except for being infodumps, and most of the information could be omitted without any noticable effect.

Themes... well, they kinda stagnated here. More of the same as the last book, but nothing definite, and any progression of the themes is slow.

All in all, I felt this was a little worse than the last book. The flaws of the last book remain, and are probably a little worse here.

3.5/5

More questions are answered in the third book of the series. Ruthless as ever, Donaldson again shows the evil side of man. Donaldson also realizes that Space would inevitably be like the Wild West, which is also great. I highly suggest reading this book and the entire Gap Series.