Customer Reviews

Darkness Weaves (Roc)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frankly, some of these reviewers don't know what they are talking about. This is the best of the Kane novels, and as such it is probably the best "dark fantasy" novel ever written.

No, it doesn't come close to having the purely literary merits of Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" books, and it doesn't have the inventive cosmology or cult following of Moorcock, but those books all have deep flaws that Wagner does not, and Wagner possesses merits that Wolfe and Moorcock lack.

It is hackneyed to describe a work of art by saying it is "a cross between such and such and such and such", but in this case it is perfectly apt. Kane is exactly halfway between Conan and H.P. Lovecraft, fusing the strengths of each and eliminating their weaknesses. Wagner combines the action, atmosphere and fast paced storytelling of Howard, adds the purple prose and supernatural subtext of Lovecraft, and delivers what for my money is the most entertaining fantasy sequence of the decade of the seventies.

And while there are no bad or even merely average Kane stories, a few of them are a little too predictable and uninventive, such as his vampire tale and his werewolf tale in "Night Winds". Not so this novel. It combines all the best elements Wagner used throughout his career into one novel that is a simply perfect representative of its genre. Kane carries out a bloody sea invasion at the behest of an evil sorceress, with plot twists galore at the end...

No, it isn't high art; no, it isn't enlightening. No, I didn't want it to be. Just pure testosterone and black magic. I loved it. So will you.

Of all the books I've read in my life, this is the one that I read more than any other. I must have read this thing 10 times over the past 10 years, I never get tired of it. Or any other Kane book for that matter. Look up anti-hero in the dictionary, there's a picture of Kane beside it. There's has never been a more fitting character for this oft-overused expression. No other sci-fi/fantasy character is more intriguing than Kane. None, nada, zilcho. He's a warrior, sorceror, general, scholar, historian, etc. Been there, done that...everything. Kane is one of the first true men who was cursed with immortality after rebelling against the insane god that created his race. Kane eventually killed his own brother Abel (Cain...Abel..get it?), who sided with their creator. Kane wanders ad infitinum, watching civilizations crumble into dust, only occasionally dropping hints about his true age to others. How do you know him? By his eyes, known as the Mark of Kane. No one can win a staredown with Kane, his piercing gaze carries the weight of untold centuries. In Darkness Weaves, Kane deals with some parts of Elder Earth even older than him. His genius as a naval commander bears heavily in the book, as well as his insane/sane mind for what he does with his hideous partner in crime. Wagner again has a smooth-flowing story that conjures a post-Stone Age, pre-Oppenheimer toy era. If you enjoy this title, check out other Kane books by their now-deceased author: Death Angel's Shadow, Night Winds, Bloodstone and Dark Crusade.

There are four other great Kane books -Bloodstone, Death Angel's Shadow, Dark Crusade, Night Winds- this series about an immortal warrior trumps the 'Conan' series any day.

what can i say. i couldn't put the book down. was recommended by a friend bought all five and loved every one of them. wish wagner would have written more of kane, shame he passed on. excellent read for any fantasy fan.

Kane is an anti-hero, plain and simple. Read about him in a different post.

I really enjoyed Wagner's writing style. He moves quickly through scenes, but not without describing in adequate details that that particular character would see it. Wagner really enjoyed using collegiate level speech, but taken in context it makes sense. Being a dungeons and dragons dweeb, I can completely appreciate characters and development.. he doesn't provide *all* of the development at once and instead interjects bits and pieces, weaved throughout the tale. I really enjoyed the first of the battles on the sea, by using Kane's thoughts Wagner was able to narrate why it is that they were using the tactics that they were, really fun stuff.

If you want to see a bad guy that isn't afraid to kick some tail, this is well worth the few bucks you'll spend on the paperback!

Darkness Weaves is, unfortunately, my introduction to Kane. After reading all the hype, I finally tracked down Darkness Weaves and Dark Crusade in paperback. The Gods In Darkness hardcover (OOP) was too expensive, allegedly riddled with typos (the Warner paperback still has a few too many for my taste), and contained the much-panned Bloodstone. So I figured, why pay $50 for the hardcover when I can get just the two good novels from it for $10 including S&H? Dark Crusade hasn't arrived yet, so I started my introduction to Kane with Darkness Weaves... It starts off slow as hell. It takes 31 fairly boring pages (out of 288) to get going and failed to suck me in until Wagner unveils the historical set-up. Then things start to get interesting. However, Wagner frequently flops when it comes to believable medievalesque dialogue and Kane's dialogue in particular is often excruciatingly bad, boring, or both. See, Kane is a very cool antihero until he opens his mouth, then he sounds anachronistic, like a modern man and a disinterested one at that! So we can't root for Kane because he is boring and we know he's going to live through whatever happens (like Superman, LOL). This elevates the entertaining but doomed supporting characters like Arbas, Cassi, Imel, Tolsyt and Oxfors to center stage, even though they disappear for chapters at a time or are killed off far too quickly (right after we get to know and love them). The opposition to Kane is by and large made up of forgettable stereotypes with silly names.

A few years after this book, Wagner wrote the greatest of all Conan pastiches, The Road Of Kings, and that novel suffers none of the pitfalls of Darkness Weaves. This Kane adventure is still worth a read, dion't get me wrong, but I'm going to reserve my opinion of Kane until after I get a chance to read Dark Crusade. If that paperback pans out, I'll spring for The Midnight Sun (OOP) hardcover which collects all Wagner's short stories of Kane. But so far, I just don't get the hype surrounding this series.

I work in a bookshop and found this book among a huge pile of out of print throw aways. It cost me $1, by far the best money I have ever spent. This book has the gritty realism so lacking in most fantasy novels and Kane is by far the most hard and ruthless character I have yet encountered .

When Karl Edward Wagner died in 1994, just short of his 39th, the world lost a true poet of dark, heroic fantasy. His use of the language, his ability to infuse lyrical prose with a kind of yearning for lost ages, was unparalleled. For a long time, his stories and novels were out of print, but were recently reissued by Nightshade. Expensive, but a treasure chest of pages.

What can I say.....Kane is the best! I've read the Kane books several times......and will continue to re-read them in the future. I only read the Conan books once. I only wish there were more and that the ones written were in print!

Darkness Weaves is, unfortunately, my introduction to Kane. After reading all the hype, I finally tracked down Darkness Weaves and Dark Crusade in paperback. The Gods In Darkness hardcover (OOP) was too expensive, allegedly riddled with typos (the Warner paperback still has a few too many for my taste), and contained the much-panned Bloodstone. So I figured, why pay $50 for the hardcover when I can get just the two (allegedly) good novels from it for $10 including S&H? Dark Crusade showed up late, so I started my introduction to Kane with Darkness Weaves... It starts off slow as hell. It takes 31 fairly boring pages (out of 288) to get going and failed to suck me in until Wagner unveils the historical set-up. ***SPOILER BEGINS*** Then things start to get interesting, at least until the secret weapon of the evil sorceress is revealed to be bloodsucking alien squid-men in laser-beam shooting submarines! This is so absolutely idiotic and unbelievable as to nearly destroy everything Wagner has built up... Fortunately, the squid-men don't appear that often (just for the major naval battle and the end, but without their laser-subs, having been reduced back to properly Lovecraftian "Deep Ones" by this point, which is all they should have been in the first place). IMO, there is nothing worse than when you read a sword and sorcery novel and get cheated when you find out the sorcery is mostly just alien technology. I mean, if I wanted to read about alien technology, I'd be reading science fiction, right? Anyway, the perilously slow start, stupid squid-men/laser-subs and lack of depth to the central character of Kane make this book a very uneven read at best, though it still has some juicy pay-off here and there for those patient enough to persevere (including the nasty love scene between Kane and the disfigured sorceress). ***END SPOILER*** Another problem is Wagner frequently flops when it comes to writing believable medievalesque dialogue and Kane's dialogue in particular is often excruciatingly bad, boring, or both. Kane is a very cool antihero/villain until he opens his mouth, then he sounds anachronistic, like a modern man and a disinterested one at that! So we can't root for Kane because he is boring and we know he's going to live through whatever happens (like Superman, LOL). This elevates the entertaining but doomed supporting characters like Arbas, Cassi, Imel, Tolsyt and Oxfors to center stage, even though they disappear for chapters at a time or are killed off far too quickly (right after we get to know and love them). The opposition to Kane is by and large made up of forgettable stereotypes with silly names. A few years after this book, Wagner wrote the greatest of all Conan pastiches, The Road Of Kings, and that novel suffers none of the pitfalls of Darkness Weaves. This Kane adventure is still worth a read, don't get me wrong, but now that I've had a chance to read Dark Crusade, I begin to see where some of the hype surrounding this series comes from: Dark Crusade eliminates nearly every problem inherent to this novel, although the problem of making Kane interesting is not resolved until 2/3 of the way in! Darkness Weaves turns out to be the sequel to Dark Crusade, though I don't think it matters much what order you read them in, as they take place two hundred years apart (Kane being immortal and all).