Customer Reviews

Lord of the Dark Sun

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

 

 

For those who have read THE MIDNIGHT MOON, THE DAWN STAR, and THE WHITE SUN, you will enjoy hearing about some of the characters years later. LORD OF THE DARK SUN involves their children. I love this genre--wish there was more of it. I gave this one 4 stars because the intensity present in the first part of the book fades along the way. Too bad Ms. Piel could not keep it going until the end (the beginning was very promising).
I still recommend this one.

To celebrate graduation from the Intersystem Academy, Princess Ariana persuades her friends to journey to the outpost of the Border Territory. However, instead of fun at the infamous Lodder Vale, Automons, using a strange gas, capture Princess Ariana and her shipmates. Ariana knows her father will come after her with every force the Intersystem can muster even as she is transported to Mining Colony Fifteen. At the slave camp, the men seem identically beaten souls except for one colonist who displays dignity and honor. Ariana begins to fall in love with this slave and together they escape, but he is recaptured.

A decade later, Ariana knows she loves her former slave mate and returns to find him though she believes the colony was destroyed. The nameless slave now using the moniker Damen escaped and has become a pirate. He captures Ariana, but the passion they shared ten years explodes into a deep love. However, each keeps secrets that if revealed will probably end their relationship before it can flourish.

LORD OF THE DARK SUN is a terrific, action-packed romantic science fiction romance that fans of the author will enjoy while turning on new readers to the talent of Stobie Piel. The story line will appeal to both the romance and alien world audience because the non-earthly environs and species seem real and the star-crossed lovers strengthens that authenticity. Though the pirate spin seems unnecessary with all the outer space adventure already packed in the novel, Ms. Piel spins a solar heated tale that shows she is one of the top cross-genre authors under the WHITE SUN.

Harriet Klausner

The basis of this story is a good one. For a start, it carries the weight of a successful series behind it and the benefit of meeting again with old friends. Ariana is the daughter of Arnoth and Sierra from my own favourite of the series 'The White Sun'. The book opens with her capture by the Automon, a large group of machines, who have captured her ship and her shipmates. They are taken to a mining planet where they are to be companions to the men there - ultimately their only value being to breed replacement miners. Ariana hooks up with the leader of the tribe and eventually the two fall in love. After an escape that goes horribly wrong, Ariana believes her lover to be dead. Ten years later they meet again - the pirate calling himself Damen is in fact her long ago lover. Now the leader of a significant pirate force that works against the Automon, the two nevertheless are on opposing sides - Ariana as the daughter of the leader of the Intersystem worlds, and Damen as the pirate leader of a force that has obtained vast quantities of the most valuable fuel in the known systems by theft. Damen must get Ariana to trust him, but it's not a good start that he has kidnapped her and is holding her hostage....

The story is interesting, but it's a pity I can't say that about Ariana. Immature and oblivious is how I'd describe her, and quite seriously flawed as a leader. She talks of duty, but doesn't live that example by her own people as she rapidly forms an attachment to Damen at the beginning of the book instead of looking after her shipmates. The deaths of those she knows hardly appear to touch her, except for Damen's. She is vain, weak and silly, and essentially thinks she has qualities that are not borne out by her actions. I think the only redeeming feature is that even when she comes to agreement with Damen, she is quite clear of her intention to return home, sacrificing even her own happiness for what the reader knows is her daughter's sake.

There is much to enjoy about this book if the reader can overlook what I found to be a severely lacking leading lady. The secondary characters are great - Nob and his likeness to the lingbats, and Fia's story (clearly waiting for it's own book) should be a fantastic one - I wanted to know Fia far, FAR more than Ariana and look forward to reading more of her. The sensual aspects of the story are well described, as usual for Piel. The world building continues to be distinctive and believable and an integral part of the story, rather than simply providing a setting. That Damen and Ariana can laugh at their own vanity is endearing. If Ariana weren't so completely unaware of undercurrents in any given situation - to me unforgivable in any 'ruler', which Ariana is set up to be - I would like her a great deal more.

For me the writing is great, the story line is both funny and compelling. There is depth and complexity to this work that is perhaps less obvious in the previous stories. However, I found Ariana irritated me no end. I'm fiercely hoping that Piel will tell Fia's story, because you can bet I'll snap it up, but of all Piel's female leads, I like Ariana least.

At long last a new tale in Stobie Piel's wonderful futuristic series. The heroine of this tale is Ariana of Valenwood, daughter of Arnoth (THE WHITE SUN), a great Intersystem leader and healer.

There is no question that Ariana is deeply loved, however as young people often do, she chose to spread her wings a bit by persuading her friends to take an unauthorized visit to Lodder Vale, a pleasure outpost in the Border Territory. This celebration of their graduation from the Intersystem Academy was destined to end badly.

Ariana awakens to find herself in a strange craft, bound, and lying beside the other women who had accompanied her. The fate of the men was unknown. Soon they find themselves on a barren Dark Sun world far outside the Intersystem territories. The women's heads are shaved, an act which drives home to Ariana how insignificant her identity is here. They are forced down a tube into a dark cavern where they are confronted by barbarians. The majority are male, aged between fourteen and twenty, men before their time. An astute assessment of the situation tells her that these men are slaves to the Automon, no doubt born on this planet, and used to mine the precious malloreum crystals which fuel the Dark Sun ships. The women are merely to become the latest batch of breeders.

Though nearly paralyzed by fear, Ariana steps forward. Recognizing her superiority to the other women, the barbarian leader stakes his claim on her. Ariana is determined to fight him to the death, but notices another slightly younger man, assessing her. Something in his eyes bemuses her. Though his language consists of nothing more than grunts and gestures, she detects intelligence and a gentle spirit within them. He detects something special in her as well. When the younger man challenges the leader, she hopes against the poor odds that he will somehow prevail. When brains and agility win out over brawn, Ariana is not the only one who is relieved. The new young leader claims her for his own, and in a very short time Ariana comes to love him with all her heart. Somehow they find a way to communicate, but she learns more about him by his actions.

It is human nature to cherish freedom and Ariana's mind turns often to escape. The need becomes urgent when she discovers that, although the miners knew no other life, the Automon definitely anticipated rebellion. Evidence of deliberate lava flows indicate that previous generations had been destroyed before the will to rebel could become effective. Ariana does not intend for her lover to become another statistic, a fact she somehow conveys to him. Soon they find a chink in the Automons' routine and Ariana plans to take those women of her crew that wish to go along with them. That is her mistake. Among them is a false friend who has taken advantage of Ariana's trusting nature for many years. The woman coveted Ariana's status, and now the man that she'd come to love as well. When their plan is unexpectedly thwarted, the barbarian leader sacrifices himself allowing Ariana to escape alone. Unable to stop the ship, she witnesses his punishment through a window, which leaves her to believe that he is dead. Her grief was devastating. She was unaware she would carry a part of him with her always, but she did know that she would never stop searching until she found his world again and liberated it.

Damen would not wait. Broken hearted at the loss of his beloved, he has found his reason for rebellion. His generation of boys are not yet old enough for the Automon to expect it of them. Many are lost, but the slaves prevail.

Ten years later, Ariana had not forgotten her barbarian king. She'd been looking for a pilot to take her on another expedition to the Dark Sun system when she finds him. Not that she would have recognized the cocky, arrogant man who calls himself Damen. Nor would she expect to become his captive. Oh yes, though he had become wealthy and educated, and had founded a world of his own, he was still a barbarian at heart, the Dark Sun Lord, a pirate who if he had his way would once again claim her as his prize. But first he must put an end once and for all to the Automon tyranny, and if Ariana had her way he would do it with her right by his side.

This a wonderful futuristic adventure. The main characters are very authentic, bold yet vulnerable. One cannot help but love the feisty heroine who bravely faces the unknown with tremendous courage in spite of her fear, or the hero who rules one world, and builds another, but who fears he will never fit in Ariana's. The romance is strong, heartwarming, inspirational. The threat is real, coming at them from the inside as well as the outside. As they face enemies and traitors, they will know who their friends are. I was particularly intrigued with two of them. Fia, had been the young girl who'd been delivered to the slave planet in the same ship Ariana had escaped in. She'd become Damen's ward, his focus after his loss. She becomes he right hand woman and a starship captain in her own right. The other is Hakon, son of Dane Calydon (THE MIDNIGHT MOON), Ariana's best friend, and the man everyone expects her to marry. These two are both very dignified, haughty, and more than a little arrogant. They are bound to rub each other the wrong way intellectually. But I can just imagine the passion that might evolve were they allowed to rub each other the right way emotionally. I am hoping the we will see more of them. I highly recommend LORD OF THE DARK SUN. If you missed any of the previous titles I suggest that you try to find them, starting with THE DAWN STAR. ~ for PNR Reviews

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the characters were great. I loved how they could laugh at themselves. The autumons were really scare in the fact that they were not real people & could not feal emotions. I loved the sub-characters, and I really with I could have my own bat.

From the blurb on the back cover this book looked like it would be a fun weekend read. To bad that's not the case. This book combines all the worst of really bad series Sci Fi and really brainless Romance. On top of that I found something about the writing style choppy and hard to read. Even the characters internal thoughs seemed stilted and awkward. The plot had some promise, but there was no follow through.