Customer Reviews

NIGHTWORLD

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nightworld is a seriously scary book. Not personally scary but scary for the world as we know it. Nightworld completes the Nightworld series, which consists of six books, starting with The Keep. I've read all books and until the publication of Nightworld, it was called The Adversary Series, taken from the fact that the underlying element of this series is the ongoing confrontation through eternity and through the universe of two powerful forces.

These forces are not defined by good and evil for they are not. But one force, which is called the Other in the books, is brutal and caring nothing for humanity, tends to use evil means to achieve it's goal, while his adversary though not necessarily Good utilizes humanity to thwart His Adversary, The Other.

The Anti-Other, throughout history, has utilized a human champion to battle the Other. This champion is empowered with Godlike powers and made immortal for this purpose.

In the initial book, The Keep, which I've mentioned, the earthly agent of The Other, Rasalom, was weakened and imprisoned in a specially constructed prison by a champion of a long gone age, maybe a champion named Glaeken, whose subsequent job in The Keep was to keep tabs on The Other and make sure it didn't escape.

The Keep is a marvelous story wherein, Rasalom, because of some Nazi soldiers, almost escapes his incarceration. I won't go into the story but at the end, Rasalom is vanquished and ostensibly terminated but this is not to be and through the course of two more books, Reborn and Reprisal, Rasalom is rejuvenated, recuperated re-empowered and is set to take revenge upon troublesome humanity. The stage is set for Nightworld.

Nightworld
"If thou gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee"

What in the world is going on! Sunrise was five plus minutes late! we're in early summer, surise should be later not earlier, and then another shocker, sunset was ten minutes early! This continues on the second day etc and then a bottomless hole 200 feet across and perfectly round opens up in New York's, Central Park.

The world's scientific community, though at a loss for these occurrences, downplay these episodes and insist there is a rational explanation for these phenomenons. However, there is one who knows what's going on and he has a birds eye view of the Central Park event from his apartment.

It is the ancient warrior Glaeken, who is now in his 80s (his immortality ended after his 1941 battle with Rasalom), living under a pseudonym, Mr. Veileur. Glaeken knows exactly what's going on and he immediately sets out to gather a group of individuals to try to effect some sort of resistance, admittedly an enormous longshot but the only shot humanity has.

Main Charactersin order of appearance

Rasalom [Evil agent of the Other]
Dr. Nicholas Guinn [Physicist and friend of Bill Ryan]
Glaeken/veileur [Aged champion of the Anti-Other]
(ex father) Bill Ryan [Friend and confidant of Glaeken]
Carol Teece [mother of the reborn Rasalom]
Repairman Jack [hero of "The Tomb", a resourceful replacement for the aged Glaeken]
Kolabati [an ancient Indian Priestess who has two artifacts Glaeken needs]
Ba Nyguen [a special forces trained Vietnamese body guard for the following]
Sylvia Nash [mother of the adopted boy Jeffery]
Dr Alan Bulmer [Sylvia's husabnd and Jeffery's father]
Jeffery [a boy who has a healing power called Dat-tay-vao which Glaekin needs in his battle]

Glaeken meets with his would be recruits and of course his story is met with some skepticism, however, as Glaeken predicts, on the second night, hoards of large flying killer insect like creatures(later named by Glaeken as Belly Flies and Chew Wasps descend on an unsuspecting population and kill hundreds of people, horses, dogs etc. Also thousands of these creatures make a beeline to the home of Jeffery and his parents, in an obvious effort to kill Jeffery.

These creatures and the even more deadly creatures that follow can't stand sunlight but of course, day by day, the sunlight is slowly disappearing. In addition thousands of new holes open up around the world and every effort to cap them has been futile, with additional casualties. Humanity is quickly being wiped out and the daylight is getting shorter and shorter!

Things indeed look bleak for humanity but at least the recent horrors have solidified our cadre. Repairman Jack, with Ba in tow is off to Maui and Bill Ryan is off to Rumania, all to retrieve the artifacts that Glaeken needs to have a chance to counteract the carnage.

Can Repairman Jack and Glaeken, along with his unlikely cadre save "life as we know it", or will Rasalom rule over an Unholy Nightmare World?

Author

If you've never read F.Paul Wilson, I recommend him heartily.
He has a nice easily readable writing style and he seems to always have unusual if not unique plots to his stories. This particular book is the culmination of a series that I'm sure did not start out as such. "The Keep" was the original book as I have mentioned and is the basis for the series and as mentioned "Reborn" and "Reprisal" were definitely created to make a series out of a single novel but the resourceful Wilson managed to tie two unrelated books "The Tomb" and "The Touch" into episodes in the series in this last book and it works very well for me.

I was also glad to see Wilson reprise the ever popular Repairman Jack. Wilson has gone on to write several more Repairman Jack novels.

Reviewers Note

Because of the nature of this story. this book tends to be fairly gory and graphic about it. If this is not your cup of tea, then do not read this book. Then again, what are you doing reading any horror books?

In Nightworld, the sixth and final book in the Adversary Cycle, F. Paul Wilson achieves a beautiful climax to the millenia-old war between the champions of good and evil, Glaeken and Rasalom. As the days become progressively shorter because of a late-rising and early-setting sun, cries of armageddon resound around the globe. Then a 200-ft hole opens up in Central Park, each night out of which pour swarms of alien insects who devour anything and everything they can. As scientists futilely try to understand these phenomena and the world is plunged further into inescapable madness, one wizened old man must struggle to gather a group of unlikely heroes together for the final stand against the force behind the chaos--Rasalom, ancient champion of evil. In Nightworld, F. Paul Wilson manages to stitch together the previous books in the series(The Keep, The Tomb, The Touch, Reborn, and Reprisal), most of which seem to have been thought up on completely different drawing boards, into a skin-crawling page-turner. Although adding The Tomb and The Touch to the Adversary Cycle seems somewhat of an afterthought at times, when you finish Nightworld you will have nothing but fond (as well as freaky) memories of the series. I reccomend that you read the rest of the books in the series before you touch Nightworld, as it might otherwise make quite a bit less sense. Also, reading the previous books will help you develop more of an understanding of the characters, particularly Glaeken, Father Bill, and Repairman Jack. Also, if you like fantasy, the series hints several times about earth's distant past...

Truly a master of his art, F. Paul Wilson grabs you HARD and doesn't let go with Nightworld. I read The Keep. Scared the hell out of me. I read The Tomb and The Touch. Great stories, but I never saw the connection. Then, with Reborn and Reprisal, I was beginning to see what was coming. And Nightworld was it. Rasalom (evil incarnate) is freaking nasty. There is nothing he wouldn't do to get this planet called 'Earth'. Nightworld was a 24-hour book. Set aside 24 hours straight, becuase you cannot put the book down. Characters that span 5 novels come together to fight an evil that is older than "Old". To take the time and patience to write 5 books to set the stage for this final novel is a talent most of us can only dream of. I'm glad Mr. Wilson chose to share it with us. You MUST read the five aforementioned novels to get the true feeling of this series. You won't be sorry.

F. Paul Wilson brings together 5 of his previous novels with this apocalyptic horror fantasy that serves as a climax to his "Adversary Cycle". Characters and storylines come together during a series of fantastic and terrifying events occuring around the world. The sun itself defies physics by rising and setting earlier and the days begin to shrink. Giants holes open up in NYC's Central Park and around the globe and unleash hordes of monstrous insects that begin feeding like pirhanas on people. For humanity, it appears to be the beginning of The End and society begins to crumble. One man knows who and what is responsible, however. He brings together a band of frightened survivors and assembles a scattered weapon that might or might not put a stop to the evil behind the everlasting Night... This is a fantastic horror fantasy, complete with monsters, demons, and Lovecraftian creatures. It is a thrilling ride from beginning to end and I loved every second of it. A few have said that it can be read as a stand-alone novel, but I would recommend that readers check out the other books in The Adversary Cycle. (THE KEEP, THE TOMB, THE TOUCH, REBORN, and REPRISAL.) Some of the background and characterizations might seem a little thin, otherwise. NIGHTWORLD is a must for horror fans!

F. Paul Wilson completed his six book Adversary Cycle (1 - The Keep, 2- The Tomb, 3 - The Touch, 4 - Reborn, 5 - Reprisal, 6- Nightworld) with this packed to the gills magnum opus. The gang is all here as the Evil One opens portal after portal to bring about the end of the world. What is amazing is that Wilson pulls imaginative monster and menace out of his sleeve left and right with seemingly little effort as he ups the stakes again and again, building to a full out battle to save the world from the nastiest collection of elder gods and cronies that you would ever hope not to meet (some of these things are really bloodcurdling). What is even more surprising is the emotional power as each of the individual yet interlinked stories wrap up with some hefty price tags. Highly recommended.

F. Paul Wilson really intermeshed the characters and storylines
from his five "prequels" in this final book of the series.
(The five "prequels" are The Keep, Reborn, Reprisal, The
Touch, and The Tomb.) The amazing fact about all of
these books, and even Nightworld, is that each may be read
individually without having read the others, and you still
understand what occurs within each. My husband and I were
very impressed with the way Mr. Wilson pulled all the
intersecting stories together and made sense of it. This is
definitely an "Edge of Your Seat" and "Can't Put it Down"
book. Job well done Mr. Wilson.

Rarely do you come across a horror novel that truly chills you to the bone. This is one of those books. The days get shorter and creepy crawlies come out of holes that pop up all around the world. The monsters and their need for flesh make this a difficult job for REPAIRMAN JACK. Will he make it out alive. You'll just have to read it for yourself. My only critisism of this book is I thought it was rushed at the end, and the loose ends were'nt tied-up.

It seems that normally a story that is built up over a series of books (Nightworld is the last of six) can never have a truly satisfying ending, all the build-up will eventually lead to disappointment...not so with Nightworld. As richly written as most of FPW's books, Nightworld delivers on plot, characters, dialogue, and imagery. The climax is just long enough to be suspenseful, not too long as to want to make you merely skim through it. Truly some frightening and suspenseful writting, and while the characters may not be as fleshed out as in previous novels due to space constraint, they are true to their nature. A great way to round out the Adversary Cycle.

Glaeken is superb hero. Repairman Jack - the best. Father Bill Ryan is so cool. Sylvia's full of love and care. Jeffy - brave kid. Nick the rocket scientist. Kolabati - after all these years. Dat-tay-vao the elemental healer. The brave Dr. Alan Bulmer and Ba the Oriental. Carol - lovely woman. Last but certainly not the least The unforgetable RASALOM. I give 10 STARS for this book and The Adversary Cycle!

Mr Wilson takes his books The Keep,reborn,reprisel,the tomb and the touch and putes in this book the characters and such into this fantastic story that will have you turning pages until the end real fast.That good I promise