The Time Of The Dark: Book 1 Of The Darwath Trilogy [Import] [Paperback]

Barbara Hambly (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Unicorn Books; New Ed edition (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0048232874
• ISBN-13: 978-0048232878
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,400,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy all 5 now and save yourself a trip, March 31, 2002

By 

Dale Broadbent "dalewb2" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Time of the Dark (The Darwath Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Darwath Series, comprised now (year 2002) of 5 books, begins with "The Time of the Dark," a rather simply-worded kind of title, but one that has a gripping story.

The very first page of the book grips the reader with steel-gauntleted hands - a woman finds herself running barefoot through a moon-lit gray-tiled courtyard. It's night, but men and women race past her dressed in bed clothes or without clothes, faces filled with terror...

Imagine if one day, all throughout the world, hordes of black floating monsters poured out of well-known, and long-thought-abandoned caverns to feed on humanity and destroy civilization? Imagine they would depart at daybreak only to return the next night, and the next.

This is precisely the situation this alternate world is in that Gil and Rudy are dragged into. As humanity and all of civilization crumbles, the survivors flee. The lucky ones reach the ancient Keeps, fortresses made 3000 years in the past and inpregnable to any force. In these Keeps they must stay for the rest of their lives, and their childrens' lives - able to come out only during the daylight.

I read the trilogy when I was a teenager and then 12 years later returned to these books only to find out that Hambly had written an additional two books. What a joyful discovery. My only misgiving is that there is not enough written. Hambly could write a dozen books on this one universe and just begin to flesh out all the characters, situations, and details.

I'd suggest buying the first book. If you like it, then you might as well break down and get the other 4, because you're gonna love them!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What if your worst nightmare came true?, February 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Time of the Dark (The Darwath Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book, first of four, concerns a young graduate student, Gil, who finds that her nightmares of people fleeing in panic from an almost-unseen, hideous evil, are not fantastic dreams: she is standing in the doorway to another world. Gil and Rudy, a biker-gang hanger-on who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, are reluctantly drawn into this other world where they must fight for their lives. Their new friends, including the warrior known as the Icefalcon, the wizard Ingold Inglorion, the newly-widowed Queen Minalde, and her infant son Altir, depend on the newcomers for the valuable information *they don't even know they possess.* Great characters, plus the author writes convincing dialog well

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Afraid of the Dark, May 8, 2000

By 

Steve Hooley (Erewhon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Time of the Dark (The Darwath Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

A wizard from another world seeking sanctuary for an infant prince is aided by a biker and a female history grad student who leave their boring lives on Earth to join his war against the horrible force known only as The Dark. They become a warrior and a wizard, just as you'd suppose, except that the girl becomes a warrior and the biker a wizard's apprentice, and that's because nothing is ever predictable in a Hambly book. Darwath is a well-thought-out world with a severe problem; namely the hordes of Dark creatures coming from under the ground. What are they, and why did they kill all the wizards they could find? Can Ingold Inglorion find the answer before the Dark comes for him? Well, there are two more books so you can probably guess...