Conquerors from the Darkness

by Robert Silverberg

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

Cover Artist: Paul Lehr

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Fiction, Aliens

213 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

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Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.

Reviews

[Jim Kuenzli · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s pretty fun when you get to read something different from a decorated author. Silverberg has won many Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as, the Grand Master title as a Science Fiction writer. In his introduction to this book, Silverberg talked of his reading of Leiber and Howard and wrote some stories when he was a young author. This was one. This was originally a short story, later reworked into a novel.

I would consider this a science fantasy novel with a blazing pulpy pace. It takes place 1000 years after an alien invasion turned the Earth into a water world. The Aliens left, and humanity survived on constructed cities in the oceans left over by the invaders. There are also a group of “Sea Lords” which protect the city folk’s trade between cities from pirates. The Sea Lords are a hard, battle tested group who consider city dwellers weak. Our protagonist comes from a city, joins the Sea Lords, and ultimately becomes their leader. Then the aliens return and all hell breaks loose. I really enjoyed this book. People can’t seem to write this type of blazing pulpy adventure anymore. Highly recommend!

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this when I was a kid ten or eleven years old. Our school librarian had noticed that I was interested in science fiction and fantasy and directed me to this. She thought I would like it and she was correct. I loved it. Her name was Mrs. McMillan and I thank her often for helping to solidify my love of speculative fiction. This is why school librarians are so important.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great Earth Invasion book. Probably to be enjoyed best by teenagers and young adults.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book by Silverberg that I ever read. An expansion of an earlier novelette from SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES. Sword and science in this one. It has a Planet Stories vibe to it.

[Dan Panke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the scifi book that started my enjoyment for the genre.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely competent science fantasy: halfway between The Dying Earth and Gor...

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I believe I've mentioned elsewhere, 1959 was the year when future sci-fi Grand Master--not to mention multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner--Robert Silverberg, chafing at the genre's limitations, decided to retire from the field. By that point, he'd already written, since his professional debut in 1954, some 250 (!) sci-fi short stories as well as 16 novels, and was surely entitled to some kind of a retirement! Ha! Some retirement! From 1960 till 1967, when "Galaxy" editor Frederik Pohl induced Silverberg to return to the field, thus ushering in the author's second (and arguably greatest) period, the Brooklyn-born writer would come out with a staggering 173 books (!!!). Granted, most of these were so-called "adult novels" and works of nonfiction, but there were some scattered sci-fi works mixed in as well. Several years back, I wrote here of one of those sci-fi novels written during Silverberg's "retirement period," the 1964 offering entitled "Time of the Great Freeze," a YA book of sorts with a strong appeal for adults as well, and now would like to share some thoughts about Silverberg's follow-up piece of science fiction, "Conquerors From the Darkness," which was released a year later.

"Conquerors From the Darkness" first saw the light of day as a $3.50 Holt, Rinehart and Winston hardcover in 1965, with a cover by Alan E. Cober. The novel was an expansion of Silverberg's novella "Spawn of the Deadly Sea," which had appeared in the April 1957 issue of "Science Fiction Adventures" magazine; a novella that I have not read. The book was then republished as a 50-cent Dell paperback in 1968, with beautiful cover art by Paul Lehr, and this is the edition that I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on somehow. The novel would go on to see at least three more iterations: from Ace in 1979 (an "Ace double," backed with Silverberg's 1957 novel "Master of Life and Death"), from Tor in 1986, and, most recently, from ReAnimus Press in 2017. So happily, acquiring this seldom-discussed Silverberg book should pose no great problem for prospective readers today. And that is a fortunate state of affairs, indeed. Although "Conquerors From the Darkness" was written during a period when Silverberg was more immersed in his racy adult books than anything else (he released 33 novels in 1965 alone, most of them adult fare, with such titles as "Carnal Carnival," "Flesh Bigamist," "Nudie Packet," "Orgy Slaves" and "Passion Peeper"), a recent perusal on my part has revealed the book to be an absolutely wonderful work of sci-fi; perfect for both younger readers as well as adults.

"Conquerors From the Darkness" is set in the year 3261, when the Earth is far, far different from the one we know today. Around 1,000 years prior to the story's commencement, the planet had been completely subjugated by the amphibious alien race known as the Dhuchay'y, the titular conquerors, who had completely drowned the world's continents to create one vast ocean. Called the panthalassa (as the author explains early on, "thalassa" was the ancient Greek word for "sea"), this worldwide ocean was then dotted with 50 manufactured island-cities, on which the Dhuchay'y deposited the remnants of the human population. The Earth scientists, apparently, in a desperate bid to battle the alien invaders, had created a mutated race, later called the Seaborn Ones, that could live beneath the water, but even these ocean dwellers were unsuccessful in repelling the invaders, and soon became the murderous, mermanlike bane of all seafarers. The Dhuchay'y had then departed from Earth, but were still feared and whispered about a millennium later, when Silverberg's book begins. The 50 island-cities, each of which specializes in a different area of commerce, have built merchant ships to engage in a worldwide barter system. And to protect those ships from attacks of pirates, the so-called Sea-Lords have come into existence. The Sea-Lords, it seems, have divvied up the globe into nine zones, and the nine leaders of those nine fleets, the Thalassarchs, wield practically absolute power in their domain. Each year, their ships, powered by both wind and oars, make a stop at each of the islands in their bailiwick to collect tribute in the form of either goods or gold, and it is at one of those islands, Vythain, a farming isle, that Silverberg's book properly begins.

Here, we meet 18-year-old Dovirr Stargan, a strapping lad who is fed up with the sheeplike Vythainans and who dreams of becoming a Sea-Lord himself. And Dovirr does indeed finally get his chance when the Thalassarch Gowyn's flagship, the Garyun, pulls into port one day to demand its annual payment in chests of gold. The mighty Gowyn considers the young boy's request and immediately pits him against one of his men, whom Dovirr easily bests in battle. And just like that, Dovirr is allowed to take the place of the newly slain crewman. During the first half of the novel, thus, we see what Dovirr's life is like as a Sea-Lord, and witness his days of drudgery and laborious pulling at the oars. We meet many of his fellow crewmen, most of whom are not even willing to acknowledge the landlubber's presence, and observe Dovirr's slow mastery of the sword. It is only after Dovirr proves himself in battle against a gang of pirates, and later still when Gowyn selects him to fight at his right hand against the fleet of Harald, a rival Thalassarch, that Dovirr is fully accepted by the men. And in the book's second half, following the sudden, shocking and rather tragic death of Gowyn, it is Dovirr, the youngest member of the crew, who rises to become the new Thalassarch, and then finds himself defending his new station from his mutinous and resentful first officer. But later, things grow even more worrisome for Earth's newest and youngest Thalassarch, when the dreaded Dhuchay'y finally do return to our world! But can Dovirr possibly unite the squabbling Thalassarchs and their 4,000 swordsmen, as well as mankind's hereditary enemies, the Seaborn Ones, to do battle against the common foe?

Now, when I happened to mention on a certain book-oriented page on Facebook that I was in the middle of "Conquerors From the Darkness," someone responded that he'd read it as a kid, and had loved it so much that it had made him a young fan of science fiction. And I can well understand why that might have been so. Really, what kid would not love a story in which a boy runs away from home, joins a group of futuristic and benevolent Vikings, rises to the top of the heap, and fights against monstrous aliens? "Time of the Great Freeze" had given us a 17-year-old, Jim Barnes, in a tale of the frozen Earth in the year 2650, while "Conquerors…" gives us a story of an 18-year-old on an Earth not inundated by ice, but rather water. And both books, both in Dell paperbacks, succeed marvelously! At times, "Conquerors…" almost feels like an Andre Norton novel, what with a young protagonist being able to communicate telepathically with a different animal species. (Here, Dovirr is able to converse with the Seaborn Ones thanks to a stolen Dhuchay'y gizmo.) The book is compulsively readable, and indeed practically unputdownable. It is a swashbuckling, colorful, exciting, fascinating and, surprisingly, at times touching novel that should prove irresistible for most readers. Its characters are efficiently sketched in by Silverberg, and we grow to like and admire most of the men aboard the Garyun; whenever one of them dies or is killed, it is an unfailingly shocking moment. Gowyn, the ship's captain and Thalassarch of the Western Seas, is especially well drawn, and we come to understand the man's loneliness, despite his high rank. And need I even mention how wonderfully written this novel is? Silverberg has always been an author with an instinctive knack for coming up with just the right word or expression, and his clean and elegant prose, even in a YA affair, is a delight to read.

Despite its short length (this Dell paperback barely reaches the 160-page mark), the author yet manages to give his readers any number of tremendously well-done scenes scattered throughout. Among them: Dovirr's fight with Levrod, the Sea-Lord he must slay to win himself a berth on the Garyun; Dovirr's first encounter with a band of pirates; the conversations that Dovirr has with Gowyn at night on deck, during which we come to understand the older man; the battle aboard Thalassarch Harald's flagship; the accidental death of Gowyn (no, I wouldn't think of telling in what manner); Dovirr's battle to the death with his treacherous first mate, Lysigon; Dovirr's return to Vythain one year after he ran away from it, and the conversation that he has with his father; the exploration of the strangely silent island-city of Vostrok, followed by the first bloody skirmish with the Dhuchay'y; and, of course, the final battle, with the massed armadas of the Thalassarchs and tens of thousands of the Seaborn Ones on one side, and the reptilian aliens on the other. And as for those aliens, let me just say that they make for very credible enemies. Despite having conquered space, and despite their superior weaponry, they are somehow less than invulnerable to good old-fashioned, mano-a-mano, rough-and-tumble fighting. (With their reptilian features, 8-foot height and scaly skin, they couldn't help but remind this reader of "Star Trek"'s Gorn, despite their tails.) And for those readers who love a book featuring gizmos and accomplishments of futuristic superscience, please know that Silverberg here gives us neuron whips (the only weapons left behind by the Dhuchay'y before their 1,000-year absence), an amulet necklace that is in actuality that telepathic communication device, genetic engineering (in the form of the Seaborn Ones), and the heat rays/thermal vibrators that the aliens employ in battle.

Throughout the novel, I might add, the reader suspects that Dovirr will wind up rebelling against his newly adopted and often quite violent lifestyle, but Silverberg's story does not quite play out as expected. His book also winds up delivering some worthwhile messages about following your dreams, as well as the benefits of different races banding together for the common good. And there's also a nice sentiment with reference to striving for power toward the book's end. As Dovirr comes to realize, power "was meaningless when acquired for its own sake...Power meant nothing unless it was put to real use...."

Actually, this reader has very few complaints to lodge against Silverberg's work here. Oh, sure, the book could have been longer; it is really almost too compact and concise! Still, there's nothing wrong with brevity of expression, and leaving a reader wanting more. "Conquerors From the Darkness" could easily have benefited from a sequel, or even served as the basis for an entire series of Dovirr the Thalassarch books. Indeed, by this novel's conclusion, our hero realizes that he will have to be perpetually vigilant for more visits from the Dhuchay'y, a fact that makes the reader wonder if the character should perhaps change his surname to Stargard. It might have been a terrific series. Oh, well. Throughout the book, I was also thinking that it might have been nice had a map been provided of the island world that the Earth has become, a la the map provided in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books, the first of which, "A Wizard of Earthsea," was first released in 1968, three years after "Conquerors…" Could this relatively obscure YA work possibly have been an inspiration? Who knows? Perhaps, if and when "Conquerors…" sees another release, a nice map might be provided for us readers. My only other complaint (that is not really a complaint): There is not a single female character in this book whatsoever (same as in "Time of the Great Freeze"); not even a passing reference to a woman or a girl! One would not expect to find one aboard the Garyun, of course, but not to encounter a single mention of the fairer sex is somewhat odd. Or perhaps Silverberg did not wish to offend his male YA audience with talk of yeechy girls? But other than those three minor cavils, I have nothing negative to say here about Silverberg's wholly fun and hugely captivating piece of work. "Conquerors From the Darkness" serves as proof positive that even when he was "retired," Robert Silverberg was one of the finest purveyors of quality sci-fi that we have ever had....

(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Robert Silverberg....)

[Craig Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dovirr's fists clenched. He was prepared to fight his way on board the Sea-Lord vessel, if he had to. Eighteen years on Vythain--that was enough of a sentence for any man to serve. He was grown, now. He had a dream to follow, and he could not follow it mired here in the floating city."

Over 800 years ago, Earth was conquered by amphibious aliens known as the Dhuchay'y. They flooded our continents, spawned in our oceans, then left. Humanity survived, but only barely, restricted to living on fifty island-cities, each surrounded by an ocean teeming with strange half-man, half-shark mutants.

Dovirr Stargen is a teenager from one of those floating cities who longs to join the wayfaring Sea-Lords to fight pirates on the open seas. His life journey takes him from penniless wharf rat to mighty Thalassarch of the Western Sea and Lord of the Black Ocean. However, his dreams of bloodlust and glory find their ultimate fulfilment on the day the aliens unexpectedly return.

Can he unite the Thalassarchs, the islanders, and the awful Seaborn Ones to repel the invasion and drive the Sea Beasts once again from our water world?

The detailed world-building in this short YA novel is excellent. The plot is simple but full of the gee-whiz wonder that attracted me to science fiction as a young boy.

This story was expanded from the 1957 novella "Spawn of the Deadly Sea", which is also currently in print in the collection Hunt the Space Witch! by Robert Silverberg (Open Road Media, 2015).

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Call it 2.5 stars. By the mid-sixties, Silverberg was transforming from a competent, perhaps slightly above average, journeyman to a writer of some depth and sophistication. This book leans more in the former than the latter direction. Far-future Earth, conquered ages ago by Star Beasts (your typical aliens capable if interstellar travel but who apparently don't have language, since we never hear them say a word--and as their name suggests, they look monstrous), flooded out except for a few floating islands. Abandoned by said aliens a millennium ago. No real reason is given for either. In the interim, land-lubber island cultures and a sea-faring culture of Sea Lords has developed. The Lords patrol the sea, protecting the islands from pirates but demanding tribute in return. It's a quasi-medieval world in the far future. Our protagonist, Dovirr, is a landlubber who chafes at the limits of such a life and manages to join the Sea Lords. Within about 150 pages, he has become the leader of the entire fleet of Sea Lords and takes on the returning aliens, by creating an alliance with the merfolk genetically engineered ages ago as part of the resistance tot he amphibious Star Beasts. These days, the story here would require probably three volumes, each two to three times (or more) the lengths of this slim volume. In some ways, that would make the story better, providing some breathing room for the action as well as for some more complex characterization, as characterization is largely lacking here. On the other hand, there's something to be said for telling a story economically. In this case, though, the story is undistinguished, relying heavily on unlikely events and fairly simple ideology. There are some gestures towards the better work Silverberg would soon be producing, but there are not enough of them to allow this book to rise above the undistinguished.

[Pete Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely more a pirate style story than sci-fi. Its a long wait for the aliens to turn up.

Not one of Silverberg's best. Most of the book is about the main characters rise to power with ship fairing folk. The off world baddies don't turn up til near the end and are sketchily drawn. . It's okay, written in Silverberg's entertaining style, but too much life aboard ship for me. The basic set up is decent enough, though some of the turns of events along the way, stretch credulity. Somehow the story is not fleshed out enough and is fairly predictable. Not bad though.

[Daisy jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me ages to remember the name of this book - such a weird, fun little read! Found this book in the back of a shop in Poland and it was such a treat. The storyline is exactly the quality you'd expect - weird book from the 70s about a totally unfeasible post apocalyptic world, but brilliant nonetheless!

I usually can't be bothered to read books that need an extended exposition for me to understand, but Silverberg didn't need to spend long at all explaining this world.

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, intersting, better than I'd hoped.

[Guillaume · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeune ado, j'avais beaucoup aimé. (en tout les cas, dans mon souvenir)

Quelques années plus tard, ça a pas mal vieilli, et ça ne volait pas bien haut quand même.

[Ozzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good bad book.

Plot holes, no women at all, and janky characters abound. Lean in, grab a drink, and prepare to be unintentionally amused.

[Lee Pfahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and short fairly early novel by this author. Costner's Waterworld movie has some things in common however this novel predates that by at least 20 years so maybe it was an influence for Costner?

[Becca Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic science fi nostalgia

Harkens back to the sci fi of the 60s with star beasts and swords. A fun read but not deep.

[Francesco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun pulp YA.

[Jack Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting world building and nice charachter arc. Some issues with author self insert power fantasies and pacing though

[Paul]

Taylor Ranch, Idaho
Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

By no means a good book, but entertaining, featuring a Conan-like character in a water-world. Good adventure story, but dialog and characterization are pretty weak. Worth a read if you like 60s SF.

[Brian Knoblauch · Rating 3 out of 5]

By no means a deep story, but it's a fast moving and fun read!

[colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

read 05.13.87