What do you think?
Rate this book
Darwath
Elsewhere
A novelette of 15,000 words, sequel to Hambly’s Darwath series. The builders of the ancient Keep of Dare communicated with other Keeps via a transporter – whose instruction manual unfortunately did not survive the centuries. Thus, Archmage Ingold Inglorion – the only trained wizard in the Keep – and his warrior-woman partner Gil Patterson of California find themselves in what they suspect is an unknown world, with no idea how to return home, while an army of deadly ghosts starts to appear within the Keep itself.
45 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 20, 2017
About the author
Barbara Hambly
182 books1,639 followersaka Barbara Hamilton
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 11, 2017
Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths.
Elsewhere is the latest Keep of Dare novelette from Barbara Hambly. These continued adventures of Gil Patterson and Rudy Solis from late 20th Century America and their companions in the medieval, post-apocalyptic world of Darwath (including wizard Ingold Inglorion) wonderful additions to to the Darwath series.
Here Rudy Solis finds himself frantically attempting to investigate the disappearance of a number of people in the “transporter room” of the keep. (This magical room a little understood remnant of the ancient civilization which built the keep with both magic and technology over a thousand years in the past.) Among the vanished Ingold and Gil. And if attempting to decipher the mysterious workings of the room to save his friends from an unknown fate is not enough, Rudy must also deal with a plague of deadly “ghosts” which have suddenly begun to appear in the keep, killing people with their icy weapons!
From the first sentence, Hambly’s characteristic writing style masterfully creates the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Keep of Dare. The ever shrinking band of survivors huddled within desperately holding onto life in a world slowly deteriorating; the climate outside turning colder and colder. food becoming more and more scarce, and the remains of civilization teetering on the edge of collapse. The claustrophobic, cavern-like hallways within the mysterious citadel as much a tomb as a refuge; their innumerable secrets, which once promised life, still undecipherable by even the wisest. The otherworldly “ghosts” which begin to haunt the living more at home in the bleak “underworld” of Dare’s Keep than the living whom they torment.
Even more compelling than the creepy atmosphere is the continued development of the returning characters, especially our main four of Ingold, Gil, Rudy, and Minalde. These people having grown and developed so much over the years; their personalities and interactions with one another so very realistic, as time and harsh living slowly take their tole on them in so many ways. Yet, for all their differences, they are still the same people who came together to face the rising of the Dark, fearlessly facing death at one another’s side.
Overall, this was yet another great Darwath story. Ms. Hambly continuing her tried-and-true recipe of creepiness, mystery, characterization, and world building to turn Elsewhere into a story that long-time fans of the series, as well as newcomers, can read and enjoy. Highly recommended!
Elsewhere is the latest Keep of Dare novelette from Barbara Hambly. These continued adventures of Gil Patterson and Rudy Solis from late 20th Century America and their companions in the medieval, post-apocalyptic world of Darwath (including wizard Ingold Inglorion) wonderful additions to to the Darwath series.
Here Rudy Solis finds himself frantically attempting to investigate the disappearance of a number of people in the “transporter room” of the keep. (This magical room a little understood remnant of the ancient civilization which built the keep with both magic and technology over a thousand years in the past.) Among the vanished Ingold and Gil. And if attempting to decipher the mysterious workings of the room to save his friends from an unknown fate is not enough, Rudy must also deal with a plague of deadly “ghosts” which have suddenly begun to appear in the keep, killing people with their icy weapons!
From the first sentence, Hambly’s characteristic writing style masterfully creates the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Keep of Dare. The ever shrinking band of survivors huddled within desperately holding onto life in a world slowly deteriorating; the climate outside turning colder and colder. food becoming more and more scarce, and the remains of civilization teetering on the edge of collapse. The claustrophobic, cavern-like hallways within the mysterious citadel as much a tomb as a refuge; their innumerable secrets, which once promised life, still undecipherable by even the wisest. The otherworldly “ghosts” which begin to haunt the living more at home in the bleak “underworld” of Dare’s Keep than the living whom they torment.
Even more compelling than the creepy atmosphere is the continued development of the returning characters, especially our main four of Ingold, Gil, Rudy, and Minalde. These people having grown and developed so much over the years; their personalities and interactions with one another so very realistic, as time and harsh living slowly take their tole on them in so many ways. Yet, for all their differences, they are still the same people who came together to face the rising of the Dark, fearlessly facing death at one another’s side.
Overall, this was yet another great Darwath story. Ms. Hambly continuing her tried-and-true recipe of creepiness, mystery, characterization, and world building to turn Elsewhere into a story that long-time fans of the series, as well as newcomers, can read and enjoy. Highly recommended!
June 28, 2017
Of all Hambly's fantasy series, this is one of the two (the other being the Windrose series) that feels most unresolved. The few survivors of Darwath still face the problems of a planet at the start of a massive Ice Age and the question of how and if they'll survive looms over every story, unanswered.
Surprisingly, though, that was not the most tragic part of this story, one that again explores the mysterious 'transporter' in the bowels of Dare's Keep. Darwath is such a fascinating world, full of fragments of magic and technology that's been left behind with no record or understanding; I'm grateful for every chance we get to visit.
Surprisingly, though, that was not the most tragic part of this story, one that again explores the mysterious 'transporter' in the bowels of Dare's Keep. Darwath is such a fascinating world, full of fragments of magic and technology that's been left behind with no record or understanding; I'm grateful for every chance we get to visit.
September 2, 2026
Worldcon opens today in Los Angeles and Barbara Hambly is one of the Guests of Honor. I still have fond, in fact extremely fond, memories of Hambly’s Darwath trilogy, which I read when it came out back in the early 1980s. I still have my paperbacks, and the original cover of the first book, The Time of the Dark, is every bit as arresting as it was back then.
Because that cover, featured at left, showed a Gandalf-type wizard in full wizarding garb sitting at what was obviously an already old kitchen table in a run-down apartment holding a can of beer. A CAN of beer, not a mug or a stein or a horn, but an actual aluminum can of beer. WITH a bag of potato chips at his feet.
These things do not – and did not at the time – go together. I HAD to read this book. And I did. And every book that followed.
The ending of the original Darwath trilogy in The Armies of Daylight was a scene that stuck with me, not just the gist of it but the actual words, for decades. Because it was about a light shining in a neverending darkness, about giving a woman the choice to walk into danger instead of protecting her “for her own good” when it was really about protecting himself, and because it ended in a romance of equals that began as anything but.
But the trilogy ended in 1983 with The Armies of Daylight. The series as a whole drew to a close after two sequels, Mother of Winter and Icefalcon’s Quest, in 1996.
Or so I thought.
In my search for something of the author’s to read for Worldcon, I discovered that she was every bit as attached to her characters as her readers, and that she had written short stories set in several of the worlds of her classic fantasy, set after their happy ever afters. In the case of Darwath , that would be after the happy for now, because Darwath is a place where tomorrow is even less promised to anyone than most.
Which is how I found these stories, set in one of the few remaining human habitations in Darwath, the Keep of Dare. As much as I wondered if I could get back into a place and a series that I last read THIRTY years ago, I absolutely could not resist diving in to discover how Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis were managing after surviving the end of the world as they knew it.
And I’m glad I did, even though I’m stuck dealing with the book hangover all over again.
Escape Rating A-: I’ve ALWAYS wondered what happened to Ingold, Gil, Rudy and his love, Alde after the end of The Armies of Daylight. ALWAYS. Finding that these Further Adventures existed was such a treat. At the same time, I did wonder whether I could fall back in after so many years, and I’m happy that the answer turned out to be an enthusiastic YES!
So this was certain a case of the right book at the right time.
In the case of this particular series, I wondered what an epilogue or “further adventures would actually look like for this particular series. These further adventures take place after the world has ended – and the people in it have to do their best to survive in conditions that would make most of us give up the ghost.
Which might not be an exit, as the Keep of Dare is filled with actual ghosts.
So the novelettes that tell the tale of these further adventures, Pretty Polly, Whisper, Elsewhere and The Dreamers of the Black Rock, are all stories of endurance wrapped around characters who have already endured a great deal and know that they can’t stop. While they know there’s a light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel, they also know that none of them will live to see it. Their job is to protect the remainder of humanity and teach the next generation the skills they will need to endure and survive.
A lot of the dramatic tension in the individual stories combines an environment that really is out to get them while dealing with the idiocy and/or unthinking privilege of people who still don’t believe the rules apply to them. Not even the rules keeping everyone alive.
Many of the dangers they face are monstrous or supernatural, particularly in Whisper and The Dreamers of the Black Rock. The other two stories (Pretty Polly and Elsewhere) deal more with the stupidity of old powers and dead privilege in a situation where everyone needs everyone else desperately and there is no rescue coming except from each other. And that the old equations of power by inheritance or violence or money have given way to a different equation where power accrues to the ones who are keeping everyone alive.
No one is reading these for a happy ending, then again, they shouldn’t be because that’s not Darwath at all. It’s always been a story about a few desperate people fighting the only fight left to them against terrible odds, and getting up the next morning and doing it again.
Love doesn’t conquer all, but it holds out a hand when the night gets dark that another can cling to. It’s not even about the great and often insane romance between the old wizard and the misplaced scholar, although that’s there too. (And I was happy to see that it’s working out for them as well as could possibly be expected in their terrible circumstances.)
It’s a story about keeping a candle burning in the darkest night, and it caught me by the heart and the throat as much now as it did all those years ago. I’m glad I turned back to see that their candle is still burning.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Because that cover, featured at left, showed a Gandalf-type wizard in full wizarding garb sitting at what was obviously an already old kitchen table in a run-down apartment holding a can of beer. A CAN of beer, not a mug or a stein or a horn, but an actual aluminum can of beer. WITH a bag of potato chips at his feet.
These things do not – and did not at the time – go together. I HAD to read this book. And I did. And every book that followed.
The ending of the original Darwath trilogy in The Armies of Daylight was a scene that stuck with me, not just the gist of it but the actual words, for decades. Because it was about a light shining in a neverending darkness, about giving a woman the choice to walk into danger instead of protecting her “for her own good” when it was really about protecting himself, and because it ended in a romance of equals that began as anything but.
But the trilogy ended in 1983 with The Armies of Daylight. The series as a whole drew to a close after two sequels, Mother of Winter and Icefalcon’s Quest, in 1996.
Or so I thought.
In my search for something of the author’s to read for Worldcon, I discovered that she was every bit as attached to her characters as her readers, and that she had written short stories set in several of the worlds of her classic fantasy, set after their happy ever afters. In the case of Darwath , that would be after the happy for now, because Darwath is a place where tomorrow is even less promised to anyone than most.
Which is how I found these stories, set in one of the few remaining human habitations in Darwath, the Keep of Dare. As much as I wondered if I could get back into a place and a series that I last read THIRTY years ago, I absolutely could not resist diving in to discover how Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis were managing after surviving the end of the world as they knew it.
And I’m glad I did, even though I’m stuck dealing with the book hangover all over again.
Escape Rating A-: I’ve ALWAYS wondered what happened to Ingold, Gil, Rudy and his love, Alde after the end of The Armies of Daylight. ALWAYS. Finding that these Further Adventures existed was such a treat. At the same time, I did wonder whether I could fall back in after so many years, and I’m happy that the answer turned out to be an enthusiastic YES!
So this was certain a case of the right book at the right time.
In the case of this particular series, I wondered what an epilogue or “further adventures would actually look like for this particular series. These further adventures take place after the world has ended – and the people in it have to do their best to survive in conditions that would make most of us give up the ghost.
Which might not be an exit, as the Keep of Dare is filled with actual ghosts.
So the novelettes that tell the tale of these further adventures, Pretty Polly, Whisper, Elsewhere and The Dreamers of the Black Rock, are all stories of endurance wrapped around characters who have already endured a great deal and know that they can’t stop. While they know there’s a light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel, they also know that none of them will live to see it. Their job is to protect the remainder of humanity and teach the next generation the skills they will need to endure and survive.
A lot of the dramatic tension in the individual stories combines an environment that really is out to get them while dealing with the idiocy and/or unthinking privilege of people who still don’t believe the rules apply to them. Not even the rules keeping everyone alive.
Many of the dangers they face are monstrous or supernatural, particularly in Whisper and The Dreamers of the Black Rock. The other two stories (Pretty Polly and Elsewhere) deal more with the stupidity of old powers and dead privilege in a situation where everyone needs everyone else desperately and there is no rescue coming except from each other. And that the old equations of power by inheritance or violence or money have given way to a different equation where power accrues to the ones who are keeping everyone alive.
No one is reading these for a happy ending, then again, they shouldn’t be because that’s not Darwath at all. It’s always been a story about a few desperate people fighting the only fight left to them against terrible odds, and getting up the next morning and doing it again.
Love doesn’t conquer all, but it holds out a hand when the night gets dark that another can cling to. It’s not even about the great and often insane romance between the old wizard and the misplaced scholar, although that’s there too. (And I was happy to see that it’s working out for them as well as could possibly be expected in their terrible circumstances.)
It’s a story about keeping a candle burning in the darkest night, and it caught me by the heart and the throat as much now as it did all those years ago. I’m glad I turned back to see that their candle is still burning.
Originally published at Reading Reality
October 13, 2019
Not a great fan of short stories; this one was OK. It was a nice look back to Darwath. I enjoyed those books a long time ago. If you hadn't read the books, this would have been confusing.
The story was pretty good. A single focus (due to the short length). There wasn't a great deal of characterization; pretty much plot-driven.
I kept wishing for a greater context for this story. The previous short (Whisper) was a richer story.
The story was pretty good. A single focus (due to the short length). There wasn't a great deal of characterization; pretty much plot-driven.
I kept wishing for a greater context for this story. The previous short (Whisper) was a richer story.
September 3, 2018
So nice to visit Gil, Ingold, Rudy and the rest in this story.
July 3, 2023
So happy to find these novelettes "the further adventures of" Hambly's various fantasy series on Kobo Plus! Blizzards and magic and portals and people being people.
October 7, 2024
Always nice to get more of a story. I know I'd already read this one in something else...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews