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Avaryan Rising #6
Tides of Darkness
A stunning new fantasy adventure in the acclaimed Avaryan Chronicles
Hailed as "a sweeping saga, spiced with exciting, unexpected plot twists" ( Publishers Weekly ), Judith Tarr's richly imagined Avaryan fantasy series has gained a broad and devoted following that eagerly awaits each new book. The first five volumes in the series chronicle the reign of a living Sun God and his descendants in an exotic realm torn by warring magical forces. Now, after more than five years, Judith Tarr at last offers her many fans a stunning new chapter in this majestic epic.
A wild, spoiled princeling of the house of Han-Gilen, Indaros Karelios is handsome, arrogant, a seducer and tavern-crawler with little regard for the noble line that spawned him. But Daros is also a mage, unruly, untrained, and unbound by the constraints that block other workers of magic.
Caught violating the mages' gravest prohibition, crossing through the forbidden gates between the worlds, Daros is brought to judgment before the Lady Merian, ruler of the Golden Empire, Mistress of the Gates, and heir of Avaryan. But in Daros' eyes, Merian sees something no one else has seen—a power that far exceeds any she has ever known, and a burning passion that kindles her own restive desires.
Unable to take his life, Merian exiles Daros to serve the one person who might tame him, the Emperor Estarion, the near-immortal who relinquished his rule to live a simpler life in the lands to the north. As Daros learns to control his dawning powers under Estarion's discipline, he discovers a hideous a vast, inexorable wave of darkness is approaching, devouring world after world. Recklessly seeking its limits, Daros vanishes into the chill night, and Estarion, too, is swept up by the shadow, landing on the shores of darkness, where he begins a new life in an ancient land plagued by demons of the night.
Embattled and alone, Lady Merian calls upon her circle of mages to summon the power that will turn back the darkness, as Daros descends to the deepest heart of the darkness, risking his own life and soul to turn back the endless night.
Hailed as "a sweeping saga, spiced with exciting, unexpected plot twists" ( Publishers Weekly ), Judith Tarr's richly imagined Avaryan fantasy series has gained a broad and devoted following that eagerly awaits each new book. The first five volumes in the series chronicle the reign of a living Sun God and his descendants in an exotic realm torn by warring magical forces. Now, after more than five years, Judith Tarr at last offers her many fans a stunning new chapter in this majestic epic.
A wild, spoiled princeling of the house of Han-Gilen, Indaros Karelios is handsome, arrogant, a seducer and tavern-crawler with little regard for the noble line that spawned him. But Daros is also a mage, unruly, untrained, and unbound by the constraints that block other workers of magic.
Caught violating the mages' gravest prohibition, crossing through the forbidden gates between the worlds, Daros is brought to judgment before the Lady Merian, ruler of the Golden Empire, Mistress of the Gates, and heir of Avaryan. But in Daros' eyes, Merian sees something no one else has seen—a power that far exceeds any she has ever known, and a burning passion that kindles her own restive desires.
Unable to take his life, Merian exiles Daros to serve the one person who might tame him, the Emperor Estarion, the near-immortal who relinquished his rule to live a simpler life in the lands to the north. As Daros learns to control his dawning powers under Estarion's discipline, he discovers a hideous a vast, inexorable wave of darkness is approaching, devouring world after world. Recklessly seeking its limits, Daros vanishes into the chill night, and Estarion, too, is swept up by the shadow, landing on the shores of darkness, where he begins a new life in an ancient land plagued by demons of the night.
Embattled and alone, Lady Merian calls upon her circle of mages to summon the power that will turn back the darkness, as Daros descends to the deepest heart of the darkness, risking his own life and soul to turn back the endless night.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published October 18, 2002
3 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
About the author
Judith Tarr
112 books419 followersAKA Caitlin Brennan, Kathleen Bryan.
Judith Tarr (born 1955) is an American author, best known for her fantasy books. She received her B.A. in Latin and English from Mount Holyoke College in 1976, and has an M.A. in Classics from Cambridge University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale University. She taught Latin and writing at Wesleyan University from 1988-1992, and taught at the Clarion science-fiction-writing workshops in 1996 and 1999.
She raises and trains Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona. The romantic fantasies that she writes under the name Caitlin Brennan feature dancing horses modeled on those that she raises.
Judith Tarr (born 1955) is an American author, best known for her fantasy books. She received her B.A. in Latin and English from Mount Holyoke College in 1976, and has an M.A. in Classics from Cambridge University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale University. She taught Latin and writing at Wesleyan University from 1988-1992, and taught at the Clarion science-fiction-writing workshops in 1996 and 1999.
She raises and trains Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona. The romantic fantasies that she writes under the name Caitlin Brennan feature dancing horses modeled on those that she raises.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 7, 2024
Tides of Darkness
Avaryan Rising Book #6
By Judith Tarr
Overview:
A bargain bookstore find of whose front facing artwork captured my attention. I’ve since read “Tides of Darkness” several times over the years. At one point I was surprised to learn it was part of a series but have yet to read any of its predessors.
The tension and suspense of the story builds almost at once. The dangers of the encroaching darkness mounts much like how the Lady Merian desires to mount the insolent Daros. The power of Gates behind the eyes of the feckless spellcaster is as palpable as his would-be thrust into her… WHICH brings me to my next point. Make no mistake, dear reader: this is a Romance-Fantasy novel, or “Romantasy”. A literary genre that enables authors to teeter on—or outright cross—descriptively pornographic boundaries. One may gasp with astonishment or be caught rolling of eyes among various sensual proceedings, or the counterparts of romantic overtures. E.G. “Your impudence is so insulting I could kiss you, and hard! In fact, I think I shall!” *Smooch* Luckily, the author doesn’t dwell on such things at every turn. And even when such topics are discussed, they serve a purpose for the over-arching story. As much as the author loves describing sex scenes, she also loves describing love and devotion to one another in turn. This then yields to undying commitment, professions of love, making babies, etc.
There is also quite an engrossing High Fantasy story to be told in “Tides of Darkness”, a story fraught with peril; lands and even worlds verging on the brink of destruction. What is the devouring darkness and more importantly, who can it be stopped?
The Good:
1. The magical systems employed by ToD was intriguing. Gates that are sources of power and users who are Great Gates themselves. World roads of magical energy. Travel between worlds through magic. The Heart of the World. Also the dichotomy of the Mages: White Mages and Dark Mages, and Daros falling somewhere outside of those two camps — the first ever Red Mage?
2. The contrast between the deification of the Sun and sunlight as a form of supreme energy on one side of the spectrum and an all-consuming darkness akin to “The Nothing” of “The Never-ending Story” on the opposite side, was quite compelling from a symmetry point of view.
3. There is something quite appealing and dignified to high court proceedings when it is written well, which this novel accomplishes and contributes a fair bit of a sub-plot towards. Daros and the Lady Merian’s council of mages, Estarion with Queen Tanit, the High Priest Seti, and a myriad of forging alliances are peppered throughout the novel.
4. The friendship between Daros and Merian’s step brother, Prince-Consort Hani, helped with Daros’ transition between insolent pest and regal delegate.
5. Perhaps a reverse-review since his works came later, but Christopher Paolini’s “Eragon” series seems to have borrowed—or at least maintained—several magical concepts alongside ToD, such as the flaming emblem on the heirs’ palms, warding oneself from magical attacks, and the mystical qualities of cats. I am convinced Paolini read ToD before writing Eragon.
6. The simplicity and yet the perniciousness of hiding a fount of unimaginable darkness (personified as evil) in a warped bowl on a table in a random room of a castle was well crafted, story-wise. So too was it conceivable from wrestling with the Darkness that Daros was able to locate which world Estarion “fell into” and go there himself.
7. The almost polar opposite relationship that Seti-Re has with Daros compared to Estarion was a clever stroke. Again, Daros is becoming a man to be trusted and to be revered, and although as unsettling as it is for Daros, it is shaping him in paces into a Ruler. Yet only giving Seti-Re what he’s capable of, and keeping a certain level of tension in the relationship, made for interesting story.
8. Similarly, Daros becomes entrusted by Queen Tanit to be ambassador for Wasatt and her people. Watching Daros convince a neighboring town to join in alliance, and what gifts and sacrifices need be made for their royalty in order to achieve it, and similarly at the subsequent villages, was a fine piece of storytelling.
9. I appreciated the author’s appointing women of the land into power instead of men. Similarly, the same women were relatively loose with themselves sexually, which might amount to being on par with men’s tenacity for sexual pursuits. The women, such as Merian and Daros’ mom, Varani, were like rebellious school girls for breaking protocol at the final battle and going headlong into the fray themselves. Tarr’s women are amusing and sultry and daring and powerful and I found myself cheering them on by the end.
10. The ending was pretty epic. The Owl calls all the Forces of Light to attack from the various worlds. Estarion and Merian and her mother, Darwya, create a Sun-borne link between their respective worlds to funnel magical Light into the World of Darkness. Legions of mages and warriors funnel through Gates into the world as well. Merian and Daros’ mother, Varani, confront the Dark King at his throne room, who has managed to entrap and subvert Daros as the next source of power for the Darkness after the Owl dies.
The Meh:
1. As diverse the plot is—going from one world to the next, discerning the mystery behind the devouring darkness, rallying defenses—almost universally the women in the novel are described as penis-loving harlots hot with lust and desire. They all have some carnal yearning or portrayal in their respective characters, either walking around topless, wondering if a man’s beauty extends to his under-britches area, or for the female leads, explicit fantasies and the eventual fulfillment of them. It’s a very one-dimensional approach.
2. Tarr muddles the distinction between true light and true darkness with that of Light Magic and Dark Magic and never really explains the differences to the readers either. The eponymous “Tides of Darkness” as it is described about two-thirds of the way into the novel is a magical darkness borne of magical light, taken forcefully and continuously from a supremely magical being. Yet the author often weaves in nighttime and the profound blackness of the universe as being the same as this magical darkness, when in reality they’re completely different things altogether. Otherwise, there would be no need to conjure the Darkness in the first place.
3. The final confrontation between the King of the Dark World and Merian/Varani ended way too quickly. A few sword thrusts and then the King’s throat slit and that was it!
4. Unlike her descriptions of sex scenes, Tarr possesses utterly no imagination towards the details of spell work. When Merian uses her spells to kill, it’s not described as a bolt of living fire sent down from the heavens, no, it’s a blast of power… the end. How mundane! (Having said that, her variety of mage-workings was quite innovative. From Dream-Sex to the concept of Gates to implanting a message into someone akin to raping their mind to creating magelings to channeling darkness from light, there were lots of unusual but intriguing usage of magic.)
Final Thoughts:
I don’t mind romance in novels. I enjoy a good sex scene. I don’t think Tarr crossed any boundaries for me but she came close a couple times. Having said that, Tarr puts just as much descriptive details towards other more savory and wholesome aspects to her narrative as well. She introduces both likeable and detestable characters (especially characters who are likable but become detestable or vice versa). After all, the most well-liked person is not always the one who will get the job done. There is also a sense of Asimovian themes pervading her storytelling, as anyone who has read the Foundation trilogy will recognize. Plots are grand and elaborate and the means to each end take a fair bit of diplomacy and strategic thinking. People need to be persuaded or bribed towards a certain goal. Watching Merian and Daros and Estarion go about this in their own ways contributes the most to the story-craft and are the most captivating aspects of the plot arcs as well.
Finally, Tarr’s female characters specifically are well written. They seem to be singularly promiscuous at first, but their rough edges are rounded out by the end of the book. They are amusing and sultry and daring and powerful and I found myself cheering them on by the end.
5 Stars
Story Explanation:
1. The plot centers around the mystery behind, the defenses for, and the termination of a magically-infused darkness that is consuming townspeople and provisions, taking over worlds, and posing a considerable threat to all things magical. The guardians of the world roads are Mages who are cognizant of this threat but are powerless to do anything about it.
2. The Devouring Darkness is a magical energy that manifests as waves of lapping shadow in the night. It has the power to manipulate, control, bind, and destroy any and all non-magical beings as it sees fit, and is especially potent at consuming magic used against it.
3. A wayward princeling, Indaros “Daros” Karelios of the House of Han-Gilen, is recruited by the Ruling Family of a certain world that worships the Sun God. One of the most powerful mages in the world, the Regent’s daughter—Lady Merian, sees in Daros a vast amount of untrained magical power that can aid her in the quest to stop the Darkness.
4. Daros comes from a small but reputable Royal House. As a prince, he has carefully constructed a persona of impudence and frivolity so that he can never be overestimated. But after Daros commits a magic-related crime deserving death, Lady Merian and her grandfather, the Emperor Estarion, are able to make a deal with Daros: his help instead of his life.
5. Estarion and Merian learn that like them (but a scant few others in the world), Daros is a Great Gate, or a Mage that can call upon power with themselves vs. relying on a source for their power. This makes him worthy of leading teams of mages and sending him on perilous missions that lesser Mages would not be able to accomplish.
6. Estarion is the son of the Living Sun God and is the most powerful magical being on their world. He takes Daros under his wing and points Daros’ moral compass to the cause: to figure out how to fight the Darkness.
7. Yet as Estarion hunts for the answer to the Darkness by his own methods one night, he is swallowed up and spit out on a fringe world that the minions of darkness use to take slaves and provisions from (and which had a distinct lack of magic-users). Unable to break through the Wall the Darkness erects blocking access to the World Roads, Estarion accepts his fate on this new world and soon becomes a Royal Consort to a Queen of a modest sized town.
8. The story then forks into two directions: the fortification and defense of the world Lady Merian is on and the world Estarion is now on. With expert diplomacy and state-craft, Estarion begins anew by rallying his new queen’s town to combatting the Darkness (versus merely being helpless to do anything about it). It helps that everyone views him as a god in Estarion’s own right (which isn’t far off).
9. As Daros searches magically for answers to Estarion’s whereabouts, his material self is teleported by a supremely magical half human, half owl being to the home world of the Darkness. The Owl—who doesn’t have a name but Daros accidentally gives it the name “Mage”—is imprisoned by the very thing it unwittingly released into the worlds connected by Gates.
10. The Owl has the power to teleport Daros into its prison at the World of Darkness but not enough to free itself of its magical shackles. However, the owl bequeaths Daros one of its blue feathers and tells Daros to “use it” when the time is right. The Owl also recognizes the metaphysical link between Daros and Estarion and sends Daros to Estarion’s world afterwards.
11. Long ago, the Owl’s race were masters of harnessing the Power of Light and flew from world to world to help bolster those with magical affinities. Over time though, the counterbalance to magical Light began to makes its presence known: magical Darkness. Devotees began worshiping this Darkness, which is how the school of Dark Magic was founded. Dissension also arose among the ranks of mages that the Owl race helped and turned against both the Owls and their Human counterparts. An epic war ensued that resulted in the decimation of the Owl race but ultimately ended in the Dark Mages loss. Their powers were stripped but were exiled to another world as opposed to killed off.
12. The current rulers of the Darkness, although no longer magical themselves, have been imprisoning and subjugating the remnants of the Owl race—of whom they destroyed long ago—at their exiled home world far from Avaryan. Specifically, they harvest an Owl’s Power of Light through a channeling device that consumes the Light in order to fuel living Darkness, which they call Mother Night.
13. Daros and Estarion reunite on a foreign world and begin to muster all towns and villages to fight the Darkness. Daros, being a mage unto himself, figures out how to create mages from people who have a spark of magical capabilities inside of them, since the world is otherwise devoid of magic-users. Daros then trains them up as their God-Head and shows them how to erect Wards and other useful magical spells. Estarion refers to them as Daros’ “magelings”. Some time later, he convinces Estarion to let him take a band of these magelings to the the home world of the Darkness by being captured by them as slaves, which happens during a raid that they were able to predict its location.
14. Upon the World of Darkness, Daros and his team of mageling spies are basically in a holding pattern, gathering information, learning of ways they could bring about the ruin of the Darkness, and trying not to get found out in the process, though there are casualties. Daros is the most advantaged since he can still use his Magic and can conceal it from the rulers. Through certain prowess, he is selected to become a captain of a raiding party, and is sent to the World of Avaryan of all places.
15. Backtracking to Lady Merian and her defense efforts against the Darkness, she was able to make a raiding party of the Darkness attack at a certain location on her world by casting spells that made an illusion of a huge town ripe with food stores and able-bodied men and women. She defeated the raiding party with her overwhelming aptitude with Light Magic. She then began to assign all of her mages to towns that possessed an abundance of provisions throughout the empire in order to continue to thwart the Darkness’ raiding parties on their world. Their raids continued to appear and Lady Merian’s mages continued to win against them.
16. During this time, Lady Merian and Daros are able to meet in Mage-Dreams. They share each other’s war effort information and are also able to have Dream-Sex together, they each aren’t sure of its authenticity until Merian gets pregnant. Lady Merian sends a band of mages to Daros at the World of Darkness to further aid Daros’ reconnaissance and eventual uprisal, aiming to cause dissent in the slaves.
17. After some time of this, Lady Merian and her council began to wonder why the raiding parties of the Darkness didn’t just start going to other worlds to raid as they had in the past. Daros’s father, the Prince of Han-Gilen, learns the answer in an ancient tome. In it is revealed that it was their very own world that this epic war between the Dark Mages and the Owls and Mages of Light fought hundreds of generations ago, and that Avaryan, the Sun God—whom Estarion and Merian are descendants—made it his life’s pursuit to thwarting Darkness at every turn directly because of this checkered past.
18. They then realize it is because their world was the start—and end—of the Acolytes of Darkness’ conquest. The Darkness’ expanse has been halted because it finally came back to the World of Avaryan from which it was banished eons ago.
19. When Daros’ raiding party appears, his orders are to raid storehouses but not to kill. Daros secretly prepares a magical message that he hopes to implant in anyone magical who might be guarding the town he’s raiding. Lo and behold, it is his own mom who is guarding the town. Daros is able to fend off her attacks and is successful at implanting his message, but Daros’ mom also learns the current perception of truth about her son in so doing. She takes the message back to Lady Merian.
20. The final events of the book are as such. Daros is captured by the Dark King and traded in servitude for the Owl, who is dying. With his final breath, the Owl telepathically commands all the Forces of Light to attack the Dark World, to which they obey. Estarion sacrifices himself in order to eradicate the Darkness. Merian and Varani (Daros’ mother) rescue Daros and slay the Dark King. Daros and Merian profess their undying love to each other and Merian finally informs Daros of their daughter, but Daros wants to stay behind to help rehabilitate the people of the Darkness, or exact judgment on them failing that.
Avaryan Rising Book #6
By Judith Tarr
Overview:
A bargain bookstore find of whose front facing artwork captured my attention. I’ve since read “Tides of Darkness” several times over the years. At one point I was surprised to learn it was part of a series but have yet to read any of its predessors.
The tension and suspense of the story builds almost at once. The dangers of the encroaching darkness mounts much like how the Lady Merian desires to mount the insolent Daros. The power of Gates behind the eyes of the feckless spellcaster is as palpable as his would-be thrust into her… WHICH brings me to my next point. Make no mistake, dear reader: this is a Romance-Fantasy novel, or “Romantasy”. A literary genre that enables authors to teeter on—or outright cross—descriptively pornographic boundaries. One may gasp with astonishment or be caught rolling of eyes among various sensual proceedings, or the counterparts of romantic overtures. E.G. “Your impudence is so insulting I could kiss you, and hard! In fact, I think I shall!” *Smooch* Luckily, the author doesn’t dwell on such things at every turn. And even when such topics are discussed, they serve a purpose for the over-arching story. As much as the author loves describing sex scenes, she also loves describing love and devotion to one another in turn. This then yields to undying commitment, professions of love, making babies, etc.
There is also quite an engrossing High Fantasy story to be told in “Tides of Darkness”, a story fraught with peril; lands and even worlds verging on the brink of destruction. What is the devouring darkness and more importantly, who can it be stopped?
The Good:
1. The magical systems employed by ToD was intriguing. Gates that are sources of power and users who are Great Gates themselves. World roads of magical energy. Travel between worlds through magic. The Heart of the World. Also the dichotomy of the Mages: White Mages and Dark Mages, and Daros falling somewhere outside of those two camps — the first ever Red Mage?
2. The contrast between the deification of the Sun and sunlight as a form of supreme energy on one side of the spectrum and an all-consuming darkness akin to “The Nothing” of “The Never-ending Story” on the opposite side, was quite compelling from a symmetry point of view.
3. There is something quite appealing and dignified to high court proceedings when it is written well, which this novel accomplishes and contributes a fair bit of a sub-plot towards. Daros and the Lady Merian’s council of mages, Estarion with Queen Tanit, the High Priest Seti, and a myriad of forging alliances are peppered throughout the novel.
4. The friendship between Daros and Merian’s step brother, Prince-Consort Hani, helped with Daros’ transition between insolent pest and regal delegate.
5. Perhaps a reverse-review since his works came later, but Christopher Paolini’s “Eragon” series seems to have borrowed—or at least maintained—several magical concepts alongside ToD, such as the flaming emblem on the heirs’ palms, warding oneself from magical attacks, and the mystical qualities of cats. I am convinced Paolini read ToD before writing Eragon.
6. The simplicity and yet the perniciousness of hiding a fount of unimaginable darkness (personified as evil) in a warped bowl on a table in a random room of a castle was well crafted, story-wise. So too was it conceivable from wrestling with the Darkness that Daros was able to locate which world Estarion “fell into” and go there himself.
7. The almost polar opposite relationship that Seti-Re has with Daros compared to Estarion was a clever stroke. Again, Daros is becoming a man to be trusted and to be revered, and although as unsettling as it is for Daros, it is shaping him in paces into a Ruler. Yet only giving Seti-Re what he’s capable of, and keeping a certain level of tension in the relationship, made for interesting story.
8. Similarly, Daros becomes entrusted by Queen Tanit to be ambassador for Wasatt and her people. Watching Daros convince a neighboring town to join in alliance, and what gifts and sacrifices need be made for their royalty in order to achieve it, and similarly at the subsequent villages, was a fine piece of storytelling.
9. I appreciated the author’s appointing women of the land into power instead of men. Similarly, the same women were relatively loose with themselves sexually, which might amount to being on par with men’s tenacity for sexual pursuits. The women, such as Merian and Daros’ mom, Varani, were like rebellious school girls for breaking protocol at the final battle and going headlong into the fray themselves. Tarr’s women are amusing and sultry and daring and powerful and I found myself cheering them on by the end.
10. The ending was pretty epic. The Owl calls all the Forces of Light to attack from the various worlds. Estarion and Merian and her mother, Darwya, create a Sun-borne link between their respective worlds to funnel magical Light into the World of Darkness. Legions of mages and warriors funnel through Gates into the world as well. Merian and Daros’ mother, Varani, confront the Dark King at his throne room, who has managed to entrap and subvert Daros as the next source of power for the Darkness after the Owl dies.
The Meh:
1. As diverse the plot is—going from one world to the next, discerning the mystery behind the devouring darkness, rallying defenses—almost universally the women in the novel are described as penis-loving harlots hot with lust and desire. They all have some carnal yearning or portrayal in their respective characters, either walking around topless, wondering if a man’s beauty extends to his under-britches area, or for the female leads, explicit fantasies and the eventual fulfillment of them. It’s a very one-dimensional approach.
2. Tarr muddles the distinction between true light and true darkness with that of Light Magic and Dark Magic and never really explains the differences to the readers either. The eponymous “Tides of Darkness” as it is described about two-thirds of the way into the novel is a magical darkness borne of magical light, taken forcefully and continuously from a supremely magical being. Yet the author often weaves in nighttime and the profound blackness of the universe as being the same as this magical darkness, when in reality they’re completely different things altogether. Otherwise, there would be no need to conjure the Darkness in the first place.
3. The final confrontation between the King of the Dark World and Merian/Varani ended way too quickly. A few sword thrusts and then the King’s throat slit and that was it!
4. Unlike her descriptions of sex scenes, Tarr possesses utterly no imagination towards the details of spell work. When Merian uses her spells to kill, it’s not described as a bolt of living fire sent down from the heavens, no, it’s a blast of power… the end. How mundane! (Having said that, her variety of mage-workings was quite innovative. From Dream-Sex to the concept of Gates to implanting a message into someone akin to raping their mind to creating magelings to channeling darkness from light, there were lots of unusual but intriguing usage of magic.)
Final Thoughts:
I don’t mind romance in novels. I enjoy a good sex scene. I don’t think Tarr crossed any boundaries for me but she came close a couple times. Having said that, Tarr puts just as much descriptive details towards other more savory and wholesome aspects to her narrative as well. She introduces both likeable and detestable characters (especially characters who are likable but become detestable or vice versa). After all, the most well-liked person is not always the one who will get the job done. There is also a sense of Asimovian themes pervading her storytelling, as anyone who has read the Foundation trilogy will recognize. Plots are grand and elaborate and the means to each end take a fair bit of diplomacy and strategic thinking. People need to be persuaded or bribed towards a certain goal. Watching Merian and Daros and Estarion go about this in their own ways contributes the most to the story-craft and are the most captivating aspects of the plot arcs as well.
Finally, Tarr’s female characters specifically are well written. They seem to be singularly promiscuous at first, but their rough edges are rounded out by the end of the book. They are amusing and sultry and daring and powerful and I found myself cheering them on by the end.
5 Stars
Story Explanation:
1. The plot centers around the mystery behind, the defenses for, and the termination of a magically-infused darkness that is consuming townspeople and provisions, taking over worlds, and posing a considerable threat to all things magical. The guardians of the world roads are Mages who are cognizant of this threat but are powerless to do anything about it.
2. The Devouring Darkness is a magical energy that manifests as waves of lapping shadow in the night. It has the power to manipulate, control, bind, and destroy any and all non-magical beings as it sees fit, and is especially potent at consuming magic used against it.
3. A wayward princeling, Indaros “Daros” Karelios of the House of Han-Gilen, is recruited by the Ruling Family of a certain world that worships the Sun God. One of the most powerful mages in the world, the Regent’s daughter—Lady Merian, sees in Daros a vast amount of untrained magical power that can aid her in the quest to stop the Darkness.
4. Daros comes from a small but reputable Royal House. As a prince, he has carefully constructed a persona of impudence and frivolity so that he can never be overestimated. But after Daros commits a magic-related crime deserving death, Lady Merian and her grandfather, the Emperor Estarion, are able to make a deal with Daros: his help instead of his life.
5. Estarion and Merian learn that like them (but a scant few others in the world), Daros is a Great Gate, or a Mage that can call upon power with themselves vs. relying on a source for their power. This makes him worthy of leading teams of mages and sending him on perilous missions that lesser Mages would not be able to accomplish.
6. Estarion is the son of the Living Sun God and is the most powerful magical being on their world. He takes Daros under his wing and points Daros’ moral compass to the cause: to figure out how to fight the Darkness.
7. Yet as Estarion hunts for the answer to the Darkness by his own methods one night, he is swallowed up and spit out on a fringe world that the minions of darkness use to take slaves and provisions from (and which had a distinct lack of magic-users). Unable to break through the Wall the Darkness erects blocking access to the World Roads, Estarion accepts his fate on this new world and soon becomes a Royal Consort to a Queen of a modest sized town.
8. The story then forks into two directions: the fortification and defense of the world Lady Merian is on and the world Estarion is now on. With expert diplomacy and state-craft, Estarion begins anew by rallying his new queen’s town to combatting the Darkness (versus merely being helpless to do anything about it). It helps that everyone views him as a god in Estarion’s own right (which isn’t far off).
9. As Daros searches magically for answers to Estarion’s whereabouts, his material self is teleported by a supremely magical half human, half owl being to the home world of the Darkness. The Owl—who doesn’t have a name but Daros accidentally gives it the name “Mage”—is imprisoned by the very thing it unwittingly released into the worlds connected by Gates.
10. The Owl has the power to teleport Daros into its prison at the World of Darkness but not enough to free itself of its magical shackles. However, the owl bequeaths Daros one of its blue feathers and tells Daros to “use it” when the time is right. The Owl also recognizes the metaphysical link between Daros and Estarion and sends Daros to Estarion’s world afterwards.
11. Long ago, the Owl’s race were masters of harnessing the Power of Light and flew from world to world to help bolster those with magical affinities. Over time though, the counterbalance to magical Light began to makes its presence known: magical Darkness. Devotees began worshiping this Darkness, which is how the school of Dark Magic was founded. Dissension also arose among the ranks of mages that the Owl race helped and turned against both the Owls and their Human counterparts. An epic war ensued that resulted in the decimation of the Owl race but ultimately ended in the Dark Mages loss. Their powers were stripped but were exiled to another world as opposed to killed off.
12. The current rulers of the Darkness, although no longer magical themselves, have been imprisoning and subjugating the remnants of the Owl race—of whom they destroyed long ago—at their exiled home world far from Avaryan. Specifically, they harvest an Owl’s Power of Light through a channeling device that consumes the Light in order to fuel living Darkness, which they call Mother Night.
13. Daros and Estarion reunite on a foreign world and begin to muster all towns and villages to fight the Darkness. Daros, being a mage unto himself, figures out how to create mages from people who have a spark of magical capabilities inside of them, since the world is otherwise devoid of magic-users. Daros then trains them up as their God-Head and shows them how to erect Wards and other useful magical spells. Estarion refers to them as Daros’ “magelings”. Some time later, he convinces Estarion to let him take a band of these magelings to the the home world of the Darkness by being captured by them as slaves, which happens during a raid that they were able to predict its location.
14. Upon the World of Darkness, Daros and his team of mageling spies are basically in a holding pattern, gathering information, learning of ways they could bring about the ruin of the Darkness, and trying not to get found out in the process, though there are casualties. Daros is the most advantaged since he can still use his Magic and can conceal it from the rulers. Through certain prowess, he is selected to become a captain of a raiding party, and is sent to the World of Avaryan of all places.
15. Backtracking to Lady Merian and her defense efforts against the Darkness, she was able to make a raiding party of the Darkness attack at a certain location on her world by casting spells that made an illusion of a huge town ripe with food stores and able-bodied men and women. She defeated the raiding party with her overwhelming aptitude with Light Magic. She then began to assign all of her mages to towns that possessed an abundance of provisions throughout the empire in order to continue to thwart the Darkness’ raiding parties on their world. Their raids continued to appear and Lady Merian’s mages continued to win against them.
16. During this time, Lady Merian and Daros are able to meet in Mage-Dreams. They share each other’s war effort information and are also able to have Dream-Sex together, they each aren’t sure of its authenticity until Merian gets pregnant. Lady Merian sends a band of mages to Daros at the World of Darkness to further aid Daros’ reconnaissance and eventual uprisal, aiming to cause dissent in the slaves.
17. After some time of this, Lady Merian and her council began to wonder why the raiding parties of the Darkness didn’t just start going to other worlds to raid as they had in the past. Daros’s father, the Prince of Han-Gilen, learns the answer in an ancient tome. In it is revealed that it was their very own world that this epic war between the Dark Mages and the Owls and Mages of Light fought hundreds of generations ago, and that Avaryan, the Sun God—whom Estarion and Merian are descendants—made it his life’s pursuit to thwarting Darkness at every turn directly because of this checkered past.
18. They then realize it is because their world was the start—and end—of the Acolytes of Darkness’ conquest. The Darkness’ expanse has been halted because it finally came back to the World of Avaryan from which it was banished eons ago.
19. When Daros’ raiding party appears, his orders are to raid storehouses but not to kill. Daros secretly prepares a magical message that he hopes to implant in anyone magical who might be guarding the town he’s raiding. Lo and behold, it is his own mom who is guarding the town. Daros is able to fend off her attacks and is successful at implanting his message, but Daros’ mom also learns the current perception of truth about her son in so doing. She takes the message back to Lady Merian.
20. The final events of the book are as such. Daros is captured by the Dark King and traded in servitude for the Owl, who is dying. With his final breath, the Owl telepathically commands all the Forces of Light to attack the Dark World, to which they obey. Estarion sacrifices himself in order to eradicate the Darkness. Merian and Varani (Daros’ mother) rescue Daros and slay the Dark King. Daros and Merian profess their undying love to each other and Merian finally informs Daros of their daughter, but Daros wants to stay behind to help rehabilitate the people of the Darkness, or exact judgment on them failing that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2019
An epic battle between light and dark, not the dark of evil but of oblivion and despair. A love story as odd and magical as it is inevitable, and another that has a magic and rightness all its own. A tale of trust and redemption. A truly wonderful book.
August 22, 2022
The story follows a few characters as they discover themselves and their true potential, as well as a terrifying plot to destroy the world as they know it. The worldbuilding and the magic system is fascinating and the novel spans between different parts of the world as well as different worlds, times and dimensions in an engaging and suspenseful progression. I did n0t read any of the other novels in the series but I could easily follow the plot and understand the worldbuilding. Looking forward to more novels of this series.
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October 7, 2013Enjoyable beginning, but it collapses into Dead Serious High Fantasy Stuff at the end, with a consequent decrease of liveliness and immediacy. And I usually love Dead Serious High Fantasy Stuff. It just doesn't feel well-integrated here.
I would love a book where the profligate promiscuous wastrel with unexpected talents is a woman.
I would love a book where the profligate promiscuous wastrel with unexpected talents is a woman.
December 30, 2017
I liked the story and the language. Seemed a bit old-fashioned to me. I did not always find it very logical, but it appealed to my dramatic and romantic side. Made me feel a little bit like a teenager again, reading in secret all through the night. I read it on my tiny smartphone screen. And the Kindle cover was much better than the one shown here.
February 3, 2016
This isn't a narrative style that I usually like, but the story was strong enough that it soon made no difference.
I didn't realize that this was the middle of a series. The books worked well enough as a stand-alone. I may go back and start at the beginning of this one.
I didn't realize that this was the middle of a series. The books worked well enough as a stand-alone. I may go back and start at the beginning of this one.
Read
February 28, 2016I liked the story and characters enough to finish it. But sometimes I didn't know really what was happening. And also there is a lot of telling not showing. But the characters and plot kept me involved
March 18, 2024
It's unfortunate, but Judith Tarr's The Tides of Darkness just confirmed my growing fear that she's gone from writing intriguing fantasy to writing mediocre romances mislabeled as fantasy.
March 31, 2011
Apotheosis of Estarion
November 24, 2014
Fantasy
I hate the cover of this book,but once again the author bound me to one of her worlds,even a bit slow to start,I read it in a day.So now have to check out if there are more.
I hate the cover of this book,but once again the author bound me to one of her worlds,even a bit slow to start,I read it in a day.So now have to check out if there are more.
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