River Into Darkness

The River Into Darkness #omnibus 1-2

by Sean Russell

For the first time in an omnibus edition, this duology tells the tale of a twilight age for magic, as one ancient mage tries to hide the secrets that might destroy the world.

It is the twilight of the mages....

Only one of these terrifying and mysterious men still remains--the difficult and enigmatic Lord Eldrich. More than one hundred and thirty years of age, but appearing no older than forty, Eldrich dwells in seclusion, his precious knowledge disclosed to no one, his very existence subject to speculation. For motives of his own, he has dedicated his life to eliminating all remaining vestiges of magic in the world.

But his work does not go for there are those sworn to preserve the very lore Eldrich is striving to eradicate. Fanatical followers of a long-dead mage-apprentice, the Tellerites will stop at nothing to reclaim the forbidden powers of the magical arts--even if it means braving Eldrich's wrath and descending into the perilous depths of a labyrinthine cave system, in search of secrets that have lain hidden since the time of the first mage.

Genres: Fantasy

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Aka Sean Thomas Russell

Sean Russel has co-written, with Ian Dennis, a mystery series called "Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner". The first volume of the series was published by Bantam under their joint pen name, T.F. Banks.

Sean Russell was born 1952 in Toronto. At the age of three his family moved to the outskirts of the city, where they lived in a cottage at the beach of Lake Ontario. At the age of ten he decided to become an author, and the fantasy genre caught him years later, while reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. After university, he moved to Vancouver, and two years later to Vancouver Island, where he still lives with his family. He published his first novel in 1991.His first historical naval novel Under Enemy Colours, published in 2007, introduced a new Royal Navy hero, Charles Hayden, and HMS Themis, a fictitious frigate.

Mr. Russell cites history as one of his passions, collects old yachting and sailing books, skis, sails and travels. Past interests include caving, rock climbing, hiking, and racing sailboats.

Reviews

[bookslayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memory is fiction, a narrative we write and rewrite to explain an ever changing present, a story in which we are the hero, the victim, the wronged or the incomparable lover. And if memory is fiction, what then is history?

For a modern fantasy novel, The River into Darkness (Gonna call it RID for short) isn’t fluff. It successfully combines a good story with more substantial ruminations on morality, memory, fate, and the expressions of evil. This book wasn’t perfect, and not everyone will enjoy it, but its redeeming qualities far outweighed its failures. It has earned its place on my favorites shelf.

(For clarity, RID was broken down into two separate ‘books’, Beneath the Vaulted Hills and Compass of the Soul. Don’t be fooled, they are really just two volumes of the same book. The publisher, DAW, decided not to print a thousand page mass-market paperback encompassing both parts and instead split the book into two volumes. While RID was written after World Without End (same caveat in re the volumes), it is the chronological prequel.)

RID is set in a fantasy world akin to late 1700’s England. The plot starts out with courtly/aristocratic drama and international intrigue which is revealed to be a skirmish between two groups of magic wielders. Eldrich, the last proper mage, seeks to fulfill his group's wishes and destroy the last remnants of magic from the earth. His nemesis, the secret society of the Tellerites, are dedicated to preserving magic. Sounds pretty straightforward? Trust me, its not. The plot is too complicated and nuanced to be reduced to a paragraph or two (which is why all the book descriptions suck). We don’t even have a main character, there are like five.

I shouldn’t like this book as much as I do. The pacing is inconsistent, some of the characters are rather flat, and others are introduced mainly for their appearance in the next book (looking at you Averil Kent), some scenes are way too long, and others too short. Normally, these are dealbreakers for me, but they just work.

I read a review before reading this book, and someone said that the author spent most of the second volume trying to get you to like Eldrich. I saw that and said “Nah, that’s not something I’d fall for." Fast forward to the climactic scene at the very end. I realized that I was rooting for both Eldrich and the last Tellerite simultaneously. Not that I liked Eldrich at all, I still found him to be a despicable and disturbing character, but Russell was able to infuse RID with enough moral ambiguity to put me on the fence. I count that as a great success. I want to be persuaded like that when I read a book. Entertain me or make me feel conflicted, and this book did both.

Going back to the characters, the closest RID has to a conventional protagonist would be Erasmus Flattery, however, he’s not the main character. He is just along for the ride. He thinks of himself as the main character, and the others sometimes do too, but he’s not. There’s a scene in which Kent wonders what the Countess of Chilton likes about Erasmus. Kent is puzzled because Erasmus is ordinary and bland, lacking distinguishing features to win over the greatest beauty in the Kingdom. I feel like that was the author interjecting and saying that Erasmus is just the connecting character, not the main character. Lines of intrigue converge on Erasmus, but he’s not the subject of the intrigue.

With the exception of ‘Deacon’ (*coughs* Grand Inquisitor) Rose, I found the characters worthy of loving and hating. Russell did a good job of painting characters that felt real. They came off of the page and alive in my head.

About free will and decision making. Erasmus floats about like a falling leaf. The Countess of Chilton starts out the same way too. As the story progresses, she is presented with the illusion of choice. Essentially kidnapped, made to see visions, and scared out of her mind, she ‘makes a choice’ that she has to live with for the rest of the novel. She has to wrestle with the fact that she made the choice, even though it was under duress. The author plays with the moral ambiguity of a situation like that in a way that I found satisfying and worthy of the nuances.

I started this review with a quote about memory. One of Eldrich’s favorite things to do is to alter people’s memories. He routinely questions people and makes them forget, erasing himself from their minds, making them forget, his, to be frank, creepy, conduct. For the two artists in the book, Averil Kent the painter, and Marrianne Edden the novelist, memories are their most important possessions. It is what drives them on both their personal and professional levels, and Eldrich deems it fit to strip them of that. During those scenes I could feel their fear and rage on a deep level. Clarendon, on the other hand, has the ‘curse of memory’. He cannot forget. No detail is lost on him. He can remember things twenty years ago as clearly as if they were in front of him. His inability to forget makes him, in the core of his being, sad and miserable, irrational and distraught. His memory is so strong that even Eldrich cannot tamper with it. It truly was a curse for him.

Our antagonist (?) Anna Fielding, the last of the Tellerites, is another ambiguous character. At her center she is a frightened, harmed, and abused child. Messing with things she cannot understand in an attempt to follow her adopted family’s wishes and avenge their deaths. I couldn’t feel but pity, sympathy, and revulsion at her actions. Tragic, is the word I would use to describe her.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. Yeah, it was flawed. No, its not gonna be a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, but it was good. It’s gonna live in my head for a while.

Oh, my favorite quote of the book.

“Are you ready?”
“No. But I shall not become so with time”

I’ll be regularly using that reply with my boss, coworkers, and friends.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh...it was fair at best. Too long even though 2 books combined into one. Favorite characters were Anna, Erasmus and Clarendon. I thought the part in the caves was the most interesting. Some of the threads of the story were left hanging. I wouldn't waste time on this book, but as in all books, I'm still glad that I read for the love of reading.

[Chandler · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF pretty good dialogue but jumps around povs way too much in the beginning and the non dialogue bores me to tears definitely something here but not enough for me.

[Evan Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that is hard to describe..because tbh, nothing much happens.

Fans of the show Bridgerton will recognize the milieu. A pseudo fantasy British Empire somewhere in the 1800s complete with upper class lords and ladies maneuvering up and down the social ladder. This also adds a bit of mystery to every interaction, because the characters are being so formal and polite in that very British manner, that they never just come out and say what they mean.

What is different is the presence of one manipulative ‘spider in the center of his web’ “ Lord Eldritch” who is said to be ‘ the last mage’. He is kept shrouded in mystery and only spoken of in whispered tones throughout most of the first book in this duology omnibus edition.

While we get glimpses of his past and personality near the end of the second book..we never ever get his actual story. It is more told through the eyes of all the other players who we find are just being manipulated by Eldritch towards a final goal of eliminating all magic in the world. …and it is the journey of all the other characters where this book really shines. Like the characters in this story, I also felt inexorably drawn into this web.

We never get a clear explanation of how magic actually works either. It seems to be more along the lines of psionic hypnosis powers triggered by the use of a psychoactive plant seed known as “ King’s Blood” and aided by meditative chanting in a foreign language. I almost didn’t include this on my magic shelf.

While I really enjoyed the book. The main flaw for me was the slow tantalizing buildup promising some big reveal..and then nothing much.

In the first book we find out that Eldritch has been spending decades using his powers to manipulate and winnow down all people with magical talent down to a small group and lure them into a magical cave where he intends to trap them and let them die of starvation…they escape..end… I was hoping for more.

In the second book, we find out Eldritch is trying to eliminate magic because his fortune telling powers have given him a vision of some terrible apocalypse if he doesn’t.. he ends up manipulating one person into becoming a mage to open a gate to another world..killing her..then going through the gate to leave no mages left..end of book 2.

While I loved the journey to the end and the cast of characters surrounding this spider at the center of the web.. the reveal at the end was kind of disappointing… We never get a clear explanation of what this terrible apocalypse is or why it can only be averted by eliminating magic.

I will be looking toward reading the other books in the series..as I am now caught by this author.

[Marguerite Giguère · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! When I bought it I decided to read it without reading the synopsis at the back. I was very surprised to find that it was a prequel to his other book moontide and magic rise. I really enjoyed reading it. The descriptions of the events were so vivid I could picture the whole story very clearly in my mind. This is really a hidden gem.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not perfect but very good and thought provoking