Darkness, I

Blood Opera Sequence #3

by Tanith Lee

A new tale of horror featuring the mysterious vampiric family of Scarabae follows Anna, a family member, as she and twenty other children are kidnapped and taken to a pyramid under the Southern ice by an immortal named Cain. By the author of Personal Darkness.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Fantasy, Fiction, Gothic, Dark Fantasy, LGBT

408 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. I liked it--I guess? It's a wild ride. Minor spoilers ahead.

Boy oh boy, if you thought it was gross that Ruth, age 15/16, was having sex with grown men (grown vampires?) in book 2, you're gonna love that Anna, AGE 2 (yes, 2), was having sex in this book. She's not human, she's some sort of reincarnated vampire-creature, and her two-year-old body was matured to that of an adult woman. But still. I'm not really sure what do with this info, lol. It's almost too absurd to be gross, but if you think about it, it's troubling.

Anyway, this book kind of went off the rails in other ways too. Apparently the oldest Scarabae, Cain, lives in the North Pole in a pseudo-Ancient-Egypt society that he's created. He kidnaps children that he believes are reincarnated family members. Racheala actually does something for once, after two books of being passive. The Scarabae family continues being odd and rich and aging backwards. Malach decides he does, after all, love Ruth/Anna, and tries to save her from Cain. Uncle Camillo has a pointless plot where he gets married.

It's strange, dream-like (nightmare-like?), and kind of wanders off at the end. Still, it's an evocative series, with interesting gothic imagery and some cool horror ideas. I'd never recommend it to anyone else (it's dated and eek the child-vampire sex), but I enjoyed the series.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is such a mess! Lee forgets how many characters she has and what story she's trying to tell multiple times over the course of this novel. People show up and vanish from the story within 30 pages. Other characters hang around for a long time for no particular reason, and then disappear with their story unfinished. Almost every aspect of storytelling is sacrificed in order to give detailed descriptions of Egyptian temples, which happen to be underground and at the South Pole. It's a mess! But I had a lot of fun reading it.

[Meredith is a hot mess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review in Progress


Second read through:

-Fav quotes:

‘I don’t believe it’s true.’ ‘Yes. A sorcerer and a pharaoh. Set’s night. The bringer of darkness and loss. He has a black stone in his apartment. On it is a phrase in Roman Latin. Tenebrae sum. What have you been taught? Do you understand?’ ‘I know what it means.’ Lilith moved, a whisper; she crouched forward like the Greek sphynx. ‘What does it mean, then? Say it.’ Anna said, slowly, ‘Darkness, I.’ ‘That is him.’ She paused. ‘Or, all of us. What do you remember, Anna-Ankhet?’


If they had lived so extensively, those centuries, and where they had not continued in one body, had returned, reborn, half remembering, how had they come to this pass? This utter stupid littleness? They could have been gods, almost. They thought like people. Loved and hated and wanted to hurt and save the way only people excusably can, people who are tortured and maimed and have only one life. And this was what he was saying, quietly, but it was in another language and she did not understand.

‘Then,’ she said, ‘I can tell you one last thing.’ He waited. The Jewess said, ‘She is white as snow, but the child in her womb is black. Black as coal.’ She lifted her head and added, to the silent entity of the room: ‘A new darkness.’


A wind came, the hot scorpion wind of the desert.’ She said: ‘The dust thrashed against the city. The sun was dull.’ And from the dust, the wind out of the desert waste, they came. There was no true name for them. The Torah,’ she said, ‘instructs that they were Arov – this term is disputed by scholars. Wild beasts, say some. Others tell us that flies came upon the city of Pharaoh. Or snakes. And others say that they were, the Arov, blood-suckers. Scarabs.’ From the desert, haloed by dust, the plague walked on bare narrow feet that did not feel the furnace heat of the sand. Their robes were black. Their hair was black, blowing about their faces. Their eyes were like the drawings on the walls of tombs, almonds painted in by a black rim, the iris black as an orb of night. Scarabs. The Arov.‘ They entered the streets, and the wind covered them over like a cloak. The sun-bird was snared in a net of shadow. For they did not like the sun.’ They crept into the palaces and the hovels of the city. They were – she told him – too marvellous to resist. And there they sucked human blood. They tore out throats, they fastened their teeth into necks, they drained dry Men-Nefer, whose white walls, deadened with shade, were then splashed by red. And the river ran scarlet, as before, from the dead thrown into it. ‘Yes, monsieur. Delicious vampires. Lovely until the moment of attack. In Men-Nefer some of the citizens died of shock, and some of the blood that was lost. Some of not giving in, killed. And the streets were dyed with red, and the river was red, and the sun was red too, in the black day sky.’ ‘It wasn’t enough. The king, the Pharaoh, was obdurate. And so other plagues fell upon Men-Nefer. The diseases that the vampire Arov had brought with their bites. Hail that flamed. Locusts that ate the crops. And then Darkness came. Darkness which could be touched.





Cain, Anna, & Malach

I loved Cain this read through, in an odd way. He was made out to be a huge villain by Malach, Rachaela, and Althene....yet, he treated Anna more kindly in some ways than how Malach treated Ruth. I'm devastated Tanith Lee never had the chance to write Darker Ages, because she said in interviews she would have continued Ruth and Malach's relationship in the next book. I can't speak to the sadness I have that their story ends here. At the same time, the Scarabae are so mysterious, with so little revealed about them over the course of 3 books, it's almost a suiting ending, poetic in its own way. *sigh*

Gender & sexual fluidity with Rachaela and Althene

And I don’t like men, do I? I want them, but I don’t like them. I never forget them, but I never love.

No one in reviews has talked about Althene's gender, but I really was touched by Althene's bravery when it came to facing her mother...the willingness to turn back into Johanne to find Anna. I have more thoughts on this, but I thought Tanith Lee's portrayal of gender regarding Althene was very nuanced as well as organic.








Original review:

3.75 stars, I think. I may raise it to 4 stars eventually, my mind isn't made up about this one.

I came to this book with tempered expectations. You have to be in the mood to read and enjoy this book. It doesn't follow a normal plot, and I personally found it less engaging than the previous two novels. I skimmed through the POVs of minor characters, and I don't regret it. I did truly enjoy Rachaela, Althene, and Malach's POVs. The real story was with them and Anna, of course.

Tanith Lee's writing was beautiful. It was her writing and interesting characters she had developed in the previous novels that carried me through this story.

......

Some of my favorite excerpts:

Rachaela dealing with an unwanted man's attentions at a bar:

Here a man tried to pick her up. What would she have done years ago? Shunned him? Run away, pushed him off? She said, 'How lovely. I charge a hundred pounds. Is that all right?'

'Christ,' he said. He went red as the wine and slunk out, smelling of sudden sweat under Faberge.

LOL. I love how subtly outrageous she can be, my first thought was what would she have done if he took her up on the offer?

Some of Althene and Rachaela's conversations:

'I still don't know you.'

'How dare you,' said Althene sweetly, 'suppose you could know me so quickly. It will take you many, many decades even to begin.'

'Do we have them? Many many decades?'

'We have, certainly, some cold wine in the refrigerator.'

Well, I'll tell you a story of my father, what I know of him. I saw him only once Long ago.'

'How long? Was this in the fourteen hundreds perhaps? Earlier?'

Althene grimaced. She said, 'Suffice it to say our dresses swept the floor.

'You are becoming,' Althene said, 'exasperating. You're forming yourself into it, like a creature into a chrysalis. What will hatch?

'A beetle,' said Rachaela. 'A scarab.'

Rachaela's inner musings:

Althene's eyes went to the baby, and in Rachaela the serpent uncoiled. Love at first sight. I am going to be stupidly and ridiculously and unworthily and torridly jealous. And we are incestuous Scarabae. Christ knows, I have some cause.

And I thought this passage was beautiful:

Above the pyramid a single star blazed like a diamond. And Ruth's ka slid up out of the tomb. Rachaela had read Haggard's novel, Morning Star. And what was a ka? Astral body more than ghost. The double that was freed at the negation of the flesh. Ruth's ka was very glamorous. It wore a black dress with silver embroidery at the throat, and its black hair hung long and lustrous down its spine. The face of Ruth's ka was beautifully made up, the lips pale red, the eyes like smoulder.

'Hallo, Ruth,' Rachaela said.

'Hallo, Mummy.'

And then the ka came towards Rachaela, and Ruth held out her right hand. On the tips of her fingers rested a still, soft flame. Rachaela meant to back away, but she could not. Ruth, starter of fires--

...Ruth extended the star of flame upon her hand. And Rachaela discovered that she had opened her mouth, wide, in a rictus, as once in her childhood she had had to do at the dentist's --

...And then Rachaela knew that Ruth had put the flame into her mouth, even before the dentist loomed over her again with his buzzing stinging wasp of a drill, to give her the only filling of her life. And he said, 'Now just swallow that little flame, please, and then rinse round.'

Rachaela swallowed the flame.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tanith Lee does greatlyrical passages and creates haunted characters... who abruptly die, walk off sad and alone, and who intersect in very odd ways. Mid-book i was loving it, but at the end, when so many storylines wandered off unresolved, so many questions still lay unanswered, and characters reappeared who had been gone for eons of chapters... I was just like, "bah!". I think I'm gonna stick more to her fantasy stuff which wraps up sweeter, neater, just as eloquently, and not so dispiritedly. I REALLY didn't like the first book, though the second was fairly solid, and this one I'm iffy on.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a lot for me to love this book but I've read it several times and have found the beauty in it. Here we find Rachaela again, bearing a child to the Scarabae, another strange child that is spirited away by an even more ancient part of the Scarabae family.

What I liked most about this book was the peeks into the family's past, ocean voyages and other tales are revealed. We see the truth in their sadness. I wish the final book could be given to the world as so many questions are left unanswered. Only a short story from an anthology "Outsiders: 22 Stories from the Edge", edited by Nancy Holder, gives us a hint at what was to be (the story is "Scarabesque or the Girl who broke Dracula". It's important to add this when you are done with Darkness, I.

[Alyssa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as good as the first two books in this series. I like Tanith Lee's style, but nothing happened in this one - there was really no coherent story. She set up all these different story lines and I kept thinking they'd somehow tie together but they never did. Very descriptive but no real plot.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great, hard-to-put-down story about the Scarabae.

[Lara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can accept some incest and creepiness in my vampire stories, but between Anna being two years old and looking and behaving like a sixteen-year-old, Rachaela finding herself somewhat sexually attracted to her own daughter, and the whole introduction of the other reincarnated children (oh Faran, oh Berenice) only to have them coldly killed off, this book was just too much.

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenebrae sum.

Well, that was pretty good for a book with no plot. Lee's writing can go pretty far on its own.

I liked learning about the Scarabae, but there are still so many questions. So many stories to be told.

Althene and Malach are my favorites. In the last book, Malach was badass, but in this book I actually liked him. I wish more of the story had included them. Camillo is always amusing to read, but I'll never understand his motives.

"You helped me once very much," she said. "I wish that I could return the favor."
"But you can't. One life is enough for any of us to manage. And our lives, of course, are so long."





This book was published in 1994, but I'm adding this last image just because I can.

[Scarlett O.H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not like this third book as much as the first two in the series. the first two were real page turners.

[Sarah Frog · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really difficult for me to finish this one. It sucks that it ended on a cliff hanger. I felt like the credits rolled and emo song started playing. But there won’t be another installment. Too many characters. The only ones I cared about were althene and rachaela. I figured her daughter was still Ruth. The story itself is definitely out there. I just really preferred the first two books compared to darkness, I.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first impression upon finishing this book was that the story was lovely, sprawling and dark, and had some intriguing tie-ins with the Bible and the mythology of Ancient Egypt. It also had a huge cast of characters, all of whom were more interesting than Rachaela - who had a relatively small role in this book - which was a nice change. Rachaela DID, however, finally decided to DO something at one point. She didn't accomplish much on her own, but it was refreshing to see a switch from the usual sitting around, not liking anything that was offered, but not actually doing anything about it. And also, there was Anna, who got more and more fun to read as the story progressed. Anyone who's read "Darkness, I" will understand why.

My second impression was, what the HECK was up with the storylines that didn't go anywhere? The stories of Malach and Althene, while not actually ending, did have some kind of resolution. At least three others didn't, and one ended so abruptly that I was left with the feeling of, "Yikes! Well FINE, be that way." Why spend so much loving detail on characters who's stories will either peter out with no explanation, or just stop?

I get the idea that I'd be less irritated with the loose ends if I knew that we'd get more explanation in a fourth book. I'm not holding my breath on that one though. "Darkness, I" came out in 1996, and I remember reading at least one mention of "the as-yet unfinished fourth book in the Blood Opera Sequence" back in 2005. It's now 2010, with no sign of a sequel. Pity, I was curious about what happened next.

[Taryn Moreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final book in the Blood Opera Sequence is just as beautifully written as the first two, but it has a far wider, more epic reach that culminates in a not-entirely-satisfying conclusion. The introduction to the kindle addition informed me that there was a fourth novel in the works, but, alas, we never got it.

Despite the somewhat lackluster ending, the central plot and the origins of the Scarabae certainly kept my interest, and a number of the side stories and characters were amusing in their own light, even if I would have preferred a tighter story. Perhaps my favorite development involved Rachaela and Althene. It was satisfying to see Rachaela grow as a character.

Anyway, Darkness, I wasn't as captivating as the previous two novels, and didn't work for me as the final book in a trilogy, but it's certainly still a worthy read for those who enjoyed the previous novels.

[Cher · Rating 2 out of 5]

rockstars, albinos, twins, pregnant confused womanchild...too many hokey horror alterna concepts rolled into one muddy mess

i miss the atmosphere of the first book, palpable enough to suspend disbelief

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know others may not agree, but I still was engrossed by the story and style in this book. The dark, darness of the both really appeals.

[Mandy Szewczuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The set up through the first half was good, dark and confusing and promising all sorts of paths that then...meandered off in the second half. The side plots sort of collapsed inward, and why were they at the North Pole again?? The ending had to just come together in ten pages to tie things up, ultimately unsatisfying, sadly. Beautiful, lyrical writing, as expected, lush with unique details that were beautiful and disturbing.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I dig Lee's style, enough so that I can enjoy her books even if the story isn't the most engaging. Darkness, I bucks that trend, because even Lee's characteristic narrative felt more mundane and prosaic here. There were moments where I could get a sense of it, a hint here and there, but overall it felt like a standard narrative.

As far as being the conclusion to the Blood Opera trilogy, I didn't find it to be that exceptional. Part of what made the first two books interesting was how Lee made them personal stories, but with its conclusion, it became bigger and grander, and thus less engaging. Plus, the direction in which she took the story felt forced, especially when there were no hints to some of the revelations in the previous two books.

[Braxiatel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malach status: bullied
This book was great but the whole plot at the end felt more incomplete than Pokemon Sword and Shield. The feeling I got was that it needed at least more 300 pages of plot and the way that it ended was good but also disappointing because I really wanted to read another book afterwards.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suspect that one problem with being Tanith Lee is that you're so prolific you can write a multi-part novel series before realizing it's a bad idea. The Scarabae books are basically her attempt to create an "eternal beautiful vampires who rarely get around to actually drinking blood" saga a la Anne Rice, and it's rather dull. I thought it was taking a long time to get going, but it turned out it NEVER got going. Strangely in a book where so many bizarre characters are uninvolving, it's a perfectly ordinary woman, only treated in a few chapters, who is wonderfully captured by Lee, and I'm glad I read the book if only for those chapters.

[Rhiannon Frater · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read where other people were disappointed with the last installment of the Blood Opera Trilogy, but I have to say I enjoyed this one almost as much as the first.

There is a certain flavor to these novels that I really enjoy.

[Darcy Abriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Darker. Not for everyone. I think the experience might have been better had I started with the first book in the series. I do plan to remedy that. I do like the language, the descriptions, the lyrical manner of the language. Not a fast read; it's to be experienced. I like that.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Third in this great series.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The origin of vampires is traced to the Biblical Cain.

[Dolorosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanith Lee at her melodramatic, sinister best.

[Devi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the more interesting series of books I've read in a while.

My favorite is the second volume.

[Commanderd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from a slow finish, this was generally okay.