The Gathering Dark [Mass Market Paperback]

Chris Golden came into his own writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels, but his body of work is considerably larger than that. From teen thrillers like Body of Evidence to horror fiction as serious as the Shadow Saga, the trilogy on which The Gathering Dark is based. While not entirely consistent, he often manages to combine good writing with some ingenious twists on the typical horror story.

In the alternate universe of The Gathering Dark, the world is recovering from a spiritual revolution that pitted the vampires against the increasing corruption of the Catholic Church. Given the powers to prevent the encroachment of evil, the church had abused those abilities to their own advantage. When vampires discovered that they had been brainwashed into believing that they would wilt in the sunshine and could not tolerate the holy they rose in opposition to the church and brought down the whole house of cards.

Unfortunately, The Gospel of Shadow, the grimoire that contained the secrets of preventing demonic incursions, was lost during the struggle. Now the weakened church struggled to undo the damage, vampires are hunted by the United Nations and the world trembles on the edge of a long descent into darkness. Now Peter Octavian, no longer a vampire but a powerful mage is all that that is left that can prevent an evil power from drawing the earth into its realm.

Octavian is aided by an unlikely crew. Nikki, a rock singer, Keomany, confectionary and earth witch, and Jack Devlin, a priest who cannot stand what his church has become are the humans. Kurumaku, an ancient samurai, and Allison, who hunts her own kind, are the vampires. This rag tag crew must come face to face with a creature that Octavian has named the Tatterdemalion. An evil from another dimension entirely that is sucking whole cities into a deadly world of its own contriving.

Like The Shadow Saga before it, The Gathering Dark is Chris Golden at his best - writing a complex tale that is part horror story and part a journey of discovery for its characters. Golden, by completely changing the vampire model creates a framework that is interesting on its own, with the kind of implications that invite even more volumes in the series. The Gathering Dark stands well on its own, but just enough loose ends remain to continue the weave. With the reader to reap the benefits.

Having forsaken his vampire existence, Octavian is now a normal human being. His desire for a human life, though, has left him wanting something, and he has retreated into a solitary existence. He is far from defenseless, though, as his history plus a tough thousand-year sojourn in Hell have made him the world's most powerful mage. As dire events begin to unfold, Peter joins with a remarkable set of individuals to save the world from total destruction at the hands of powerful demons assaulting the earth in ever-growing numbers. His two greatest allies come to be Kuromaku, a vampire brother, and Keomany, an earthwitch whose powerful bond with the natural magic of earth itself proves invaluable. Father Jack Devlin, a priest who goes against the wishes of his bishop to aid Octavian in his quest to rid the world of demonic infection, is a singular character of great importance, while two very special human females give the Shadows reason to fight for a world which still sees vampires as an abomination. The presentation and evolution of the characters is well done, filling these pages with a sense of humanity without which such a battle as that described herein is meaningless.

I have to admit that it took a while for The Gathering Dark to light a fire in my imagination. The early parts of the novel are sometimes slow of pace and shift back and forth between characters in a sometimes disconcerting manner. The form of the demonic manifestations is also fairly extreme and hard to accept. Then you have Peter and his allies finding nebulous ways to enter the hidden realms and return with their lives intact. The magic that Octavian often calls into being is wholly unbelievable but certainly mage-worthy, while the remarkable abilities that Golden gives to his vampires pushes the envelope much farther than I would prefer to see it go. Add to this an earthwitch who can use Mother Nature herself as a force of protection as well as a potent weapon, and you have an extreme fantasy hard to embrace.

The second half of the novel recharges the batteries of Golden's fiction quite nicely, though. It no longer matters how unbelievable the situations are at this point, as you become ever more drawn into worry and care for these characters risking their lives and souls for a fight they may well not be able to win. The last hundred pages represent an extended climax of events, with Golden turning the crank of the suspense meter slowly but steadily. Emotional conflict blends with painful endurance and unparalleled bravery to capture your heart and mind, and each page gets easier to turn as you yearn for the ultimate resolution to this unholy drama.

Looking back on the book as a whole, I do not consider The Gathering Dark a great read, as it exhibits a number of weaknesses that made it difficult for me to fully commit myself to it. Golden does imbue his vampires with a complexity you won't find in many a vampire novel, but this can be a double-edged sword. As much as I like vampires of a most exotic and unusual breed, some of the abilities of Golden's Shadows just exceed my mind's willingness to blindly accept what I am reading, and this diminishes my enjoyment of the novel. Still, there is certainly originality and literary talent contained within each of Golden's pages, and any fan of vampire fiction will doubtless appreciate the chance to explorer the decidedly dark world of this author's creation.