The Barnes & Noble Review
The War to End All Wars
Harry Turtledove, the unparalleled master of the alternate-history science fiction/fantasy novel, gives his legions of fans the first in yet another captivating series dealing with world war. Into the Darkness presents the reader with several engaging, historically familiar elements that are soon cultivated in the depths of Turtledove's imagination. Here we have numerous political complexities, hundreds of characters, and a tense milieu that quickly grows even tauter, until a dozen countries lie on the brink of planetary annihilation. Author of bestsellers like How Few Remain, The Guns of the South, and Colonization: Second Contact , Turtledove proceeds to draw his readers into worlds of neverwhen as his narrative voice continues to sharpen and his skill at weaving a highly innovative but authentic tapestry develops even further.
When the Duke of Bari dies without an heir, the neighboring kingdom of Algarve attempts to reclaim Bari as its own. The people of Algarve still fume over their bitter defeat in the Six Years War, when Bari broke free as an independent country. However, the political intricacies of the realm are plentiful and precarious, with many treaties between nations already forcing allies into two camps: those who will defend Bari and war with Algarve, and those who will fight alongside Algarve in the coming conflicts. In this world, magic works, and squadrons of "stupid and vicious" dragons drop bomb-like eggs and breathe flames across the countryside. Using "ley-lines" of inherent natural earth magic to empowerthemselves, troops deploy and attack on land and sea, and in the air. Deep-sea beasts attack ships, while infantrymen battle one another with magical sticks of energy. No one is untouched by the unfolding events, as soldiers, noblewomen, and children are pulled into the ever-widening repercussions and consequences of the worldwide battles. As the war rages on, the lights of the land begin to flicker out one by one, perhaps not to be seen again for generations to come.
Unlike Turtledove's Civil War alternate history novels and his World War series, Into the Darkness doesn't use real historical figures to propel the story line. The author is content with taking some similarities to the events of World War I and imposing them upon a magical realm where humanity is marred by the same foibles, greed, flawed characters, and propensity for violence as is our own. Turtledove piles skirmishes and incidents one upon the other, threading them together to weave a gripping and powerful tale of intrigue which is fantastical but has underpinnings of realistic politics. The huge cast calls for a Dramatis Personae listing at the front of the book, as viewpoints switch rapidly from person to person, country to country, peasant to soldier, scholar to student to nobleman. An especially positive note for Turtledove's fans is that with his penning of a World War I fantasy, readers can expect to find the groundwork for a World War II fantasy series already there. Into the Darkness is a powerful foundation for future stories of a darkening world that must put away its painful past and find peace before it can rediscover its own lost light.
-- Tom Piccirilli
Into the Darkness is the first novel of a projected six-book series. Although the battles hold up well for the single book, they'll begin to grow stale long before Turtledove reaches the final book. Fortunately, he introduces enough subplots, magical, political, and romantic, that he should have enough to focus on as the series moves towards its end.
— SF Site
The setting of alternate-history guru Turtledove's latest doorstopper is a world where magic works but human impulses remain pretty much the same. Here, memories of the Six Years' War are still fresh; so that when the Duke of Bari dies, neighboring Algarve loses no time in reabsorbing the province—to the general approval of both Bari and Algarve. But nearby nations, traditional enemies of Algarve, have already prepared treaties against just such an eventuality, and now they jointly declare war on Algarve. Magical wars are weird analogues of technologically more familiar conflicts, as squadrons of dragons drop explosive "eggs" and strafe the ground with fire; troop carriers move swiftly and accurately, buoyed up by the energies generated by ley lines; ships navigate along the marine equivalents; and soldiers carry sticks that fire magical laser-beams. And so on. Turtledove (The Great War, 1998, etc.) provides the usual sprawling panorama studded with hundreds of incidents and populated by a cast of thousands. But, as noted before in these pages, he's without the knack of penning lifelike characters. He isn't noted, either, for sheer innovation, and, in the absence of historical or geographical referents that might create some resonance, it's not at all clear why any of it should matter. Turtledove devotees will probably want to give it the once-over, but there's little here to attract the uncommitted.
