On The Nightstand – The War In The Dark – 8/13/2018

“The Covers Of This Book Are Too Far Apart”

Ambrose Bierce

**Spoilers – Sorta**

This is going to be a tricky review for me because I’m going to take great care to keep from being too harsh.  I did finish this book and I did find it somewhat interesting and entertaining.  Having said that, the first chapter was so poorly written that I came very close to doing something I never do – close it and put it aside.  I did honestly stop at the end of the first chapter and entertain a brief internal monologue:  “Do I really want to put the time into this?  I have so many interesting books waiting to be read.  I still have to finish “Autumn In The Heavenly Kingdom.  What were Setchfield, his editor and / or his publisher thinking when they decided to go with this opening?”

Ultimately, I decided to give it a second chance and it did get better – marginally.  I can only assume that I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt because there’s another series rooted in the same general premise that I truly love – “The Laundry Files” by Charles Stross.  I was likely hoping that lightning would strike a second time – but – Nope – hardly a spark.  If you’re interested in the concept of a government sponsored National Security organization focused on the supernatural….Stop…Do Not Pass Go with “The War In The Dark”…progress straight to Stross.  Those books are very well written, well conceived, rooted in the Cthuhlu Mythos and they’re crazy fun/ funny.  This one…not so much.

It almost felt like the author just kept throwing random stuff into a blender to see what he’d eventually wind up with – a bit like “Uncharted” by Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt.  Random demons…a male protagonist whose back story doesn’t really begin to develop until we’re halfway through the book…a female protagonist whose backstory is never really fleshed out…a character who’s ostensibly killed in very early in the book who reappears during the climax under the pretext of a faked death…a clandestine Soviet military facility in West Germany in the early sixties…Reliquarists…The Order Of The Leaf…John Dee and Edward Kelly….the idea of the Ascendence / Armageddon…the idea that the Fallen Angels would allow themselves to be led back into our world by the partial half-soul of a mortal – it’s all just kind of a hot mess.  Short to long – this is an ugly book – in tone and in execution.

I did finish and there were parts that I enjoyed.  I did appreciate the way both Vienna and Berlin were correctly described as epicenters of East – West espionage during the early years of the Cold War – very true.  I also appreciated the way the lingering destruction of WWII in the major cities of Europe was described – something else that rang true and that was artfully described.  Despite the lack of a true backstory, I enjoyed the female protagonist.  Sadly, though, there was too much mess and not enough nearly enough art.  There was a good story somewhere in here but it just wasn’t very well executed and I’m hoping that the author isn’t tempted to turn this into a series.  One was enough – at least for me.