Bark at the Moon

So, today, I finished Mark Chadbourn's The Hounds of Avalon, and with it, The Dark Age Trilogy. While I kind of regret reading Book 1 of the next trilogy (thanks to a misunderstanding with goodreads.com) before finishing this middle trilogy, it did make reading through this really dark book a slight bit more bearable.

Dark is a bit light. Perhaps pitch would be a better description of the tone throughout. Actually made The Empire Strikes Back look like Pollyanna by the end.

We center mainly on Hal and Hunter, the last two members of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons of the current pentad following The Age of Misrule. Hal is an inofficious bureaucrat with the remains of the government (currently seated at Oxford) and Hunter is something of a Soldier of Fortune currently employed by the government. Both come to find out about their position around the midpoint of the book. Mallory and Sophie from Book 1 show up when Hunter is sent to capture of of the Brothers of Dragons on behalf of the government. Sophie winds up supposedly dead and in Lugh's court thanks to Cerridwyn's intervention. Where she meets a powerless Caitlin from Book 2, who in turn becomes an avatar of The Morrigan again.

Any rate, we get much more on The Void, the Anti-Life, that noticed the rise of humanity after the defeat of Balor during the Battle of London. We meet street gangs going around with Red V's on their chests who think of Ryan Veitch, the Great Betrayer, as some kind of Messiah. (Which, given his role in the next book...) Mind you, when Shavi, Laura, and Ruth show up about 2/3 of the way through, they still think of Ryan as a good man who had the misfortune of being used by the gods.

I'm getting ahead of myself a bit here. Hunter more or less plays the role of tactician of the new 5, trying very hard to get everyone in the right place. Hal, in the meantime, has a more cerebral task, tracking down  hints of Avalon in a Poussin painting. (And here you though Poussin only painted triangles disguised as historical figures.)

Said painting, complete with Dan Brown style anagrams.

Eventually, several different Lords (Bones, Flesh, Insects) show up with the Lament-Brood and hold Oxford under siege. And the true ugly of the book starts appearing, as Hal is arrested for assassinating the Prime Minister and sentenced to execution during the height of the siege. We watch the last gasps of humanity as the Hounds arrive and their howls become the last cries of humanity. And we find out that the government sold out to the Void.

And then we see how the present of the next trilogy begins.

As I said at the outset, this is a very dark book, with very few and very faint glimmers of hope lighting the last days of humanity. And the last days of the Golden Ones, really. I mean, everything changes at the end.

Yeah. I think I'll return to the final trilogy sooner than later, since I'm kind of curious how this all will turn out.

Yaaaassss, Queen!

It was with some trepidation that I picked up Mark Chadbourne's The Queen of Sinister (book two of The Dark Age), mainly since I found out that I misread Goodreads' listings, since evidently the third trilogy was written after the second, not mixed the way I thought. (To be fair, they're bibliography of him is all screwed up.)

Anyway, I needn't have worried, since the first book of the 3rd trilogy really doesn't give away much of the plot of the second, focused on the past the way it is. This is not to say a brief passage in this one doesn't play a part in that book, but....

The Queen of Sinister follows around Caitlin Shepherd, who's village is hit by the plague. Being a nurse, Caitlin is in the heart of it, trying to provide palliative care to the dying. Which also means she's ignoring both her husband and child. Who aren't happy about it. Caitlin has a friend, Mary, whom I think showed up in the first trilogy, but I could be wrong. Mary's a retired psychiatric nurse and witch.

Since there wouldn't be much of a plot here without it, Mary does a seeing for Caitlin, and whatever comes through names Caitlin a Sister of Dragons. After Caitlin gets home, she finds her husband and son plague ridden and dying. Understandably upset, she goes slightly mad, waking up on their graves to a crow pecking at her.

In the mean time, Mary gets a visit from Crowther, who bears a mask that once belonged to the Mad God. Who was told to lead Caitlin to the Summerlands to find the cure for the plague. Which he does, eventually, after picking up Mahalia and Carlton and Matt. Mahalia and Carlton are a package deal, although Carlton is mute. Mostly. Matt is looking to cross to find the Grey Lands and his dead family.

They're also being pursued by what they know as the Whisperers, but what the Tuatha de Dannon refer to as the Lament Brood.

Not long before they cross, it comes out that Caitlin is not alone in her head. Four other personalities are in there, including one whom the others fear and keep from surfacing. About the midpoint, we find out about her.

Mary, in the mean time, takes on a quest of her own to help Caitlin from the Fixed Lands, all while being pursued by the Jigsaw Man. Which leads her to the find The God, who in turn asks her to find the missing Goddess.

Caitlin's party winds up first in Lugh's court (Lugh remaining neutral in the current conflicts) where they meet Jack (not church, but Jack), who spent time in the Court of the Final Word. Given the Lament Brood surrounds the court, Lugh threatens to turn the crew over to them, which in turn leads to the escaping.

As the journey to the House of Pain, and as Mary looks to find and return the Goddess, much happens. Carlton dies, which somehow drops Caitlin in Birmingham. Wherein she meets Thackary and Harvey. The former ends up getting kidnapped by the local Negan, who has a captive Formori. Caitlin finds him, find the Formori, and lets out the final personality, whom we find out is actually the Morrigan.

It's a long quest, but eventually everyone winds up at the House of Pain, except Mary, who does indeed find and bring back the goddess after more than a few misadventures. (I will say his recitation of all of the aspects of the Gorgon is amusing.)

There's a heck of a lot of symbology thrown in here, some of which I remember in the book I read out of order, like the Void in the House of Pain. More than a few characters make the "wrong" decision at the wrong time, although all of the external entities keep saying all choices are part of a greater plan.

I will also add in here that, since most of the plot lines center around the feminine, it also centers around what some groups would consider "the Female Mysteries".  Which, I imagine each reader would be inclined to make up their own mind as to whether or not the male author portrayed correctly.

Honestly, it's a good read, even if the timeline is a bit confusing quite often.

Thou shall not...

So, in the quest for looking for new stuff to read, I wound up starting Mark Chadbourn's follow up series to Age of Misrule. (Well technically, one of them. There's another series that follows around one of the protagonists from the original series as well).

So, The Devil in Green, book one of The Dark Age, picks up about a year following the events of Always Forever. We start with Mallory and Miller, two gents making their way to Salisbury, home of a Cathedral on one of the major ley lines. (Ok technically, Mallory and Miller start off traveling separately, facing down one of the beasts on the Salisbury plain being their actual meeting, but..) Salisbury is trying to become the Jerusalem of the West, with the remnants of Christian England trying to revive the faith in they new age following The Fall. As such, a call has gone out to create a new Knights Templar, to again protect travelers in this new time. Mallory is terribly cynical, whereas Miller is very faithful to his beliefs.

The Cathedral is overseen by Julian, who's doing a passable job in his old age keeping the various factions within from outright conflict. As Mallory and Miller get settled in to training, they form a bond with Gardener and Daniels, the latter of which we met in Bath during the last trilogy. Daniels is gay, his partner died during the last series. We also have Hipgrave in the mix, which becomes more important when the knights get sent on their first mission.

Outside the cathedral, in their own Celtic pagan protection, are the Travelers,  one of whom, Sophie, Mallory begins to fall in love with during an illicit visit beyond the wall by Mallory and Miller. Sophie, of course, is a witch of Ruth's line from the last series.

Anyway, two major events happen fairly early on that begin to shape the course of the narrative. The first involves the Elite Blues bringing back a Holy Relic (the bones of St. Cuthbert), and a second involves our team of 5 heading out to the plains to find a missing cleric. What they meet in the field is much more harrowing than a missing cleric, more some kind of monster along the lines of the Formori in the first series. Mallory, who's got a bad reputation, winds up being the one sent into danger on the plain ahead of the platoon. After getting his butt kicked, he winds up in the Far Lands, and eventually in Rhiannon's court. However, this Rhiannon doesn't sleep with the other singer and the drummer and spend much of her time twirling and doing cocaine. She does, instead, heal Mallory and pass on a sword with a bunch of consonants in its name and the information that he's one of the 5 Brothers of Dragons that existence has chosen since the last 5 have moved on to new roles. (She does cryptically mention Church, or so we assume.)

He returns from the Far Lands and saves Miller on the plain, reminding us once again that time passes differently in fairieland. Upon returning to the cathedral, to which they along with the other 3 are the only ones returning, they find that the cathedral has new buildings and fortifications that seemingly appeared over night. The ghosts of the previous friars also seemingly have come to join the new areas.

Not long after their return, Julian is murdered, causing some behind the scenes warfare as to whom will now lead the church. Given the long term siege by monsters at the gate, the scarcity of food as winter starts coming in, and the general nature of humans in large numbers, the leadership passes to the Zealot Stefan. Who tends to take a rather medieval view on the tenants of the church, restarting the Inquisition, outlawing sodomy, closing the library, and declaring the dragon is actually the Devil. Speaking of the dragon, it gets slain after the Elite Blues oven the relic box.

We'll skip over much of the more intricate plotting here, and discuss instead appearances by the Green Man (whom in this setting is analogous top the Greek Pan) and The Caretaker, a giant who's home is somehow adjacent to the Cathedral.

The Caretaker is the one who more or less spells out some of what's going on here, mainly the idea that the monster on the pain and now inside the cathedral (kind of like The Thing) is something from outside of existence that hates existence. And that there exist things out that way that are more powerful and starting to notice the world again.

The Green Man (as mentioned above), in this setting is analogous to the Greek Pan, and seems to echo the Hindu/Wiccan idea that there is one great God, and all the other gods are merely facets of it.

I'd also like to mention this book is filled with ugly. The direction the church ends up taking after the death of Julian is painful to read, along the lines of Orwell's Animal Farm. We never do exactly find out what happens to those who early on get declared heretics, but given what happens later, one can only assume the worst. Also, the betrayals hearken back to World War II, in which friends rat out friends to protect themselves. There's a scene where Daniels denies his love for his new partner in the Knights in order to save his own skin that had me quite upset at work when I read it.

It's very dark reading at points, for all that it ends with a much more optimistic tone than anything that's come before. And ultimately, I think that's the point. Hope is a fragile thing that empowers humankind to greater triumphs. Eventually.