Dawn Of Night: A Book Review

It's been a few days now since I finished reading this book. Normally I try to write a review within a day or two of finishing a book, but I've been on holiday and have thus put it off until now. Dawn Of Night by Paul S. Kemp is a Forgotten Realms novel. It is the second book in the Erevis Cale trilogy (named after the central character) and follows on directly from the ending of Twilight Falling. So if you've not read the first book and intend to do so, look away now because there will be spoilers in this review.

Okay then. The start of this book introduces us to the main villain of the trilogy, who is the shadowy figure that Azriim, Dolgan and Serrin work for. With Vraggen betrayed by his minions, and Elora dead at the hands of Riven, this trio of shapechangers it turns out are working for an ancient creature known only as The Sojourner. To say that I thought this to be an odd name for a grand villain is an understatement. A sojourn after all according to the dictionary is "a short stay in a place". Still, this villain is both very old and very powerful and is well written, so he got my interest.

Meanwhile, Cale, Riven, Jak and their guide Magadon Kest find themselves on the Plane of Shadow, apparently transported there somehow as they were drowning. Quickly figuring that the plane mirrors their homeworld of Toril (at least in this part of it), they set off towards where the nearest city is (or its shadow equivalent anyway), figuring that any doorway back home is more likely to be in a place like that, than out in the wilds where they are.

Of course they are right (would be a really boring book if they couldn'tfind a way home after all), and the city indeed has a gateway back to Toril... just a small matter of getting through a Necropolis (a city of tombs) to get too it! Mr Kemp writes very good battle scenes and it is easy to picture myself to one side watching the goings on as the two groups (the heroes and the villains) go about their deeds.

This is a very worthy sequel and I'm going to be starting to read the finale of the trilogy when I go back to work tomorrow. I am eagerly looking forward to finding out what happens next, because the cliffhanger at the end of this book, is better than the one the first book ended on. And that's saying something! 5/5 for this novel and I am really hoping that the writer doesn't drop the ball in the last book.