Peter David Darkness of the Light

Darkness of the Light

Peter David

Tor, June 2007, $25.95, 384 pp.

ISBN 0765311739

The twelve races make up the Banished and they are exiled from their homelands the Elserealms. They defeated the humans during the Third Wave confrontation. The Morts as mankind is disdainfully called were eradicated to the point of extinction. The Overseer and his troops The Travelers insure the Banished never return to Elserealms.

With the Morts vanquished, the Banished alliance is shattered as each species fights one another for ultimate supremacy and within a species for control. Betrayal, treason, and strange bedfellows are the norm as today's ally is tonight's enemy. In this environs, Jepp the human joins Bottom Feeders stealing anything from the battlefield dead to sell on the thriving black markets. They seek the human weapon of mass destruction, the Orb of Trinity that will give the owner quite an edge in the power struggles. However, soon the "rulers" of this ravaged orb, of each of the Banished species, and the few surviving humans take interest in this seemingly inconsequential female, but even she has no earthly idea why.

This is a fascinating apocalyptic thriller in which racism plays a major role as each species thinks they are the superior master race that should dominate the other species. Interestingly as a sad reflection of our world, it is this bigotry that makes the Peter David universe seem genuine as each of the species need to subjugate the lesser races, which is everyone else. There is no prime story line as a myriad of subplots follow many of the species as they make bids to rule the world in Peter David's DARKNESS OF THE LIGHT spellbinding fantasy.

Harriet Klausner