Darkness Weaves

what can i say. i couldn't put the book down. was recommended by a friend bought all five and loved every one of them. wish wagner would have written more of kane, shame he passed on. excellent read for any fantasy fan.

Kane is an anti-hero, plain and simple. Read about him in a different post. I really enjoyed Wagner's writing style. He moves quickly through scenes, but not without describing in adequate details that that particular character would see it. Wagner really enjoyed using collegiate level speech, but taken in context it makes sense. Being a dungeons and dragons dweeb, I can completely appreciate characters and development.. he doesn't provide *all* of the development at once and instead interjects bits and pieces, weaved throughout the tale. I really enjoyed the first of the battles on the sea, by using Kane's thoughts Wagner was able to narrate why it is that they were using the tactics that they were, really fun stuff. If you want to see a bad guy that isn't afraid to kick some tail, this is well worth the few bucks you'll spend on the paperback!

Frankly, some of these reviewers don't know what they are talking about. This is the best of the Kane novels, and as such it is probably the best "dark fantasy" novel ever written. No, it doesn't come close to having the purely literary merits of Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" books, and it doesn't have the inventive cosmology or cult following of Moorcock, but those books all have deep flaws that Wagner does not, and Wagner possesses merits that Wolfe and Moorcock lack. It is hackneyed to describe a work of art by saying it is "a cross between such and such and such and such", but in this case it is perfectly apt. Kane is exactly halfway between Conan and H.P. Lovecraft, fusing the strengths of each and eliminating their weaknesses. Wagner combines the action, atmosphere and fast paced storytelling of Howard, adds the purple prose and supernatural subtext of Lovecraft, and delivers what for my money is the most entertaining fantasy sequence of the decade of the seventies. And while there are no bad or even merely average Kane stories, a few of them are a little too predictable and uninventive, such as his vampire tale and his werewolf tale in "Night Winds". Not so this novel. It combines all the best elements Wagner used throughout his career into one novel that is a simply perfect representative of its genre. Kane carries out a bloody sea invasion at the behest of an evil sorceress, with plot twists galore at the end... No, it isn't high art; no, it isn't enlightening. No, I didn't want it to be. Just pure testosterone and black magic. I loved it. So will you.

There are four other great Kane books -Bloodstone, Death Angel's Shadow, Dark Crusade, Night Winds- this series about an immortal warrior trumps the 'Conan' series any day.

I work in a bookshop and found this book among a huge pile of out of print throw aways. It cost me $1, by far the best money I have ever spent. This book has the gritty realism so lacking in most fantasy novels and Kane is by far the most hard and ruthless character I have yet encountered .