Three Shades of Night

As I read this book, the news featured warnings about a possible H1N1 flu epidemic; considering how the plots of all three stories in this book hinge on a supernaturally-linked epidemic, it made for a creepier-than-usual read. Oddly enough, it actually helped me settle my real-life concerns, while still giving me a strong dose of the weirdness that characterizes the universe of World of Darkness. --In "The Murder of Crows", Mekhet vampire Loki is charged by Chicago's vampire prince to identify one of the Kindred who seems to be spreading a recently emerged superstrain of the Muskegon encephalitis. But as he tracks down the source, he discovers the problem has its roots in something much worse than just a vampire or two spreading the illness, and that those roots run deep into Chicago's disaster-laden history... --In "Birds of Ill Omen", Heartsblood, an Elodoth werewolf, has traveled to Chicago on a spirit quest, in which he is supposed to help a small pack find its balance after the death of one its pivotal members, but on arriving, he learns that both mundane and supernatural beings alike are threatened by a plague, seemingly worsened by a young Mage who has tapped into something which only the werewolves can subdue... --In "Shadows and Mirrors", self-taught Mage Glorianna has come to the Windy City in search of her father, a powerful Mage who vanished under mysterious circumstances years before. But when one of his contacts in the city falls victim to the outbreak, she soon discovers that finding the source of the plague and protecting herself from the entities behind it are far more vital than the answers to her questions. There's an element to this trio of novels that puts in the same category as Wilkie Collins's classic mystery "The Woman in White", or Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon", where different characters experience the same event in completely different ways, even when their paths converge at crucial moments. The writing in all three stories is as intricate and well-crafted as the mechanism of a Swiss watch, allowing these very different stories with vastly different beings to fit together seamlessly. The detailed writing and the realistically heavy atmosphere drew me in and when I finally managed to put the book down to get back to reality, I actually jumped a little when I switched on the news and heard more H1N1 cases had been identified...

Overall, this was an alright novel far as books written on RPGs goes. The book is actually 3 stories in one, one from each perspective of the Supernal world of Vampires, Werewolves and Mages and that leads into my main complaint of the book. The first story, with the Vampire really did better as a stand alone, I honestly fail to see how it ties into the other two books other then the main character of this book having a cameo scene with the Mages. The Mage and Werewolf book tie together much better. And these two bring the book up instead of dragging it down. I did enjoy reading it though, so for WOD fans, I would reccommend this book for getting a feel with the WOD setting.

THREE SHADES OF NIGHT has an interesting premise; it tells the same story from the perspective of characters from three different lines in the WORLD OF DARKNESS game line; vampires, werewolves, and mages. As game fiction, each story (and each one was penned separately) is interesting as flavor text for its respective game line. The reader sees how sample characters interact in the Chicago setting, what their societies are like, and how their special abilities manifest themselves. And I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the WORLD OF DARKNESS game lines. THREE SHADES OF NIGHT does suffer some drawbacks, however (which is natural, considering the innate complexity of the undertaking). There are two worth mentioning here; first, there is the problem of the interaction of the three novellas. The first is the vampire one, which tells a great story and could stand alone very nicely. The events are well-developed, plenty of mystery, and whatever happens behind the scenes (covered in the other two novellas) is reasonable to be outside the scope of "The Murder of Crows". The second, on werewolves, tells some of the same events from the werewolf perspective but has plenty of additional material with a fresh perspective. The gimmick is cute at this point. The third story is on mages, and by now I didn't want to read the same events from yet another perspective. The author fortunately clued in on this and left a coda to represent events done to death. However, it makes the mage story much weaker than the others because it isn't complete (nor entirely coherent). This brings the second point - you need a good conspiracy to unwind the same mystery from three different perspectives. Unfortunately, a bad conspiracy comes off as contrived or incoherent - THREE SHADES went for incoherent. Some of that is necessary - for instance, information presented as mysterious in one novella is well understood in the other, and the clues are supposed to all fit together. However, many parts are never well explained but are central to the story. I didn't understand the point of the Crone ritual in the vampire story, the difference in the 2 main spirits in the werewolf story, or why they were in conflict. Or what the voices were in the mage story. I understand that they tie together in the end, but they come across more as plot devices than integral parts of the story. Still, all three were a good read (maybe the first 2 moreso); the book as a whole was pretty compelling and I stayed up pretty late just to finish it. It has its flaws, but they don't obscure the work in its entirety.

This is a great book for a summer read, particularly for night owls who like to read by starlight. Shape-shifting werewolves, punk vampires, and benign mages with banal day-jobs tell the same story from their very different perspectives in 3 linked novellas. The best of the 3 is "Birds of Ill Omen", by Sarah Roark. Her characters are the most fully realized and her prose is by turns witty, wry, and wise. You don't have to be a WOD fan to sink your teeth into this one. Pull up a deck chair and enjoy a spooky little escape into the fantastical demi-monde of Chicago after dark.