In Darkness Cast  by Jonathan Shuerger

I diverged into a dark fantasy book this time and it was worth the divergence. A book about justice and vengeance, as most good dark fantasies are. This book is in the vein of Lord of the Rings, in that it’s a Christian themed book. Although, unlike LOTR, this one refers to the Christian God. The setting is not completely clear, as there are two worlds involved. One called Avalon, where the dark lord comes from, and one that I believe is earth but not earth as we know it. It’s clear who God is in the book. He’s God. It’s not so clear who the devil is. I think the evil characters are demons devoted to Satan. I don’t think the chief demon himself makes an appearance in this one.

The reader will have to get past the first hundred pages or so. I feel Mr. Shuerger took a little too long with the training of the apprentice, Gideon. The hero of the book is Gideon, an adopted orphan trained by a soldier and cared for by the soldier’s wife when the soldier dies. After an attack on his village that leaves him alone, he’s taken under the wing of a mysterious dark lord from another world, Ashkelon. The Christian parallel of Ashkelon was not apparent to me. Maybe other readers will come to a better conclusion.

Once the story gets started, it kept me wanting to read and I always read longer than I hand planned to until I finished. It’s only around four-hundred and thirty pages, which is short for a dark fantasy. Compared to Game of Thrones, it’s a short story. But I appreciated the shorter length. However, like I mentioned, it could have been shorter had the first hundred pages been cut to about fifty.

If the reader likes battle scenes and plenty of them, they will like this book. There isn’t much down time between fights or battles. And the battle scenes are graphic, yet not gratuitously so.

The characterization is fascinating. Another parallel to LOTR is the reluctant hero, though it’s different in that Gideon, unlike Frodo, has always dreamed of being a hero. But like Frodo, he spurns the spotlight and only wants to help people, not taking credit for his accomplishments. The character of Askelon, the dark lord is also interesting. As I mentioned, I’m not sure allegorically what he symbolizes. Much of the book is the uncovering of why Ashkelon has taken Gideon on as an apprentice and why he’s so invested in the young knight wannabe. Gideon parallels many Biblical heroes, including his namesake. However, Gideon’s physical prowess is quite noted.

This book is a clean book. No profanity. No sex. And the violence is necessary but not overstated nor purposely gross. For those into dark fantasy series, this is definitely one to try out. I’ll rank it number four of books read this year.

1. Rooms by James L. Rubart
2. The First Lady by Ed Gorman
3. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
4. I’ll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark
5. In Darkness Cast by Jonathan Shuerger
6. Several Deaths Later by Ed Gorman
7. Citadel (Palladium Wars Book 3) by Marko Kloos
8. Redemption by Deborah J. Ledford
9. Death of a Messenger by Robert McCaw
10. The Little Grave by Carolyn Arnold
11. Barrier Island by John D. MacDonald
12. Jake of All Trades by A.T. Mahon
13. Fireplay by Steve P. Vincent
14. Wrong Place Wrong Time by David P. Perlmutter
15. Nowhere Safe by Kate Bold
16. The Bone Key Curse by Mike Scantlebury
17. Run for Your Life by C.M. Sutter

Commission earned