Darkness Weaves Hardcover – January 12, 2016

Darkness Weaves is, unfortunately, my introduction to Kane. After reading all the hype, I finally tracked down Darkness Weaves and Dark Crusade in paperback. The Gods In Darkness hardcover (OOP) was too expensive, allegedly riddled with typos (the Warner paperback still has a few too many for my taste), and contained the much-panned Bloodstone. So I figured, why pay $50 for the hardcover when I can get just the two (allegedly) good novels from it for $10 including S&H? Dark Crusade showed up late, so I started my introduction to Kane with Darkness Weaves... It starts off slow as hell. It takes 31 fairly boring pages (out of 288) to get going and failed to suck me in until Wagner unveils the historical set-up. ***SPOILER BEGINS*** Then things start to get interesting, at least until the secret weapon of the evil sorceress is revealed to be bloodsucking alien squid-men in laser-beam shooting submarines! This is so absolutely idiotic and unbelievable as to nearly destroy everything Wagner has built up... Fortunately, the squid-men don't appear that often (just for the major naval battle and the end, but without their laser-subs, having been reduced back to properly Lovecraftian "Deep Ones" by this point, which is all they should have been in the first place). IMO, there is nothing worse than when you read a sword and sorcery novel and get cheated when you find out the sorcery is mostly just alien technology. I mean, if I wanted to read about alien technology, I'd be reading science fiction, right? Anyway, the perilously slow start, stupid squid-men/laser-subs and lack of depth to the central character of Kane make this book a very uneven read at best, though it still has some juicy pay-off here and there for those patient enough to persevere (including the nasty love scene between Kane and the disfigured sorceress). ***END SPOILER*** Another problem is Wagner frequently flops when it comes to writing believable medievalesque dialogue and Kane's dialogue in particular is often excruciatingly bad, boring, or both. Kane is a very cool antihero/villain until he opens his mouth, then he sounds anachronistic, like a modern man and a disinterested one at that! So we can't root for Kane because he is boring and we know he's going to live through whatever happens (like Superman, LOL). This elevates the entertaining but doomed supporting characters like Arbas, Cassi, Imel, Tolsyt and Oxfors to center stage, even though they disappear for chapters at a time or are killed off far too quickly (right after we get to know and love them). The opposition to Kane is by and large made up of forgettable stereotypes with silly names. A few years after this book, Wagner wrote the greatest of all Conan pastiches, The Road Of Kings, and that novel suffers none of the pitfalls of Darkness Weaves. This Kane adventure is still worth a read, don't get me wrong, but now that I've had a chance to read Dark Crusade, I begin to see where some of the hype surrounding this series comes from: Dark Crusade eliminates nearly every problem inherent to this novel, although the problem of making Kane interesting is not resolved until 2/3 of the way in! Darkness Weaves turns out to be the sequel to Dark Crusade, though I don't think it matters much what order you read them in, as they take place two hundred years apart (Kane being immortal and all).

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.

Darkness Weaves is, unfortunately, my introduction to Kane. After reading all the hype, I finally tracked down Darkness Weaves and Dark Crusade in paperback. The Gods In Darkness hardcover (OOP) was too expensive, allegedly riddled with typos (the Warner paperback still has a few too many for my taste), and contained the much-panned Bloodstone. So I figured, why pay $50 for the hardcover when I can get just the two good novels from it for $10 including S&H? Dark Crusade hasn't arrived yet, so I started my introduction to Kane with Darkness Weaves... It starts off slow as hell. It takes 31 fairly boring pages (out of 288) to get going and failed to suck me in until Wagner unveils the historical set-up. Then things start to get interesting. However, Wagner frequently flops when it comes to believable medievalesque dialogue and Kane's dialogue in particular is often excruciatingly bad, boring, or both. See, Kane is a very cool antihero until he opens his mouth, then he sounds anachronistic, like a modern man and a disinterested one at that! So we can't root for Kane because he is boring and we know he's going to live through whatever happens (like Superman, LOL). This elevates the entertaining but doomed supporting characters like Arbas, Cassi, Imel, Tolsyt and Oxfors to center stage, even though they disappear for chapters at a time or are killed off far too quickly (right after we get to know and love them). The opposition to Kane is by and large made up of forgettable stereotypes with silly names.A few years after this book, Wagner wrote the greatest of all Conan pastiches, The Road Of Kings, and that novel suffers none of the pitfalls of Darkness Weaves. This Kane adventure is still worth a read, dion't get me wrong, but I'm going to reserve my opinion of Kane until after I get a chance to read Dark Crusade. If that paperback pans out, I'll spring for The Midnight Sun (OOP) hardcover which collects all Wagner's short stories of Kane. But so far, I just don't get the hype surrounding this series.

Excellent old school sword and sorcery. Karl Edward Wagner was a great writer. Truly ingenious ending. He's one of the few authors capable of standing with Robert E. Howard.

First Kane book I've read, and it's good. Although Conan will always be the benchmark for sword-&-sorcery heroes, Kane is far more interesting than Conan who has all the motivation and depth of a tree stump.Very good. Will definitely be reading more from KEW.

Kane has a similar feel to it, so it was a great deal of fun reading. Brilliantly written, very good characters, took me back to when I first loved reading.

Kane, the ultimate anti hero.

Love fantasy action no better than this

exactly what i wanted and expected