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Dusk by Tim Lebbon
01/04/2006 . Source: Tom Lloyd-Williams 
pub: Bantam Spectra. 386 page enlarged paperback. Price: $12.00 (US), $17.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-38364-7. Buy Dusk in the USA - or Buy Dusk in the UK  check out website: www.bantamdell.com, www.timlebbon.net and www.noreela.com
'Dusk' is the first in a new fantasy series by a man who's won awards for both fantasy and horror. Three centuries after the death of magic at the end of the Cataclysmic War, a former thief named Kosar is living in the village of Trengborne when it is attacked by a Red Monk. Despite the presence of local militiamen and armed villagers, the monk cuts a bloody swathe through them all as he hunts for a young boy named Rafe Baburn. Pin-cushioned with arrows, the monk eventually falls and dies once he's killed everyone but Rafe, who managed to hide from the slaughter, and Kosar who had been out in the fields at the time.
With Kosar's help, Rafe flees for the nearby town where his uncle lives but there are more monks on their trail and the town doesn't remain a safe refuge for long. While Kosar seeks out a former lover, who turns out to be more than just a strange foreigner, Rafe is taken under the wing of a witch who has recognised the nature of Rafe's destiny. When the Red Monks start to search the town it takes the combined efforts of all four to escape a second time, but not before Kosar's lover, A'Meer, is infected with a deadly poison. To everyone's surprise, Rafe heals A'Meer and they all realise that he's no mere villager but the chosen conduit for the return of magic to the world.
They meet two others during their flight. A young man, Trey, who is also fleeing a massacred home, only this one is a down a mine and this is the first time he's see daylight. A woman, Alishia, who has decided to travel and experience the world beyond the books of her library now that the library is destroyed. Meanwhile, the Mages, whose imprudent use of magic during the Cataclysmic War caused it to fail in the first place, have returned and are after Rafe because he's the key to their revenge. With both sides of the conflict chasing them (the Red Monks want to deny the Mages and anyone else the chance to use magic ever again) they head for New Shanti where A'Meer is from because her people, like the witch, are dedicated to ensuring the return of magic. When it becomes clear that they're going to be caught, Rafe leads his companions to a machine's graveyard where some of the ancient magical machines used during the war went to fail. Once there, he manages to revive them and begin to fight off the pursuing Red Monks, but then the Mages themselves arrive and things take a dramatic turn.
Lebbon's writing credentials are excellent and the prose doesn't disappoint. He works very hard to build and develop each character, going to greater lengths than most genre writers do, but for me that also seemed to work against him. For a novel of almost four hundred pages, the sequence of events is limited to the attack on Rafe's home, the immediate situations of the pair who join him later, the escape from Pavisse, a long run through open countryside and the end. Clearly, there was more to it than just that, but nothing of great consequence and as a result the book came across as rather thin. Lots of time spent doing small things as though the author was more concerned about bringing out the personalities of the characters than he in fact needed to be, not so much time on actual events. Similarly, the overall plot lacked a certain something with a simple fantasy plot that didn't really push in any interesting directions. The loss of magic and its return is an interesting theme but it wasn't explored to any real degree. It was there and it happened, that's all. The consequences on those who're affected by that and even on the land around them is frankly more interesting than a party of good guys running away from bad guys for an entire book. When odd coincidences appear along the lines of Kosar's most recent lover being a warrior-woman from a race devoted to the return of magic, I started to get the impression that the author just hadn't wanted to try very hard about his world and plot. It's perhaps an ungracious comment, but one I never managed to shake.
Tom Lloyd-Williams
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