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Rulers Of The Darkness (The Darkness Series Book 4) by Harry Turtledove
01/10/2005 . Source: Paul Hanley 
pub: Earthlight/Simon and Schuster. 691 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-7432-6851-1. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.simonsays.co.uk
When I first started to read this book, I thought this was the first one in the series I had read but as I got into it, I do have a dim recollection of reading the first book in the series some years ago. I think these books can be read individually although it would clearly be better reading them from volume 1 onwards.
As with most books by the prolific Harry Turtledove, it is part of a series and is against the background of a whole world fighting a world-wide war but with magic rather than technology firing the bullets.
Turtledove seems to have a fascination with World War II and this book and I gather, the rest of the series, have the battles and campaigns of that war recreated in this magic world. He also has created, again as is usual for him, a myriad of characters, many of them viewpoint ones to tell his story. They are drawn from all sides of his conflict, ranging from generals to privates, military to civilian, male and female.
I did get into the book and enjoyed it. I read a lot of military history and found it fun picking out the parallel battles in this book against those from World War II. This book opens with frozen and half-starved Algravian troops surrendering and stumbling out of the ruins of Suligen. For this, read the German 6th Army under Field Marshal Von Paulus surrendering at Stalingrad in early 1943. There were lots of parallels like this.
That said, I found it very difficult, especially during the early parts of the book, to be clear about who was who and where they were. As this war takes place on the fabricated continent of Derlavai (the book includes a map of this world which is a great help) and all the place names, names of the different countries and regions are equally invented, it is hard to remember which side is which and I, for one, was frequently confused about particular individuals and their loyalties.
The action is much as you would expect from a novel about World War II. Instead of Stuka dive bombers, though, there are dragons swooping out of the skies to drop magicked eggs or use their flaming breath whilst tank and other armoured vehicles are replaced by armoured behemoths.
This paperback is some 690 pages long and we see the turning of the tide with the previously all victorious Algravians retreating on most fronts, especially where they face the Unkerlanters who are a thinly disguised Soviet Union. Turtledove is good at setting a scene and particularly at describing the fighting.
Whilst I enjoyed the book, I do feel that the concept behind it is rather threadbare. Turtledove has written a number of books using variants of the World Wars. I think that those who are fantasy fans may well feel cheated when the gallant wing commander, instead of yelling 'Tally ho!' into his radio and leading his force of Spitfires/ME109s/Zeros/Mustangs etc diving onto his opponents communicates by magic crystal before swooping down behind the enemy and having his dragon flame them. The author exhibits a certain cleverness in making a lumbering elephant-like creature equate to a Tiger tank but it all rather points to a lack of imagination on his part I feel.
All in all, if you like Harry Turtledove's books you will probably enjoy this but I do think he could do better. Whilst the effort in generating all the names and writing in the sheers volume he does is to be admired, I do feel slightly cheated by the overall concept.
Paul Hanley
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