Tuesday, March 16, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Broken Darkness by Premee Mohamed

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 2, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.       

A Broken Darkness is the sequel to Beneath the Rising (Review Here), a 2020 Lovecraftian horror/thriller novel that got a lot of praise last year from people I follow.  And I did like Beneath the Rising a decent bit, as the dynamic of its two major characters - protagonist Nick and his supergenius best friend Johnny - worked really well as they globetrotted in search of a way of stopping the ineffable.  The story's horrors weren't particularly scary or even interesting, but the relationship between the main duo was fascinating, especially with its final act reveal.  So I was very curious to see how the sequel handled the change in that relationship.

And the answer is....mixed.  On one hand the story moves quick and reads really well, so I had no problem finishing this in around 3 and a half hours despite the book being around 400 pages long, and our main character's internal conflict from the last books' reveals are done well.  On the other hand, this book relies a lot more on the technobabble magic/science/math tricks from Johnny to advance the plot, and it just doesn't do it for me, and neither does the nameless lovecraftian horrors that attack our protagonists and the world.  And it all ends up in an ending that is either unsatisfying or a cliffhanger (without a book 3 seemingly announced), so I'm not as enthused about this series as I once was.

More after the jump: WARNING:  MAJOR SPOILERS for book 1 - if you haven't read book 1, the below will spoil that book's big twist.  You have been warned.







-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
A year and a half has passed since the Anomaly, when Nick came back too late to Johnny to help her stop Them before they could devastate the world at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives.  Nick has spent the time since trying to avoid Johnny as much as possible - not being anywhere near her, not seeing her on TV, not having anything to do with her.  And yet, when he was invited to join the Ssarati Society, the magical society dedicated to protecting the world from magical threats....threats like Johnny herself, he jumped at the chance.  

But when Nick catches the AWOL daughter of his boss on TV at Johnny's latest party for her newest invention, he finds himself once more traveling back to Johnny's side to figure out what's going on.  And so Nick winds up on hand when They reappear, attacking both Johnny and himself, forcing the two of them back together once more, on the run from a monstrous force that is seemingly everywhere, and Nick knows that it must be Johnny's fault.  For she is the girl who sacrificed all of his possibilities so that he would love her, so that she could be the genius-savior of the world she always wanted to be, no matter the cost.  

But even if Nick now hates Johnny, he can't rid himself of his attraction to her, and even if this latest invasion might be her own fault....she might also be the only one who can stop it.
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Beneath the Rising worked because of the relationship between Nick and Johnny.  I really couldn't care less about the Lovecraftian threat, which never felt that convincing, and Johnny's technobabble about magic and how she could solve it was too magicky and inexplicable to really pique my interest.  But the two of them were great - quippy dialogue that was often nerdy, with Nick being the sane one to Johnny's too smart for her own good but absolutely not street smart self, and Nick dealing with what he believed to be just a one sided crush at the whole time....while also dealing with his responsibilities to his family that Johnny couldn't quite understand.  They worked really well as a duo....and then the book pulled the rug about from under Nick and revealed how underneath it all was a lie - that he never had any choice in the relationship, for Johnny had made him part of her Covenant with the Old Ones: forcing him to be her companion, to love her, no matter what, and removing any complications of other potential friends from his path in the process.  And so he left for her just a moment, causing the deaths of millions, but came back just to help her save the rest of the world....before leaving her for what he thought was for good.  

But Nick can't help loving Johnny, even if he now hates her, and so when fate - his new job plus his self-delusions, really - forces the two of them back together, it creates an uneasy relationship that carries this book as well: once again the two are often quippy just like old times, and yet underlying it all is an unease and distrust: for Nick knows what Johnny did now, knows his feelings are manipulated, and knows Johnny only cares for herself.  And so he is constantly justifying himself, about Johnny is needed to fix whatever is broken, even if he knows in his heart that it must be her fault, and that these feelings aren't quite right.  And he is desperate for an apology from her, some recognition that she knows what she did was wrong.  And because of all the horrors going on around them, all the running and desperate searching for answers, he can't quite force her to give it - and because of his trust being broken, he can't bring himself to trust anyone else either.  Making matters worse of course, is that because Johnny knows Nick is conflicted, she obviously doesn't trust him either.  

It's a strong undercurrent for this book that makes Nick's narrative gripping to read, as a man whose whole purpose and mindset is conflicted and torn by feelings he can't even be sure - and in fact is sure aren't - are really his own choice.  And Nick is right to doubt, as we now can see even more Johnny's selfishness, and all the horrors that's brought.  Still, some of the power of this narrative is undercut by the fact that Nick goes willingly from his family right at the start, and they're never more than at the periphery, so what he is giving up to go on this chase is never quite as prominent as in the first book.  We're no longer dealing with the very real parts of his conflicted mind - him being the caretaker for a not well-off non-White family in America dealing with a rich White girl who doesn't quite understand why he has responsibilities - those parts of the last book are gone, and it's does remove some of the book's resonance.  

More of a problem is the fact that the book is even more driven by technobabble and crazy monsters and scenes and magic and whatnot that never really feels threatening and just feels like it's happening just to happen.  I didn't really care about it, I just wanted to read more of Nick and Johnny and it just took away from it all until again the final act - and even there, there's a ton of technobabble to distract from the strong emotional moments.  The monsters aren't particularly interesting, with them having basically no personality, and the few side characters of prominence have a few interesting moments and then disappear, leaving us only with Johnny and Nick to care about (even as two others follow the leads in the final act, they're just....there).    

And then there's the ending, which.....why.  It's a bit thematically on point sure, and I suspect it's meant to be a cliffhanger for a third book that has yet to be announced (a look at interviews shows one that says the publisher only bought two books, which doesn't help the confusion), but it is absolutely unsatisfying unlike the last book's ending.  Don't get me wrong, it's an ending that does follow through from the characters' personalities - it's just one that left me wondering "is that really it?"  

If there is a third book in this series, I will probably be back to hopefully see if we get more closure.  But either way, this second volume just surrounds the most interesting parts with too much clutter and even if it reads quickly, I just wish it had more faith in the emotional resonance of its characters and cut an awful lot of the dead weight to form a tighter book instead.  

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