 World's End
 Imagine yourself walking home late one evening after a couple hours relaxing at the pub. You hear an argument close by and you make in its direction to investigate. What you end up seeing is a man being murdered by a creature so hideous it makes you vomit then completely lose consciousness. That’s exactly what happened to Jack “Church” Churchill and Ruth Gallagher in Mark Chadbourn’s World’s End. The horrific experience has been permanently etched into their subconscious and it has changed their lives forever. Together they embark on a journey to find items that could save mankind from complete destruction by sinister forces.
World’s End is quintessential contemporary dark fantasy. The story setting is a mix of modern day society and various elements from mythology. It’s quite obvious Chadbourn has done his homework, given how well he links all these mythological pieces in with modern theological and philosophical concepts. Chadbourn creates a unique, believable, and complex tapestry of myth and folklore for this world. He pulls this off extremely well and authors-to-be should take note, because it’s this kind of detail in world building that writers often miss in their stories.
The characters in World’s End are many. There are at least six main characters that all get equal time. I’m usually wary when books have too many central characters; someone usually gets left undeveloped. That is not the case in this book. Each character is given the right amount of attention to make you feel for each of them and their unique situations. They have all come from different backgrounds and have very different personalities, but they are forced to rely on each other in deep and personal ways. I grew to love and respect each character as the story progressed. I even grew to like Laura, who at the beginning of the story made me cringe each time she spoke. The character development in World’s End is some of the best I’ve read.
The plotting of the story is where World’s End falters a bit, and was the only thing that kept it from getting 5 stars. The characters find themselves in predictable situations and are often saved in predictable ways. As Stefan said in his review (below), many of the plot twists are transparent. So much time and effort was put into building an amazing world filled with strong characters, that some of the actual plot devices were left wanting.
Don’t let my quibbles about plotting stop you from reading the book, though. Complaining about predictable plotting in fantasy is like whining about there being dragons on the front cover. World’s End is brilliant in almost every other aspect of its storytelling, and I’m amazed that Mr. Chadbourn’s books don’t get as much attention as they should. I see vampire/zombie trash all the time cluttering up shelves. The Age of Misrule series blows away a large portion of bestselling fantasy available today. I look forward to reading the next installment, and only regret I didn’t read it sooner. —Justin Comments
 World's End
World's End is the first book in British fantasy author's Mark Chadbourn AGE OF MISRULE trilogy. The novel was originally released in the UK in 1999, and has been re-released in the US by Pyr in 2009.
World's End can probably best be categorized as dark contemporary fantasy. The setting is England, in more or less the present day. Jack Churchill ("Church") lives in London and is trying to cope with the apparent suicide of his girlfriend Marianne. Returning home one night, he has a terrifying encounter under a bridge with a giant whose face seems to melt and change before his eyes. Ruth Gallagher, a lawyer, is also a witness. Both of them pass out, unable to deal with this terrifying vision, but in the next few days, they are drawn together to find out more about what happened.
Soon it becomes clear that life as we know it is changing: technology is starting to fail, creatures of myth and legend are returning to the world, and all the rules we rely on are changing. Church and Ruth embark on a journey to retrieve four magical items that may represent humanity's last hope at the end of the Age of Reason and the start of the Age of Misrule.
What I enjoyed most about World's End is its effective way of mixing regular life in the UK with the encroaching mythological elements. The protagonists travel across the country, staying in hotels, bed and breakfasts, or even their van, giving realistic descriptions of New Age tourism destinations like Stonehenge or Tintagel — while at the same time the country is falling apart because a dragon firebombs a highway or the Wild Hunt tears across the sky. Someone could probably retrace the characters' steps as a travel guide to major Celtic monuments and relics (though hopefully encountering less interference from various mythological monsters).
Another positive for me were the interactions between the main characters, who spend a lot of time bickering realistically and learning from each other. It's nothing new, but still refreshing to read a story in which a few of the main characters just simply don't like each other, while others slowly find common bonds. Some of the characters start out a bit flat, but they experience real growth throughout the novel and best of all, by the end of the novel I felt like I knew most of them.
It's also interesting that World's End can be appreciated on several levels. On the one hand, the novel can simply be read as an entertaining, action-packed contemporary fantasy, but at the same time Mark Chadbourn displays an obviously deep knowledge of mythology, tying together myths on a more fundamental level and, especially in the later stages, giving this novel an additional layer of depth and a broader scope than you'd initially expect.
Maybe a minor point, but one I really appreciated: from the very beginning, the more-or-less normal people who become the heroes of this story find it hard to deal with the surreal and terrifying creatures they encounter. Even in the first scene, both Church and Ruth faint when confronted with the terrifying giant, and later on, spells are used to inoculate them and others against the terrifying visions. It's refreshing to read a novel in which the heroes don't emit a Keanu Reeves-like "whoa" when seeing something impossible, and then just move on.
Some negative points: I found some of the plot twists obvious to the point of transparency, while others were simply too predictable, especially towards the end of the novel. The story occasionally speeds up to the point where it reads like the script for an action movie, but on the plus side, at least it's a movie I'd want to see — especially if the special effects look anything like the gorgeous and somewhat terrifying cover illustration by John Picacio, which has the distinction of being the first cover to actually show up in one of my nightmares.
All in all, I felt that the positives outweighed the novel's few problems, because World's End served up enough excitement, mythological depth, and interesting characters to keep me reading to the end. I'm usually not a big reader of contemporary fantasy or dark fantasy, but I definitely look forward to reading the next book in the series, Darkest Hour. —Stefan Comments
Darkest Hour
 Darkest Hour is the second book in Mark Chadbourn's AGE OF MISRULE trilogy. As often is the case, the middle book in the trilogy is the darkest one, and if the title didn't give it away, Darkest Hour is no exception. Thankfully, the novel contains enough excitement to make it a thrilling read that should please fans of the first book.
At the conclusion of World's End, the return of the Tuatha dé Danann turns out to be a bittersweet victory. Even though they have been typically been cast as the "forces of good" in the legends, they turn out to be so powerful and alien that they treat normal humans as pets at best and have no problem using and manipulating them. It quickly becomes clear that Church, Ruth, Laura, Shavi and Veith — the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons — cannot count on their help in ridding England of the Fomorii, the hellish monsters that are wreaking havoc across the land. The Fomorii are trying to revive Balor, the Heart of Shadows, who is the ultimate evil god and will bring the End of Everything. The five heroes are forced into a guerrilla war against the overwhelming forces opposing them, while all around them life as they know it is falling apart...
Darkest Hour is a fine continuation of the AGE OF MISRULE trilogy. The five main characters continue to grow throughout the novel, slowly taking on more individual roles as they become familiar with their own specific abilities. Mark Chadbourn does a great job portraying these everyday people who are thrust into very un-everyday situations. While World's End was an exciting read because it showed the heroes gradually discovering the nature of the new age, Darkest Hour is different: it's less of "what the hell is happening?" and more of "how can we do something about it?"
My favorite part of Darkest Hour was the portrayal of the Tuatha Dé Danann. While the Fomorii are portrayed as a more stereotypical and mostly homogeneous force of evil, the Golden Ones are much more nuanced and varied. While some of them seem almost human-like, others are closer to gods or forces of nature, and Mark Chadbourn makes the reader appreciate how truly unknowable these beings are. The basic disdain they feel for us "Fragile Creatures" is one of the most chilling aspects of this novel.
Darkest Hour works on many levels, ranging from pure action to mysticism to horror to romance. Once again, the route of the five protagonists is described in detail, including which highways they take, and some of these more mundane travelogue details really highlight the surreal nature of the challenges they face. This contrast is again beautifully interpreted in a gorgeous cover by John Picacio, showing the tiny heroes dwarfed by a huge, terrifying nightmare creature.
Some parts of Darkest Hour are so action-packed that they read like an Indiana Jones movie on acid, with surreal and hallucinatory battles and journeys, both in this realm and the Other Lands, alternating with utter and unbridled mayhem as the normal world is torn apart by legendary creatures. This leads to some stunning and spectacular descriptions of the clash of the supernatural with the mundane, but on the flip side, the novel contains so much action that it becomes a bit tedious towards the end, alternating battles with moments of quiet in a steady pattern.
Aside from that minor complaint, Darkest Hour is another solid contemporary fantasy novel with realistic characters facing some very surreal challenges. The novel is often dark, at times genuinely scary, and almost always entertaining. The end effectively sets up what should be a spectacular finish of the AGE OF MISRULE trilogy in Always Forever. —Stefan Comments
Always Forever
 Always Forever is the third novel in the AGE OF MISRULE trilogy by Mark Chadbourn, and at the start of this final installment, things definitely aren't looking up. As Darkest Hour ends, the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are scattered and broken, and the dark god Balor is loose in the land again. If the five heroes can't somehow stop Balor by the festival of Samhain, when he comes into his full powers, it may spell the end of humanity.
In one sense, Always Forever is a direct continuation of the first two novels in the series, World's End and Darkest Hour. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, aided by True Thomas the Rhymer, travel across England, with occasional forays into the Otherworld of myth and legend. They meet people, fight monsters and interact with gods. Moments of genuine mysticism alternate with hectic hack-and-slash action and all-too-human bickering. The dialogues are, as always, well written and entertaining. The many references to contemporary culture provide yet another contrast between the normal world and the new, surreal age (with my new favorite being the conversation between Jim Morrison and Tom in this novel).
On the other hand, there are a few changes in Always Forever that make this novel a departure from the first two books. For example, in the earlier books, I really enjoyed the powerful contrast between the mundane English countryside and the supernatural creatures invading it, which led to some memorable scenes. In Always Forever, much of the first half of the novel is actually set in the Otherworld, on the "Ship of Fools", and the lack of contrast with the normal world made that section feel more bland than the rest of the series — it frankly dragged a bit for me, despite containing some of the most surreal scenes of the series. Also, the Tuathe dé Dannan now seem less alien than before, which takes away some of what made them so exciting before: you can see factions in this group of formerly unknowable gods or near-gods, and they suddenly appear much more vulnerable. All of this causes them to lose some of their prior mystique, which for me was one of the most attractive aspects of the series until now. On the other hand, the fact that Mark Chadbourn defies expectations by continuing to build up the complexity of an already challenging concept like the Tuatha dé Dannan is admirable.
I don't often highlight this aspect of books in my reviews, but this trilogy deserves an exception: the three recent US re-releases by Pyr make a gorgeous set of books, thanks to John Picacio's cover illustrations and Nicole Sommer-Lecht's book cover designs. The contrast between the terrifying creatures on the covers (Cernunos, Mollecht and Balor, if I'm not mistaken) and the five comparatively tiny heroes is a perfect illustration of one of the trilogy's recurring themes. The books — all in Pyr's sturdy trade paperback format — make an instantly recognizable set on any shelf. As far as book design goes, this edition of the AGE OF MISRULE trilogy is flawless.
If you enjoyed World's End and Darkest Hour, you'll find much to like in this concluding volume of the AGE OF MISRULE trilogy. While one of the twists in the climactic ending was definitely telegraphed too strongly, the final 100 pages or so are an action-packed thrill ride that combines the strongest elements of the trilogy and lead to a worthy finale that places the entire story in a new perspective. Fans of these books will be excited to know that the AGE OF MISRULE story continues in a second trilogy, THE DARK AGE, with book one, The Devil in Green, due to be re-released in the US in April 2010.
—Stefan Comments |
The Devil in Green
The Queen of Sinister
The Hounds of Avalon
The Silver Skull
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