Stalking Darkness (The Night Runner series book 2) by Lynn Flewelling (book review).
‘Stalking Darkness’ is book two in ‘The Night Runner’ series by Lynn Flewelling.
In this book we get to follow Seregil, Alex, Nysander and their friends on another adventure involving quite the bit of peril. This time they have to face the Plenimarans, who are attempting to reincarnate their dead god Seriamius in order to defeat their enemies, the Skalans. Seregil and his pals have to try to stop this happening as it might well bring about the end of the world when Seriamius comes back to life to control the dead. They have to try and stop various elements being collected by the Plenimarans which, together, will recreate a helm which will in turn bring back the dead god. Each of the group has their role to play in stopping this god from becoming reborn and they must trust each other with their lives to succeed.
In my humble opinion this is a highly under-read and under-rated series in the fantasy genre. It doesn’t seem to get nearly as much hype as it should be getting which is annoying given that most people when they read it absolutely love it. OK, I’m off my soapbox now.
The one thing I think that Flewelling does extremely well in all her books is to draw amazing characters and this book is no exception. As a reader, I do love a good plot and this book does have that but it’s the characters that you return to these books to read about. Even the side characters are perfectly drawn, without being caricatures. I just wanted this book to keep on going so I could read more and more about the thoughts and feelings of these people, so I’m glad there are a load more books in this series.
Talking of the plot, there is a lot of violence towards the end of this book and lots of carnage as you would expect from a typical fantasy novel. But Flewelling manages to write it in such a way that I could visualise it all, each sword-stroke or lunge which is amazing for me as I sometimes have trouble following a fight scene. Maybe it’s because I love the characters so much that it’s all easy to visualise? Although it is really tough to read some of the scenes in this book, two in particular stand out as tear-jerking and heart-wrenching, Flewelling does love to put her characters through some tough times.
Overall, this is a great novel and adds so much to this series, it in no way feels like filler or as if it’s merely another book in the series. Interestingly, you could actually just read books one and two in this series as this book does tie up nicely a lot of the plot points. But, if like me, you love these characters you will want to carry on further to see where some of the elements like the love story are going to go.
Sarah Bruch
January 2019
follow me @shelbycat
(pub: Bantam Spectra, 1997. 501 page paperback. Price: $ 7.50 (US), $10.99 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-57543-0)
check out websites: www.bantamdell.com and www.sff.net/people/lynn.flewelling
