Twilight Falling: The Erevis Cale Trilogy

By Paul S. Kemp

Newly dedicated to the Mask, an assassin-turned-butler returns to the shadowy lifestyle he once left behind 
 
Over one decade ago, the Night Knives placed spy Erevis Cale into the wealthy Uskevren household, tasking him with gathering intel that would tarnish the family's name. But as Cale's relationship with his employers deepened with time, he grew tired of serving two masters—and ultimately sided with Thamalon, the Uskevren patriarch.
 
Now, Thamalon lies dead, and the sun has set on Cale’s service to the family. But just when his future seems more uncertain than ever, a letter arrives from a prominent figure from his past. By day’s end, Cale has dedicated himself to a new master—one who is beyond the petty accumulation of wealth. After all, what is gold to one who trades in souls?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9780786957026

Paul S. Kemp

Paul S. Kemp is a lawyer. That is bad. He is also the million-selling author of the Erevis Cale sword and sorcery series, and several Star Wars novels. That is good. Very good. He has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list three times (twice on the hardcover list, and once in the mass market list). It’s a little known fact that Paul has maimed eight men and three llamas using only an unsharpened pencil and a stick of Wrigley’s gun. Now you know too. He does not hum show tunes. Ever. Paul lives in Michigan with his wife and twin sons.

Reviews for Twilight Falling

[ninelarks-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Goodreads gave this book greater than 4 stars. With that kind of rating, I opened this book eagerly waiting to be regaled by a new world or some kind of crazy plot or a different magic system or, or something that would at least make me nod in understanding why this book was rated so highly.

Instead... I opened the book to 400 pages of disappointment.

I had a lot of major problems with this book. The "in medias res", the telling-not-showing, the nature of the characters, the character dynamics, the lack of coherency in the world, the villains... and I think I can make this list go on longer, but I don't think I will in interest of time.

The book starts off "in medias res" with Cale, our assassin-butler main character. And already there's a major problem. We never see this guy as a real butler. Instead the author tells us he was an assassin who became a butler, but now that his master died, he'll have to use his assassin skills again. Soooo.... what was the point of him being a butler again? It's a very strange place to dump the reader to get to know this character.

Next, I utterly hate these characters because none of them actually hold up to their given status. Assassins? PLEASE. They act more like soldiers. Aren't assassins supposed to use deception and kill subtly? Instead these characters go around slashing and hacking and fighting duels. So again, what is the point of them being assassins? It's as if Kemp thought "oh hey, it'd be cool my story had an assassin or two. But.. they still have to fight duels and throw manly punches because those are cool too, even though an assassin wouldn't do that. Oh well, the readers won't figure that out."

Well, NO I DON'T THINK SO. You can't just tell me that they're assassins and then expect me to take that as truth. You've got to show it to me in their actions and in their thinking. But nope, instead we've got Cale and Riven acting like they don't normally kill people for a living (please, Cale can't even torture someone? What, how did he even survive as an assassin?).

And all that abuse that Riven takes from the Cale and Fleet? Good grief, why did Riven even stay? There is no chemistry between these characters. There is nothing that I would imagine to make them friends. They're just characters that have to interact with each other for the sake of the plot. And the end where Riven realizes his loyalty to Cale, I had to roll my eyes and laugh otherwise I might have chucked this book out my window.

See? Already the characters were a big fat minus. But even beyond that, the world and magic was lacking as well. I got no sense of what kind of world they lived in. There is nothing that stands out or makes it unique. Just like the magic. Hurr durr, yeah there's magic. And we don't even get the basics of how it works. Does it take energy or strength? The magic seems so random - someone has the power of mind control, the Mask can give other powers. But how does it work? Why does it work? Can anyone use it? Nothing is explained, everything must be taken at face value. Well, no. I don't like that because if you don't explain how the magic works, then it's almost like a deus ex machina that you can use anytime you want. All of a sudden it's revealed that another character can somehow do this cool thing because of "magic"! What? You can't randomly drop powers into a book unless there is some basis. And then demon magic. What is that? What are the limitations, what are the costs? Why don't we know anything?

As for the gods and religion, what is the Mask? Who are the prophets? Why are they chosen? None of this stuff is explained. There is just no depth to this story! I am so infuriated. And no, you cannot tell me it'll be explained later in the series. This is the mark of a shallow world if you can't explain some things in the first book. It's confusing, not mysterious.

As the book seemed to accumulate more and more flaws in my eyes, I grew less and less interested. To the point where I gave up 300 pages in and then flipped through the rest of the pages to see the climax. Hmmm yeah. That would have been anger-inducing if I cared a modicum for these lackluster characters. Good thing I didn't, right?

Basically, this book is a parody of a great fantasy novel. It has all the right components in summary. Assassins with a conscience, a mysterious object that could destroy the world, a rival-turned-friend, strange magic and a god that gives strange talents, demons, villains. Oh yeah, there's a reason why I picked up this book with high hopes. But y'know what? All of those great components mean nothing because they're placed in this book without depth or thought, as if Kemp is just checking off boxes on his list. Yep yep readers will love it because of these fantasy buzz words!

I don't see the depth in this story. In the characters, in the world, in the magic or gods, anything. It's all very two dimensional to me.

One star. Could not bear to even properly finish this book.
Not recommended for anyone.
I will probably not pick up any other book from this author either.

-edit-
After doing a bit of research and sleuthing (AKA Wikipedia), I found out that this is set in a Dungeons and Dragons world. Ahh, it makes more sense. This is almost like a novel-length fanfiction for a premade game, which explains lack of world building and magic background. It might also explain the strange dilemma of assassins-who-aren't assassins because I think D&D just gives you characters with stats, but are still able to do non-character-like actions.
Regardless, all these things still do not make a good (standalone) novel. The one star stays. But at least I can raise my opinion of the author.