The Darkness Before the Dawn: A Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas Retelling
So I just finished the second book in the Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas series, and I have thoughts.
The Darkness Before the Dawn by Ryan Hughes is set in the Dark Sun campaign world, which is basically the bleakest Dungeons & Dragons setting ever created. If you are picturing green forests and friendly taverns, stop. That is not what this is. Athas is a dying world. The sun is red. The desert goes on forever. Water is worth more than gold. Metal is so rare that people fight with weapons made from bone and obsidian. And the people who run things are immortal sorcerer-kings who have been draining the life from the planet for thousands of years.
It is a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where the apocalypse happened so long ago that nobody remembers anything else. Magic itself is part of the problem, because casting spells literally kills the land around you. Slavery is normal. Violence is normal. Survival is the only goal most people have.
Yeah. Fun place.
Who Wrote This
Here is something interesting. “Ryan Hughes” is actually a pen name for Jerry Oltion, a science fiction writer whose short stories appear regularly in Analog, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and various anthologies. His novels include Frame of Reference and two books in Isaac Asimov’s Robot City series. So this is a sci-fi guy writing fantasy, and you can feel that influence in the book. There is a fascination with mechanics and ancient technology that feels more science fiction than sword and sorcery. It gives the whole thing a different flavor compared to the first book in the series, The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey.
The book was first published in February 1995 by TSR. ISBN 0-7869-0104-7 if you want to track down a copy.
Our Main Characters
The story follows two people who just got freed from a slave caravan and now have to figure out how to not die in the desert.
Jedra is a half-elf. He grew up on the streets of Urik, scrounging for food and sleeping in alleyways. He recently discovered he has psionic powers, which is basically psychic ability. He can send mental messages, sense when people are watching him, and push things with his mind. But he has zero training, and his talent is wild and unpredictable. On Athas, that makes him a danger to himself and everyone around him.
Kayan is a human woman and a former templar’s assistant. Templars are the bureaucratic enforcers of the sorcerer-kings, so she comes from a completely different world than Jedra. She is a psionic healer who got thrown into slavery because she refused to use her powers to kill someone. She is practical, experienced, and a little bit of a know-it-all. But she has skills that Jedra desperately needs, and when they link their minds together, their combined power is frighteningly strong.
The problem? They cannot control it. Every time they merge minds and use their full power, people get hurt or killed. They need a teacher. Badly.
What to Expect
I am going to retell this book chapter by chapter. Not a dry summary. More like me walking you through the story and pointing out the parts that work, the parts that are brutal, and the moments where this book does something unexpected.
We will follow Jedra and Kayan through a feast with desert elves that goes sideways, a desperate trek through scorching wasteland, a meeting with a mysterious insect-like inventor named Kitarak who changes everything, the discovery of ancient crystal technology nobody understands, and eventually a journey to the city of Tyr where they end up in the gladiatorial arena fighting for their lives.
There is a lot of ground to cover. The book is a quick read but it packs in a surprising amount of world-building, relationship tension, and that classic Dark Sun bleakness where nothing is easy and everything wants to kill you.
Let’s get into it.
Book: The Darkness Before the Dawn Author: Ryan Hughes (Jerry Oltion) Series: Dark Sun, Chronicles of Athas #2 ISBN: 0-7869-0104-7