In the Heart of Darkness by Eric Flint and David Drake
The Malwa Empire has conquered 6th century India and is forging the subcontinent's vast population into an invincible weapon of tyranny. Belisarius, the finest general of his age, must save the world. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, he and a band of comrades penetrate the Malwa heartland, seeking the core of the enemy's power. And when Belisarius leads the forces of good, only a fool would side with evil.
Far Edge of Darkness is the first half of an unfinished story that was meant to continue in Unholy Trinity. Why isn't the story finished? I plead a combination of ill health and financial need. Far Edge was originally written before my first professional sale and became my third published novel, after Sleipnir and Time Scout, plus the anthology Bolos 3: The Triumphant. I was editing Far Edge and writing Wagers of Sin (Time Scout #2) when a major illness shattered my health and left me unable to write for three years, with a contract for a major series unfulfilled. Wagers of Sin limped its way into print during this time as I struggled to finish the last third of the book (which I have no memory of writing). Jim Baen and Toni Weisskopf stood by me as I put my life back together, an act of faith and kindness for which I will bless them forever. My health remains fragile, which limits my production speed, as does the day job I must keep to hold onto utterly necessary health insurance. That is where the situation stands at present. I'm committed to the Hell's Gate "Multi-Verse" series with David Weber, which must be my highest priority.
If you have read Far Edge of Darkness and enjoyed it, thank you and please accept my apologies for its unfinished state. (I, too, want to get my literary children off that cliff they're plunging over!) If you haven't read the book yet, I will say this in warning: the book's action is constructed so that every single chapter ends on a cliffhanger, including the last one. If you want "the rest of the story" to exist before you begin reading a book, you'll probably want to skip Far Edge of Darkness. But if you are willing to overlook the lack of an ending to the overall story (there is closure of some major plot threads), you're welcome to step onto the roller coaster. Just hang on, because that last drop is a real dilly...
Written in 1899 by Joseph Conrad (Teodor Józef Konrad Nałęcz-Korzeniowski),
Heart of Darkness is a fascinating fin de siecle critique of colonialism and man's greed. Conrad draws on his own adventures for the plot. The story's main narrator is Marlow, a merchant seaman who pilots a steamship upriver in what is largely assumed to be the Belgian Congo. He finds the scramble for Africa well underway, with Europeans desperately competing to make their fortunes from ivory. Marlow's journey takes him into the interior of this mysterious silent continent. After a dangerous passage he finally arrives at the company's most remote trading station. It is reigned over by Kurtz, a white man who seems to have become a kind of God figure to the local people. Marlow is fascinated by him, preferring his messianic ravings to the petty treachery and mercenarism of the other white traders. On the journey back, Kurtz dies, whispering “the horror, the horror”.
The interpretation of these words has perplexed readers ever since and the book has prompted a diverse range of readings from the psychoanalytical, that sees the novella as a metaphor for the journey into the subconscious, to feminist readings that examine how Conrad excludes female characters and focuses on the male consciousness.
Conrad wrote; “My task is, above all, to make you see”. So did he intend this novella to provoke a discussion of the immorality and rapacity at the centre of colonialism? Was he questioning the hero's welcome given to those famous explorers who came back from “civilising” Africa, as they saw it? Or was he, as the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe put it, “guilty of preposterous and perverse arrogance in reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?”
