What do you think?
Rate this book
Darwath
Whisper
A novelette of 14,000 words, sequel to Hambly's Darwath series. The teleporter is due to open between the Keep of Dare and an unknown Keep, lost for three thousand years - and Archmage Ingold Inglorion is snowed in fifty miles away and unable to be there to deal with whatever might be on the other side of that teleporter. California warrior-woman Gil Patterson, and California mage-in-training Rudy Solis, have to explore the unknown Keep on their to interpret its secrets, to prevent whatever might lurk there from following them back to the last Keep of humankind... and to destroy it when, in spite of their efforts, it does.
- GenresFantasyShort Stories
46 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 17, 2015
About the author
Barbara Hambly
189 books1,641 followersaka Barbara Hamilton
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
Ranging from fantasy to historical fiction, Barbara Hambly has a masterful way of spinning a story. Her twisty plots involve memorable characters, lavish descriptions, scads of novel words, and interesting devices. Her work spans the Star Wars universe, antebellum New Orleans, and various fantasy worlds, sometimes linked with our own.
"I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make money. I've proven them wrong on both counts."
-Barbara Hambly
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 25, 2015
Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths Reviews.
A novelette in the Darwath world.
Six years have passed since the end of civilization, and Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis remain in the Keep of Dare. This huge obsidian cubicle (crafted by the magic and machines of a civilization destroyed long ago by a previous rising of the Dark) has kept its occupants from death, but their lives are a daily struggle, as they learn to adapt to a world gripped in a sudden climate change. And now yet another crisis threatens to engulf this pitiful remnant of humanity.
The recently discovered and little understood teleporter at the center of the Keep of Dare is about to open. Its perfect amalgamation of science and magic due to form a portal to another hidden Keep from the ancient times; a keep that Ingold and his apprentices (Rudy included) believe has been lost to humanity for three thousand years. And with Ingold away from the Keep, it is left up to Gil and Rudy to form a team, enter the portal, and deal with whatever might be in the other keep — good or bad. Something that promises to be more difficult than Ingold, Gil, or Rudy ever expected!
Obviously, this is a story that will mean more to followers of Darwath. First, because fans of the series are already emotionally invested in these characters and their world, but also because Ms. Hambly takes it for granted that Whisper readers already know the background, motives, and adventures of the main characters and doesn’t even mention them at all. So to fully enjoy this one you really need, at least, a Wikipedia understanding of the story up to this point.
Once you have the basics of Darwath down, this is a novelette that flows by seamlessly. It keeps you entertained in Hambly’s effortless way by mixing emotions with mystery, dragging you along behind the characters as they find themselves entangled in unusual and deadly situations with the fate of humanity itself on the line. And when it ends, it might not completely surprise you, but the emotions portrayed by the characters still touch you, because you can picture yourself trying to make the choices these guys are forced to.
As you can tell I’m a Darwath fan and I really enjoyed this short story . . . because any chance to revisit Ingold, Gil, and Rudy is always a special treat for me. One I do not take for granted anymore.
A novelette in the Darwath world.
Six years have passed since the end of civilization, and Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis remain in the Keep of Dare. This huge obsidian cubicle (crafted by the magic and machines of a civilization destroyed long ago by a previous rising of the Dark) has kept its occupants from death, but their lives are a daily struggle, as they learn to adapt to a world gripped in a sudden climate change. And now yet another crisis threatens to engulf this pitiful remnant of humanity.
The recently discovered and little understood teleporter at the center of the Keep of Dare is about to open. Its perfect amalgamation of science and magic due to form a portal to another hidden Keep from the ancient times; a keep that Ingold and his apprentices (Rudy included) believe has been lost to humanity for three thousand years. And with Ingold away from the Keep, it is left up to Gil and Rudy to form a team, enter the portal, and deal with whatever might be in the other keep — good or bad. Something that promises to be more difficult than Ingold, Gil, or Rudy ever expected!
Obviously, this is a story that will mean more to followers of Darwath. First, because fans of the series are already emotionally invested in these characters and their world, but also because Ms. Hambly takes it for granted that Whisper readers already know the background, motives, and adventures of the main characters and doesn’t even mention them at all. So to fully enjoy this one you really need, at least, a Wikipedia understanding of the story up to this point.
Once you have the basics of Darwath down, this is a novelette that flows by seamlessly. It keeps you entertained in Hambly’s effortless way by mixing emotions with mystery, dragging you along behind the characters as they find themselves entangled in unusual and deadly situations with the fate of humanity itself on the line. And when it ends, it might not completely surprise you, but the emotions portrayed by the characters still touch you, because you can picture yourself trying to make the choices these guys are forced to.
As you can tell I’m a Darwath fan and I really enjoyed this short story . . . because any chance to revisit Ingold, Gil, and Rudy is always a special treat for me. One I do not take for granted anymore.
September 2, 2026
Worldcon opens today in Los Angeles and Barbara Hambly is one of the Guests of Honor. I still have fond, in fact extremely fond, memories of Hambly’s Darwath trilogy, which I read when it came out back in the early 1980s. I still have my paperbacks, and the original cover of the first book, The Time of the Dark, is every bit as arresting as it was back then.
Because that cover, featured at left, showed a Gandalf-type wizard in full wizarding garb sitting at what was obviously an already old kitchen table in a run-down apartment holding a can of beer. A CAN of beer, not a mug or a stein or a horn, but an actual aluminum can of beer. WITH a bag of potato chips at his feet.
These things do not – and did not at the time – go together. I HAD to read this book. And I did. And every book that followed.
The ending of the original Darwath trilogy in The Armies of Daylight was a scene that stuck with me, not just the gist of it but the actual words, for decades. Because it was about a light shining in a neverending darkness, about giving a woman the choice to walk into danger instead of protecting her “for her own good” when it was really about protecting himself, and because it ended in a romance of equals that began as anything but.
But the trilogy ended in 1983 with The Armies of Daylight. The series as a whole drew to a close after two sequels, Mother of Winter and Icefalcon’s Quest, in 1996.
Or so I thought.
In my search for something of the author’s to read for Worldcon, I discovered that she was every bit as attached to her characters as her readers, and that she had written short stories set in several of the worlds of her classic fantasy, set after their happy ever afters. In the case of Darwath , that would be after the happy for now, because Darwath is a place where tomorrow is even less promised to anyone than most.
Which is how I found these stories, set in one of the few remaining human habitations in Darwath, the Keep of Dare. As much as I wondered if I could get back into a place and a series that I last read THIRTY years ago, I absolutely could not resist diving in to discover how Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis were managing after surviving the end of the world as they knew it.
And I’m glad I did, even though I’m stuck dealing with the book hangover all over again.
Escape Rating A-: I’ve ALWAYS wondered what happened to Ingold, Gil, Rudy and his love, Alde after the end of The Armies of Daylight. ALWAYS. Finding that these Further Adventures existed was such a treat. At the same time, I did wonder whether I could fall back in after so many years, and I’m happy that the answer turned out to be an enthusiastic YES!
So this was certain a case of the right book at the right time.
In the case of this particular series, I wondered what an epilogue or “further adventures would actually look like for this particular series. These further adventures take place after the world has ended – and the people in it have to do their best to survive in conditions that would make most of us give up the ghost.
Which might not be an exit, as the Keep of Dare is filled with actual ghosts.
So the novelettes that tell the tale of these further adventures, Pretty Polly, Whisper, Elsewhere and The Dreamers of the Black Rock, are all stories of endurance wrapped around characters who have already endured a great deal and know that they can’t stop. While they know there’s a light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel, they also know that none of them will live to see it. Their job is to protect the remainder of humanity and teach the next generation the skills they will need to endure and survive.
A lot of the dramatic tension in the individual stories combines an environment that really is out to get them while dealing with the idiocy and/or unthinking privilege of people who still don’t believe the rules apply to them. Not even the rules keeping everyone alive.
Many of the dangers they face are monstrous or supernatural, particularly in Whisper and The Dreamers of the Black Rock. The other two stories (Pretty Polly and Elsewhere) deal more with the stupidity of old powers and dead privilege in a situation where everyone needs everyone else desperately and there is no rescue coming except from each other. And that the old equations of power by inheritance or violence or money have given way to a different equation where power accrues to the ones who are keeping everyone alive.
No one is reading these for a happy ending, then again, they shouldn’t be because that’s not Darwath at all. It’s always been a story about a few desperate people fighting the only fight left to them against terrible odds, and getting up the next morning and doing it again.
Love doesn’t conquer all, but it holds out a hand when the night gets dark that another can cling to. It’s not even about the great and often insane romance between the old wizard and the misplaced scholar, although that’s there too. (And I was happy to see that it’s working out for them as well as could possibly be expected in their terrible circumstances.)
It’s a story about keeping a candle burning in the darkest night, and it caught me by the heart and the throat as much now as it did all those years ago. I’m glad I turned back to see that their candle is still burning.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Because that cover, featured at left, showed a Gandalf-type wizard in full wizarding garb sitting at what was obviously an already old kitchen table in a run-down apartment holding a can of beer. A CAN of beer, not a mug or a stein or a horn, but an actual aluminum can of beer. WITH a bag of potato chips at his feet.
These things do not – and did not at the time – go together. I HAD to read this book. And I did. And every book that followed.
The ending of the original Darwath trilogy in The Armies of Daylight was a scene that stuck with me, not just the gist of it but the actual words, for decades. Because it was about a light shining in a neverending darkness, about giving a woman the choice to walk into danger instead of protecting her “for her own good” when it was really about protecting himself, and because it ended in a romance of equals that began as anything but.
But the trilogy ended in 1983 with The Armies of Daylight. The series as a whole drew to a close after two sequels, Mother of Winter and Icefalcon’s Quest, in 1996.
Or so I thought.
In my search for something of the author’s to read for Worldcon, I discovered that she was every bit as attached to her characters as her readers, and that she had written short stories set in several of the worlds of her classic fantasy, set after their happy ever afters. In the case of Darwath , that would be after the happy for now, because Darwath is a place where tomorrow is even less promised to anyone than most.
Which is how I found these stories, set in one of the few remaining human habitations in Darwath, the Keep of Dare. As much as I wondered if I could get back into a place and a series that I last read THIRTY years ago, I absolutely could not resist diving in to discover how Ingold Inglorion, Gil Patterson, and Rudy Solis were managing after surviving the end of the world as they knew it.
And I’m glad I did, even though I’m stuck dealing with the book hangover all over again.
Escape Rating A-: I’ve ALWAYS wondered what happened to Ingold, Gil, Rudy and his love, Alde after the end of The Armies of Daylight. ALWAYS. Finding that these Further Adventures existed was such a treat. At the same time, I did wonder whether I could fall back in after so many years, and I’m happy that the answer turned out to be an enthusiastic YES!
So this was certain a case of the right book at the right time.
In the case of this particular series, I wondered what an epilogue or “further adventures would actually look like for this particular series. These further adventures take place after the world has ended – and the people in it have to do their best to survive in conditions that would make most of us give up the ghost.
Which might not be an exit, as the Keep of Dare is filled with actual ghosts.
So the novelettes that tell the tale of these further adventures, Pretty Polly, Whisper, Elsewhere and The Dreamers of the Black Rock, are all stories of endurance wrapped around characters who have already endured a great deal and know that they can’t stop. While they know there’s a light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel, they also know that none of them will live to see it. Their job is to protect the remainder of humanity and teach the next generation the skills they will need to endure and survive.
A lot of the dramatic tension in the individual stories combines an environment that really is out to get them while dealing with the idiocy and/or unthinking privilege of people who still don’t believe the rules apply to them. Not even the rules keeping everyone alive.
Many of the dangers they face are monstrous or supernatural, particularly in Whisper and The Dreamers of the Black Rock. The other two stories (Pretty Polly and Elsewhere) deal more with the stupidity of old powers and dead privilege in a situation where everyone needs everyone else desperately and there is no rescue coming except from each other. And that the old equations of power by inheritance or violence or money have given way to a different equation where power accrues to the ones who are keeping everyone alive.
No one is reading these for a happy ending, then again, they shouldn’t be because that’s not Darwath at all. It’s always been a story about a few desperate people fighting the only fight left to them against terrible odds, and getting up the next morning and doing it again.
Love doesn’t conquer all, but it holds out a hand when the night gets dark that another can cling to. It’s not even about the great and often insane romance between the old wizard and the misplaced scholar, although that’s there too. (And I was happy to see that it’s working out for them as well as could possibly be expected in their terrible circumstances.)
It’s a story about keeping a candle burning in the darkest night, and it caught me by the heart and the throat as much now as it did all those years ago. I’m glad I turned back to see that their candle is still burning.
Originally published at Reading Reality
July 4, 2023
Novelette in the Darwatch series. If, like me, you care about chronology, this one should be read before Elsewhere.
October 2, 2024
So fun to get a novella of "stuff that happens a little later!"
March 21, 2025
Excellent Short-short for the series, but apparently I should have read the rest of the extended trilogy first, because it references the 5th book
July 29, 2015
Novelette in the Darwath series, set after Icefalcon's quest. A spirit gets loose in The Keep and Gil and the wizards have to work together to identify and stop it. A neat and complete story that gives us a little more of our beloved characters.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews