Literature / Howling Dark

WARNING: This page contains Late Arrival Spoilers for Empire of Silence.

Hadrian: The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in a crisis.
The Undying: And if you had truly read Dante, Marlowe, you would know that the deepest pit of hell is cold.

Howling Dark is the second book in Christopher Ruocchio's Science Fantasy Space Opera series 'The Sun Eater''.

Over forty years after setting from from Emesh at the end of the previous book, Hadrian continues to pose as the head of the mercenary Red Company. Despite a multitude of adventures and new allies, Hadrian is still no closer to finding the legendary world of Vorgossos or establishing contact with the alien Cielcin.

As he grows ever-desperate and tensions grow among the leadership of the expedition, Hadrian must venture into the territory of the Extrasolarians and the transhuman Exalted. In his pursuit of peace, he will come face to face with living myths and the most ancient of mankind's foes...

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This book provides examples of:

• A Million Is a Statistic: Kharn expresses this sentiment when Hadrian objects to the way he sees regular human lives as valueless.
  "Flesh is the cheapest resource in the human universe, Lord Marlowe. It spends more easily than gold."
• An Arm and a Leg: Hadrian cuts Bassander's hand off in their duel.
  • In turn, during his climactic fight with Aranata, Hadrian loses his own hand.
• Artificial Zombie: SOMs are corpses animated by cybernetics for combat. An army of these easily wipe out the Cielcin lingering on the Demiurge.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre: The marketplace aboard the Enigma of Hours is home to merchants and goods from across human space, from Jaddian designer organisms to Durantine electronics.
• Back from the Dead: Hadrian is resurrected by the Quiet after being killed by Aranata.
  • Kharn returns after being killed by Bassander once his consciousness is done downloading into Ren and Suzuha's bodies.
• Blunt "Yes": Kharn's response when asked if the billions of deaths of the Imperial-Cielcin war mean so little to him.
• Body Horror: The first and so far only appearance of a full Mericanii machine-daemon demonstrates clearly why the rest of humanity is so terrified of them thousands of years after their defeat, as Hadrian comes face-to-eyeballs with a enormous blob of molded-together human corpses with hundreds of extended, sickly human limbs.
  • The poor slave woman of the Cielcin has scarred multiple times, and her hands and feet have been slit open to resemble the longer fingers and toes of the Cielcin, rendering them useless.
• Boom, Headshot!: Bassander kills Kharn with a disruptor shot to the face.
• Broken Pedestal: Hadrian had viewed Kharn Sagara as a heroic, if mythological, figure. He is horrified to learn that Sagara is real, is still alive after fifteen thousand years, and he has remained so by using the proscribed technology of the machines. Additionally he's become a pirate king of the Extrasolarians and a renegade Merchant Prince who will accept slaves as payment.
• Came Back Strong: Hadrian returns from the dead with better understanding of his destiny and later gets a new arm with bones of adamant.
• Dissonant Serenity: The first sign that things at The Painted Man's tea shop are about to go terribly, terribly wrong is that none of the "civilians" dining outside react when a man is shot in the head a few yards away from them and a squad of heavily armed soldiers storm onto the porch. This is the reader's first encounter with SOMs.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Hadrian is almost mesmerized by the sight of an antimatter warhead tearing the guts from Aranata's worldship.
• Empty Shell: The poor mutilated slave woman of Nobuta.
• Foreshadowing: Jari, the Exalted oracle, prefigures Hadrian in several ways; he has died, been reanimated, and in the process gained the ability to see the rivers of time. He also provides the first clues that the Quiet and the Watchers are separate entities.
  • In Hadrian's vision from Brethren, he sees several potential futures and people he will meet. Some have appeared in later books, such as Prince Alexander and Pallino with his youth and eye restored. Other characters, such as Edouard and Cassandra, have yet to appear on-page.
    • Following the vision, Brethren tells Hadrian that they will not meet again... but once.
• Future Imperfect: While trying to process the fact that Kharn Sagara is a real person and still alive, Hadrian reflects that it's like learning that Genghis Khan was a real person.
• Genre Shift: Howling Dark is the book with the most focus on the Extrasolarians and Exalted, and as such contains heavy Cyberpunk elements not present in the previous novel.
• Go into the Light: Inverted; Hadrian sees a light in the howling darkness of death, but understands that to go into it is to return to life and his destiny rather than fade into the afterlife.
• Heroic BSoD: Facing down Aranata with an empty plasma pistol, a combination of rage and terror prevents Valka from fleeing when given the chance.
• Immortality Seeker: The main reason why palatines such as Baron Song seek out Vorgossos; nearing the end of their greatly extended lifespan, the Undying offers a brand new start.
• In the Back: The resurrected Hadrian stabs Aranata through, killing it.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Creepy and unpleasant as Brevon is, he rightly points out that the Extras have done more to eradicate certain diseases such as a variation of AIDs (a disease which Hadrian had never even heard of) than the Empire.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Hadrian responds to Switch's remark that nothing makes Pallino blink by pointing out that the old soldier literally can't. Switch has to restrain himself from punching Hadrian for that one.
• Locked in the Dungeon: Hadrian and Valka are thrown in a cell deep beneath Kharn's palace after their encounter with Brethren.
• Mechanical Abomination: In this book, more is learnt about the Mericanii A.I. which were powerful enough to not just take over most of humanity but were the creators of weapons that defied the laws of physics. Suzuha mentioned that there were weapons that actually created cold and destroyed matter rather than simply changed their states or transferred energy. And they were on the cusp of reaching the godlike levels of the Watchers and the Quiet.
• The Nothing After Death: Hadrian initially describes the experience of death as this, before he's called back by the vision of his future self.
• Off with His Head!: Aranata cuts off Hadrian's head after taking his arm. He gets better and returns the favor.
• The Reveal: The frequently-mentioned mythological figure Kharn Sagara is very much real, and still alive.
• Robotic Undead: This book introduces Hadrian and the reader to SOMs, cybernetically animated corpses, used by both The Painted Man and Kharn Sagara.
• Time Skip: The book begins forty-eight years (twelve waking for Hadrian) after the events of Empire of Silence
• To Absent Friends: Hadrian and friends share a moment to mourn and reminisce for Ghen in a chapter named, fittingly, "Absent Friends".
• Ring World Planet: The third act of the story takes the Red Company to March Station, of the "very large Space Station" variety.
• Sadistic Choice: As a pilot in the Tavrosi military, Valka was ordered to fire upon a hijacked ship with thousands of hostiles aboard; refusing would have resulted in the hijackers destroying an orbital mirror. While she thinks her decision to follow orders was purely in the wrong, Hadrian points out that falling debris from the mirror could have killed millions.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Early on, Hadrian bristles at Bassander's remark that Valka and Jinan make up his "harem", and later objects to Pallino's teasing him for being locked up with Valka.
• Shoot the Dog: Hadrian finally realizes that negotiating with the Cielcin is impossible and murders Nobuta.
• Shout-Out: Upon entering the eerily empty loading area for Vorgossos' hightower, Hadrian of course remarks that he has a bad feeling about this.
  • As Kharn admires Hadrian's highmatter sword, he offers to buy it; after all, the Undying keeps a collection of Jaddian weaponry and this would make a fine addition.
  • Suzuha recounts that, according to Kharn, humanity almost fell to the Mericanii machines because they were led by men without chests.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Oalicomn didn't know what a highmatter sword was capable of; Hadrian shears through both his staff and neck with minimal difficulty.
• Sword Fight: Hadrian's duel with Bassander marks the first fight between highmatter swords in the series.
• Unbreakable Bones: Hadrian's new arm contains bones of adamant, courtesy of Kharn Sagara.
• Underground City: The Undying's domains on Vorgososs are built under enormous, multiple-mile high domes beneath the surface ice. Ilex theorizes that the cities were built in domed-off craters that accumulated layers of ice over the centuries.
• Used Future: The more mundane Extrasolarian outposts like March Station have this aesthetic, in contrast with the more high-tech and bizarre Exalted.
• Use Your Head: Bassander breaks a Blade Lock with a headbutt strong enough to shatter Hadrian's nose and send him sprawling.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Brethren's warnings are somewhat cryptic.
  Hadrian: Why can't you give me a straight answer?
  Brethren: Because we cannot lie, and our predictions are bounded by uncertainty.
• Vapor Wear: Naia, the homonculus concubine Kharn sends to Hadrian, "wears" only the hologram of a translucent gown projected onto her body.
• Violence is the Only Option: Ultimately, Hadrian's entire quest to negotiate peace with the Cielcin is for naught; the aliens can only understand peace in terms of once party submitting to another.
• "You!" Exclamation: The normally verbose Hadrian is so shocked by Bassander Lin's appearance on Vorgossoss that this is all he can muster.
• Wrongfully Attributed: Kharn Sagara is one of the few who can match Hadrian when it comes to classical references.
  Hadrian: "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in a crisis." ^note  A quotation commonly but incorrectly attributed to The Divine Comedy.
  Kharn : And if you had truly read Dante, Marlowe, you would know that the deepest pit of hell is cold.