Review: Eve of Darkness

Eve of Darkness by S.J. Day
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That is a reasonable estimate of my experience with this book.

The conceit of the book is that God and angels exist. The Bible is presented as being a not-quite accurate portrayal of their history. Eve is a successful young woman who is in lust with Cain; The Cain - the brother killing guy that now is unable to die.

Eve is given the "Mark of Cain" by his brother, Abel. Nope....he isn't dead. He is a part of a sort of celestial bail bond organization that collects and kills demons and other evil creatures who have tried God's patience a bit too much.

This book is about Eve's transition from ordinary mortal to being a "Mark" working for the same bail bond organization. The general world-building was good, but not great. The characters were reasonably engaging. However, there were a few features that undermined the general narrative.

- The "Marks" are supposed to be sinners that are working off their sin so they can get into heaven. There isn't any explanation as to why individuals are selected to become Marks. One Mark is indicated to be a past member of a yakuza in Japan; so a gang banger of some sort. But there isn't any indication of what made Eve a uniquely suitable subject to be "recruited". We have no real definition of her sins that brought her to the attention of the divine.

- The attraction between Cain and Eve has no basis beyond "just because". The same is true for Abel's attraction to Eve. The entire basis for relationships in the story appears to be nothing more than overactive hormones. It is pointed out that Cain had been married before, but Eve is referred to as his "first love". The author is just pushing people together and expecting the reader to ignore the paper-thin justification for these relationships.

- Sex. Lots of steamy and explicit sex. While that seems to be a feature in a segment of the urban fantasy genre, it doesn't do much to advance the narrative of this story.

- Speaking of which, the first act of sex is when Abel rapes Eve. In later chapters of the book, she remains attracted to him despite resisting his advances.

I will probably add a couple more things on my blog as there are cultural issues that don't really belong in a formal review of a book.

If you want a light read that is heavy on the erotica and light on the plot, this is a good book for you.

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And here are the "couple more things".  Mostly this has to do with politics and culture with respect to some aspects of SF/F fandom.

This book leans heavily on the "female gaze".  The "male gaze" is a reference to when male characters notice the physical attributes....primarily breasts and posteriors...of female characters.  This book leans heavily on the reverse of that phenomenon.  The male characters are heavily objectified.

And I'm largely OK with that.

The problem is that if this were a male author engaged in writing a story that leans heavily on male characters objectifying female characters, then that author would be savaged as being a misogynist hack.  Much worse invective would be headed his way.

This book was published by Tor.  They appear to be currently engaged in correcting the disparity in diversity within SF/F works.  I note that they heavily promote female authors.  At least, that is what shows up in my email box and in various social media experiences.

And I'm largely OK with that as well.

Again, the problem is that I can't imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that heavily trafficked in the proverbial male gaze.  Nor can I imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that features a prominent and obvious rape that not only had zero consequences for the rapist but had his victim still expressing some form of attraction to her rapist.

This is sort of sloppy storytelling is not what I would expect from one of the "big five" publishers.  I think that this situation exists because of a desire to correct...in this case, one might say over-correct...for past issues with diversity, or lack thereof.

Our culture may made moderate a bit in the next decade.  The pendulum may swing back towards the middle.  Common sense might come back in vogue.  I might read this book with different eyes while living in that future culture.  In our current culture, it is difficult to ignore these issues relative to this book.

Lightly edited on 3/24/2021