Spoilers Non-Trek: The Shadow Commission (The Dark Arts #3) by David Mack Review Thread

[JD]

BLURB:
TRUST WILL GET THEM KILLED.
November 1963. Cade Martin and Anja Kernova have lived in hiding for a decade, training new mages. In the United States, Briet Segfrunsdóttir runs America’s top-secret Occult Defense Program from the Silo beneath the Pentagon.

Then the assassination of President Kennedy plunges all their lives into chaos. Briet, whose job was to defend Kennedy, is blamed for his death. Meanwhile, mages all over the world are brutally murdered—with Cade, Anja, and their closest allies being the prime targets.

Outgunned, on the run, and not knowing who to trust, Cade and Anja have just one hope to save themselves and their last few apprentices: they must find a way to fight the sinister cabal known only as The Shadow Commission.

THE SHADOW COMMISSION
Book III of Dark Arts
by New York Times Bestselling Author
DAVID MACK

Since this is coming out Tuesday, I thought I'd go ahead and start a thread for it, like I did for the other books. I loved the first two, and this has pretty much been one of my most anticipated new books this year. I'm really looking forward to reading it.

 

[John Clark]

Got it on order, and am looking forward to it too.

 

[RonG]

Finished this today, so I'll post my goodreads.com review (containing no real spoilers, but seeing as this entire thread is marked for spoilers, even potential tidbits will probably be okay )

if anyone's interested, here's the link to the review on goodreads.com -
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3484760176

Star Trek literature introduced my to David Mack's writing about a decade and a half ago, and I've yet to be disappointed in any of his works. The Star Trek Destiny trilogy and Star Trek Vanguard series cemented Mr. Mack as one of my all-time favorite Trek authors, and when his original fiction began to see the light of day, starting with The Calling, I was sure to follow it just as I do his (not nearly enough) Trek work.

The Dark Arts series has been a very enjoyable experience, from its original concepts to execution (pun intended, in Mack's case), with engaging characters and wonderful prose. The Shadow Commission follows in the footsteps of its two immediate predecessors (The Midnight Front and The Iron Codex) and earlier "cousin" (The Calling), offering a riveting, fast and exciting reading experience.

One thing that's been on my mind, though, is the conclusion. For several years, The Dark Arts series had been referred to as a "trilogy", but in that aspect, TSC doesn't *feel* like a 'true' conclusion, with some elements (relating to the larger fictional world Mack created, and for me were one of the highlights of these books) left dangling.

While I hope for more Dark Arts novels to explore this world's secret history and bring those elements to the center of the plot, I still wish this had been a more 'set in stone' conclusion for the narratives presented in the series (there's no problem in creating new series/narratives in this world a-la The Calling).

All in all, and even with the (too) open-ended conclusion, I very much enjoyed the novel and recommend it to readers of urban fantasy, historical thrillers, and fans of Mr. Mack's writing.

 

[JD]

So is the paperback starting to appear, or did you manage to get ahold of it early somehow?
I was wondering if this was the end of the series. I thought I remembered it being announced as a trilogy, but then I noticed that there was no mention of it being the end in the description or on David Mack's website.

 

[David Mack]

So is the paperback starting to appear, or did you manage to get ahold of it early somehow?

The title is not embargoed, so some book stores might have put out paperback copies early.

I was wondering if this was the end of the series. I thought I remembered it being announced as a trilogy, but then I noticed that there was no mention of it being the end in the description or on David Mack's website.

It's likely the last book, because the publisher chose not to continue the series at this time. Unless something happens to change their mind (such as it being turned into a TV series), it is unlikely another publisher would want to pick up the series. But I wanted to leave some possibility of continuation for the future, because one never knows......

 

[RonG]

It's likely the last book, because the publisher chose not to continue the series at this time. Unless something happens to change their mind (such as it being turned into a TV series), it is unlikely another publisher would want to pick up the series. But I wanted to leave some possibility of continuation for the future, because one never knows......

If this is indeed the case and this *will* be the last book, that would be very disappointing.
Other than buying the books (which is what I think all involved have been doing..), is there a way to try and reverse the publisher's decision? maybe some online discourse?

 

[David Mack]

If this is indeed the case and this *will* be the last book, that would be very disappointing.
Other than buying the books (which is what I think all involved have been doing..), is there a way to try and reverse the publisher's decision? maybe some online discourse?

Not really. The only thing that matters in the end is sales numbers. Unless something happens that radically increases the series' profile and gooses its sales (again, like a TV series being announced), there's not much to be done.

 

[JD]

That's a shame, I'm really enjoying the books and was hoping we'd get more.

 

[RonG]

Not really. The only thing that matters in the end is sales numbers. Unless something happens that radically increases the series' profile and gooses its sales (again, like a TV series being announced), there's not much to be done.

hmm.. would overseas sales be considered? There's a local (Israeli) book publisher which specializes in translating Sci Fi & Fantasy books for the Israeli market. If you'd like, I can try and have them take a look at the series?

 

[USS Firefly]

That is really dissapointing news.
Now I almost don't want to start with the third book because It will be the last one

 

[David Mack]

hmm.. would overseas sales be considered? There's a local (Israeli) book publisher which specializes in translating Sci Fi & Fantasy books for the Israeli market. If you'd like, I can try and have them take a look at the series?

Foreign sales typically are handled by my agent. For many reasons, in recent years it has become more difficult to sell foreign-language rights to multi-book series before they are completed; consequently, my agent has been waiting until book three is out before making a big sales push for foreign languages/territories subrights.

 

[Daddy Todd]

John Scalzi has a piece about The Shadow Commission on his blog:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/08/13/the-big-idea-david-mack-3/

 

[David Mack]

John Scalzi has a piece about The Shadow Commission on his blog:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/08/13/the-big-idea-david-mack-3/

In fact, I wrote that post. John regularly invites other authors to pen guest posts for his "Big Idea" feature. It's really quite generous of him, sharing his popular virtual real estate to help promote others. (Chuck Wendig, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Nicholas Kaufmann are three others I know of who offer similar features on their own blogs.)

 

[trampledamage]

I can't really allow non-Trek book review threads - i'm okay with a thread discussing all the books by Trek authors together, but individual threads need to be in the general forums - sorry.

I'll move this to Sci-Fi/Fantasy.

 

[JD]

Oh, sorry, @trampledamage I thought since this was by a one of our regular Trek authors it would be OK. I just figured that the majority of the people on the boards who would be interested in it would be the people who read David Mack's Trek books, and so I thought I'd put it where they were most likely to see it.

 

[theenglish]

It is much appreciated in this forum! I had not heard of this series until now. Always interesting to discover what people have to say about something that I haven't read.

 

[trampledamage]

@JD - I understand, it's not a problem, in fact it's a nice problem to have - one of our Trek authors getting so successful with an original series

 

[John Clark]

Finished it at lunch. Very good in my opinion, but am disappointed that there may not be another.

 

[JD]

I finished this up and I really enjoyed it.
Once again @David Mack has done a great job weaving his story into real life history.
I really a lot of the new characters in this, so I was a little disappointed when most of them got killed at the end.
I was really shocked that died and actually stayed dead at the end.
I was a little annoyed that two of Cade and Anja's students betrayed them, so I was pretty relived when it turned out neither of them really did.
This one gets a solid A+ from me.