I have to admit: I didn't have high expectations for Dark Ages: Cappadocian, the third book in the new twelve-book Dark Ages series of novels. The preview for it that was included in Dark Ages: Assamite made me worry that the book would have far too much humor and not enough serious drama. Add to that fact that the last book I read by the author of DA: Cappadocian was so bad I had to resist the urge to throw it into the first open flame I could find, and you can understand why I had little hope of finding DA: Cappadocian an enjoyable read. Imagine my surprise when I found DA: Cappadocian a well-written tale accessible to both new readers and those who have read previous books in the series.
The main star of the story is Markus Musa Giovanni, a large fellow who is a member of the Cappadocian clan of vampires, and a necromancer of rather impressive skill. Tasked to uncover a mystery in the city of Constantinople (what this mystery is, we never learn), he is sidetracked in his investigations by Lady Alexia Theusa, a fellow Cappadocian who distrusts him and who is involved in a mad scheme that she has worked on for hundreds of years. Markus uncovers her activities, and combining what he has learned of her work with his discovery of an ancient artifact (which played an important part in the DA: Assamite novel), sets off to Egypt to retrieve a relic from a group of renegade Cappadocians.
Dragged along by Markus on his quest are the spirits of the dead he has bound to himself, and his two ghoul followers, Falsinar and Beltramose. The ghouls' dialogue is almost always comedic, and the focus upon them in the preview of this book in DA: Assamite was the reason I feared this tale would have too much humor. Fortunately, while adding an enjoyable bit of levity to this tale, they do nothing to diminish the serious nature of the story. Also, the bond between the two men is used well later in the book to explain an occurrence all-too-common in the World of Darkness, and I have to admit that I did not see it coming. The spirits are also entertaining, and while almost from the first page you could see what was going to happen with them later in the book, the author writes the event when it happens in such a manner that despite knowing what is going to occur it is still very entertaining to read about.
Also playing important roles in this story are the Cappadocian seer Constancia and her Lamia bodyguard, Qalhara. Constancia has a vision regarding the quest Markus is on, seeing that doom will come to many whether Markus succeeds or fails in his quest, the only difference between the two being who will be affected by the horror that will come. Despite the amount of space devoted in the book to these characters, they come off as secondary to Markus, as does Andreas, a Setite who will star in the next novel in the series.
Andrew Bates did an excellent job in his novel, providing excellent descriptions of characters, places, and events. Like Stefan Petrucha (who wrote the previous DA novel), he does not fall into the trap of devoting dozens of pages to vampires ravaging humans or going on about their horrible pain that is their existence. To be sure, Bates makes no attempt to hide the monstrous nature of his protagonists, but he does not focus on it to the extent that the rest of the story suffers; that's something a lot of White Wolf writers need to learn.
The only real problem that this book suffers from is the fact that it is a single book in a line of series fiction. While able to be read entirely on its own, occasionally events are referenced to that occurred in the previous DA novel. In fact, it's revealed in this book that an unidentified character who shows up in the previous novel is Markus himself, spying for information. Sometimes these references are to events so major that, if I had not read the previous book, I would have been left in the dark as to what was going on and would have felt cheated by White Wolf. Even having read DA: Assamite, I felt like the author should have gone into greater detail on some of these "cross-over" moments, since they seemed to have a greater effect on Markus' life than the brief descriptions in this book gave. I understand that the author had to do this, but it still bugged me. Fortunately, after the first third of the book, these occurrences stop completely, but it can still be annoying as you read the beginning of the book.
Also, there's a moment near the end of the book where a character suddenly reappears, teamed with someone she had never met before, fighting someone I thought she would be an ally to, not an enemy. I presume that in a later novel this discrepancy will be explained, but in which novel will it be? The next novel is due for release in four months, and I've no idea if it will be resolved in there; it could be over a year before this question is resolved, if they decide to bring it up in one of the final books of the series.
The editing of the book is excellent. Typos seemed to be non-existent, the author keeps true to the source material of the RPG the fiction is based on, and I only found one instance of a "huh?" moment (where a character suddenly knows the name of a person who, as far as I can tell, he was never introduced to). Given the insanely poor editing I've been encountering in recent months my hat is off to Phillippe Boulle for his work on this title.
Without a doubt I can recommend Dark Ages: Cappadocian to those looking for a stand-alone Vampire novel, or who are following the Dark Ages series. I can only hope that future releases in this line keep up this level of quality, a level that I hope other White Wolf novel lines can reach in the future.
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