A Dark Travelling

© 1987 by Roger Zelazny

All right; knocked this one out so I could move it off the “unread” shelf.

Actually, it’s a short novel / long novella (about 110 pages) bundled with To Die In Italbar (see review of that, here). So I figured it would be a quick, enjoyable, entertaining read.

I figured right.

It’s actually aimed at a somewhat younger audience than a mid-40-ish male. I’m thinking middle school or early high school. Regardless, it was intelligent, logically consistent, and set itself up for a whole series of novels, which I don’t know were ever realized before Mr. Zelazny’s death.

Anyway, our protagonist is a kid who’s learning to be a werewolf. His step-sister is a witch, as is his mother, he later discovers. An exchange student who lives with them is a trained assassin proficient in the martial arts. Dad works at a think tank which somehow built a computer / transporter that allows travel between parallel universes.

Zelazny developes a whole range of worlds labeled “bands.” There are lightbands, graybands, and darkbands, and you can whittle out which are the good places and not-so-good place to go to. Problem is, as we discover right from page 1, is that some of the darkbands are at war with the lightbands. Gunfire is heard, Dad is missing, the computer / transporter is sabotagued. How are our young heroes going to save him? And by saving him, save the lightbands?

Well, you have to read the book.

Grade: B. A Dark Travelling is a good read for the younglings, like my nephew, or Little One when she gets a bit older.