A good portion of this does take place on a ranch in the country, so . . .

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

Do not let the blurb on the back cover deter, you do not have to have read the other books in the series to understand what is going on in the book. While there are two non-central characters from other books in the series, a detailed back story is not given nor needed. Therefore, if you are new to the adventures of Ben January, you can start here and not be lost.

The book is at first a basic search and rescue Western as Ben, Hannibal, and Shaw struggle to save a young woman. This part of the novel is told with a great deal of vigor, and highlights the need for someone to produce a television series based on this excellent series. Hambly’s know ledge of history serves her in good stead, and the details of Texas before Union as well as the reactions of the characters. Things get complicated quickly and Ben and Hannibal find themselves at a center of a mystery involving an old acquittance and the death of her husband.

What makes the series so good is that Hambly captures the confront that Ben undoubtedly feels. He is an educated man who must pretend, time and again to be something other than what he is because he risks death. But it makes him more sympathetic to the nuances that exist in relationships, in particular to how those play out with women.

And that is what at the heart of the novel. It isn’t just Valentina who finds herself accused of murder, but also her in-laws and the young woman who is the original target of Ben’s quest. While the book addresses the lack of option available to women in the 1840s, much of the subject matter is also closely related to women of today and highlights aspects of the MeToo Movement. The plot directly addresses how different people, let alone genders, respond to and see rape. It is those different responses to sexual assaults -both on men and women (though the men get shorter shift in the book) as well as the long-lasting damage that such assaults can cause.

The book also works very well as a thriller western and is particularly gripping when it comes to the pursuits. The plot also makes good use of the historical Texas political situation, with the conflict of total independence or joining the United States. The use of historical detail and the humanness of the characters is a hallmark of this series.

I first started reading Hambly by reading her fantasy. Though, this book was not one of the ones I first read. As I got older, I think in many ways, her historical fiction is a bit better. Just a bit. Not that the fantasy is bad or anything.

The Time of the Dark does combine both history and fantasy. Two people from our world cross the void into a fantasy world that is losing to the very, very bad things. One of those people, Gil, is getting her PhD in history and so we get the history prof's reaction to seeing, well, basically history. Gil's experience is interesting because she at first seems special, but then not, and becomes something other than what you will think.

The other person, Rudy, is more traditional, and at times a bit annoying for he keeps referring to Gil as cold, but I'm not entirely sure why, outside of the fact that she isn't his type.

While there are pretty of women supporting characters, the women do not really talk to each other. Which was strange.

The parts with the dark are really well done.

Oh gee, was just going to read the sample of this but it hooked me quickly.

Very vivid worldbuilding and characters right from page one.  Love the atmosphere.

On the ereaders and ready to go for April!

And I'm kidding myself even planning a TBR because no telling what I'll wind up reading or how many.

During a layover at Starbase Twelve the Enterprise crew investigates suspicious activity surrounding a Klingon ore freighter which seems to be more than it appears. As they follow it into the Tau Eridani Cloud, the Klingon ship suddenly vanishes . . . with Spock still on board. And on Earth in 1867, a frontier businessman encounters an amnesiac stranger in the woods — one with pointed ears and green blood coming from his wounds.

Barbara Hambly's book is unique among the many novels in the Star Trek Pocket Book series. Unlike the others set in the Star Trek universe, Hambly situates many of the events in a different fictional world, that of the ABC television show Here Come the Brides which ran for two seasons in the late 1960s. To be honest I'm not a fan of such a conceit (and her insertion of thinly-veiled characters and references from other television shows and sci-fi franchises didn't help), but Hambly makes it work here, thanks to the strength of her characterization and her storytelling skills. There's also an underlying joke in her use of the series that proved rather clever once I understood what it was, and which highlighted the amount of work she put into realizing it. The overall result is somewhat different from most other Star Trek novels, yet it is that difference which makes it such a fresh and enjoyable read.