'Dark One: Forgotten' (Dark One #0.5) by Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells | Book Review | The Book Physician
Solving the gruesome mystery of forgotten artists with Christina and Sophie in the prequel to Brandon Sanderson's 'Dark One' series.
Every year in the United States there are fifteen thousand murders, give or take a few hundred. Of those, nearly forty percent go unsolved.
In this six-part audio series, Christina Walsh is determined to change that. After struggling with the loss of her father, she sets out on a journey to bring the justice that has eluded her to the families of other victims. And she starts with a particularly strange case. The murder of world-renowned violinist Leona McPherson, who mysteriously disappeared years ago after a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. As Christina digs deeper, the story gets stranger. Leona was a prodigy, someone too good to be forgotten, but that's exactly what has happened. She's been forgotten. Entirely. By everyone who knew her. From the gushing music critic in her hometown, to the detectives investigating her murder, even her own mother.
Rating: 2.5/5.
Review:
Back in 2020, I read the Dark One (first volume) graphic novel when it was initially released in a limited run. It has been a long time since I last read it, and, as a result, I don't remember the intricate details of the plot except for the basic premise and the unflattering fact that the first volume ends on a major cliffhanger. On the other hand, 'Dark One: Forgotten' is a prequel story with only certain minor connections to the graphic novel. It is written in a six parts long true crime-like podcast format and deals with the background story involving a supernatural criminal' capture (who is undergoing a trial as a part of a minor arc in the graphic novel). As such, it isn't an obligatory requirement for you to have read the graphic novel to fully understand this prequel story.
Secondly, before I begin with my review, let me make it clear that I'm not ideally accustomed to the audiobook medium of storytelling. I don't have any issues against those who consume stories through the audio medium. Rather, it is my inability to concentrate properly while listening to these stories that make me not enjoy the audio medium as compared to reading books. Therefore, I struggle a lot to fully immerse myself into the stories whenever Brandon Sanderson releases an original work in the audio-exclusive format. Usually, I would have preferred to wait for the print version of these stories, but considering it has been almost two years since the release of 'The Original' and 'Lux: A Texas Reckoners Novel' (Dragonsteel Entertainment had earlier promised print and digital release about one year after the audio-exclusive release), I have no hopes left of seeing the story released in the printed or digital format any time soon.
Despite my issues with audiobooks, I still believe that the audiobook format is the best-suited format for this story. Written as a 6-part true crime podcast, with all the various sound effects, blunders, and audio fumbles by the in-world narrators, I think that it would be difficult to replicate this story in a format other than the audio medium. It can be done, but it won't carry as much impact as listening to the audiobook.
While the concept is cool, it doesn't feel like a Sanderson story in the slightest. This might be cause most of the writing work was done by Dan Wells, while Brandon acted more like an editor here occasionally dropping in some hints and tips about how to move the story along and connect it to his graphic novel (though Dan stresses how much it is a "Brandon book" in their podcast). I'm yet to read a book written by Dan Wells, but seeing how he integrated some amount of grittiness into the criminal aspects of this story, I'm considering checking out more of his solo works as soon as possible. I usually have no issues with expletives and cursing in books, but listening to it being mentioned so frequently (though they were beeped out, one could easily ascertain what those expletives were) in a Sanderson-affiliated work felt far too jarring at first.
The book had so much potential, but it felt wasted in hindsight. The concept was great, and the brilliant twists and turns made me invested in the story. There were some great moments in the story. I also loved it when the narrator made some pop cultural references (I remember Tom Holland, Alexa Bliss, and a few other celebrities being namedropped). The story had every single ingredient to make a mouth-watering recipe, but alas, it failed in its execution. The more I think about the story's potential, the more disappointed I get at its botched-up execution.
The voice acting is mostly acceptable, and the recording quality is top-notch. The (in-world) podcast host, Christina Walsh, does a great job with her presentation. Her best friend, Sophie, often joins in as a co-host of the podcast. And, that's where the problem begins. First of all, Sophie is far too annoying to listen to. I don't blame the original voice actor since I'm certain that Sophie was written like that with a misguided belief to be a comic relief character, but unfortunately, it does the opposite. Every time Sophie added some of her commentary in her annoying voice, I cringed hard. Humor has never been Sanderson's forte, and although Dan Wells is also partially responsible for the writing, I'm still greatly disappointed at Sanderson for his maladroit handling of humor in this book. Also, I had issues with distinguishing the voices of the two co-hosts, especially when Sophie wasn't annoying or swearing out frequently.
Ever since I started reading mystery books, I have come across a variety of amateur detectives – from young kids to teens to middle-aged folks to old people. Among all these, Sophie and Christina feel to be the worst of the lot. It can be argued that they were inexperienced and amateurs when it came to investigating crimes, but so was the case for the other fictional amateur detectives. They seemed too naive, inconsiderate, clumsy, and inept in their attempts to solve this mystery. Imagine making inappropriate jokes and shouting at an innocent witness while interviewing them! Such sections, in particular, bugged me a lot.
But that wasn't all! There came a point in the story when I got drawn into it and was enamored enough by the slick twists and turns to let the deficiencies be forgotten to some extent. But then, the awful ending happened. Well, if you are generous enough to even call it an ending. It felt so rushed, painstakingly convenient, and lackluster that you are left wondering what the hell just happened (and that too, not in a good way). It was a ridiculous ending with no payoff that makes me feel like a fool for wasting my time with this story.
By the time I was done with the book, I felt nothing but disappointment and resentment. I was disappointed because the story had the potential to be great, but it fails in an embarrassingly spectacular fashion at its climax. And resentment for investing my time and efforts in this story. But, art is subjective. It is still a decent concept with plenty of effort put in by the voice artists and the recording team, so I could see some people enjoying the story for that. However, as someone who has loved almost every Sanderson-associated work out there so far, I just hope someone somehow wipes out all my memories of reading this book, and hopefully, 'Dark One: Forgotten' remains forever forgotten by me.