Coldfire Trilogy

A trilogy of books by CS Friedman that successfully manages to combine the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror genres. The books' titles in order are Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, and Crown of Shadows.

The story takes place on Erna, a planet colonized many centuries ago by humans who soon realized that a mysterious force originating from the planet, the fae, had the power to let their subconscious emotions such as their desires and especially their fear affect their environment and even create embodied creatures out of their nightmares. These creatures, called faeborn or in some cases demons, feed from humans, sometimes literally, sometimes in a more subtle way. They vary greatly in shape and strength. Some are literally gods that humans worship (and thus feed) in exchange for favours and help.

In return, some humans have managed to manipulate the fae to their need by using symbolism and the pattern of sacrifice, practicing Sorcery. Some humans, the Adepts, have even adapted to Erna to the point that they are born with the ability to perceive the fae and manipulate it instinctively.

There exist four different kinds of fae:

 * Earth fae originates from Erna's frequent seismic activity and is the one most often used by humans.
 * Solar fae originates from the sun's light when it touches the atmosphere, it usually cannot be used unless a massive amount of people are concentrating on the same thing.
 * Tidal fae is tied to the gravity of the different moons of Erna and their alignments. No human is known to be able to use this very subtle force.
 * Dark fae originates in true darkness, either from subterranean places that never see light, or during True Night, during those lapse of time when no moon nor star light the sky. As powerful as it is dangerous, it is implied that the demonic Hunter is the only fleshborn who can utilize it directly.

The fae renders technology unreliable because people's fear affect its operation. As a result, the civilization of Erna has fallen down into a medieval level of technology. Some 1,000 years ago, some of the people who yearned for their Earth heritage created the Church. Based upon the writing of the Prophet, they hope that by garnering enough faith and mass symbolism to affect the fae on a macro scale they can manage to join/create the God of Earth and free themselves from the effect of the fae.

The story centers around the characters of Father Damien Kilcannon Vryce, a priest and warrior who also practices Healing sorcery, and Gerald Tarrant, the Neocount of Merentha, a mysterious Adept who allies himself with Damien Vryce for his own reason. Damien is seeking to kill demons to allow Ciani, the woman he's in a relationship with, to recover her memory and Adept abilities, sucked away by demons. Their quest will bring them to a deeper, more complex threat.


 * Aerith and Bob: Names like Gerald and Damien appear alongside names like Senzei and Ciani.
 * Action Girl: Hesseth.
 * Affably Evil: Tarrant, who has both his cruelty, harsh pragmatism, and impeccable, old world manners.
 * After the End: Subverted since the trilogy takes place years and years after such a period, where humanity is back on its feet but nowhere near its former glory.
 * A God Am I: This is not too difficult to accomplish on Erna.
 * Alien Sky: In a number of ways. Erna has three moons--Prima, Domina, and Casca--and a slightly Weird Sun that is noted to be whiter than Earth's. The planet's position in the Milky Way causes most stars to appear in one of two clusters--the Core, (the center of the galaxy,) and the Rim. True Night occurs after all these bodies have set.
 * All Myths Are True: Creatures like vampires and sirens exist because the fae creates them out of people's subconscious.
 * Always Chaotic Evil: Averted, even with the demons. While they're all dangerous, they're not all evil, and some can be quite helpful if you know how to work with them.
 * Ancient Conspiracy: Evil plots often take multiple centuries to orchestrate, and time is no object to the villains.
 * Anti-Hero / Sociopathic Hero: Gerald Tarrant.
 * Back From the Dead: Happens 3 or 4 times
 * Background Magic Field: The fae has every hallmark of this trope. The Fae is a natural phenomenon; a sort of energy governed by its own rules. The earth fae, the type used by humans, flows across the planet's surface and collects in places of power. Weak currents limit a sorcerer's capabilities, and tapping into strong currents can fry a sorcerer's brain.
 * Badass Damsel: Narilka. She starts out a Distressed Damsel Ingenue, but she matures, masters her Shrinking Violet side, and develops a plucky streak that gets her through some serious adversity.
 * Bastard Understudy:
 * Blood From the Mouth: in Black Sun Rising. See Incurable Cough of Death below.
 * Big Bad:
 * Big Badass Bird of Prey: Tarrant often shapeshifts into a large black or--occasionally--white bird.
 * Bigger Bad: The Nameless. The ultimate evil, but he/she/it/they doesn't direct or drive the plot nearly as much as.
 * Brought Down to Normal: By the end of the series, . Damien gets some satisfaction out of this
 * Catgirl: The Rakh are basically lion-people in terms of physical appearance. Hesseth is the most prominent example, both of the trope and her species in general.
 * Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning of the first novel, there's an apparent throwaway scene in which The Hunter, traveling in disguise, promises a young woman that she will come to no harm by his hands. She reappears at the end of the novel when  tries to trick the Hunter into killing her. The Hunter rescues her and gives her a safe-passage token; she disappears from the story.
 * Chessmaster: Calesta. The Undying Prince. Tarrant is perfectly capable of this, though normally he prefers manipulating the environment to people.
 * The Church: A big deal. It's recognizably Christianity, except not, but this is acknowledged and justified in that the elimination of the Messiah figure was deliberate. On Erna, Messiahs always lead to counterproductive apotheosis. The Church is sincerely trying to do good, but has gotten into trouble over church militancy.
 * Cold Flames: The eponymous coldfire.
 * Corrupt Church:
 * The Corrupter: Calesta.
 * Cowboy Cop: Damien is this, plus Church Militant and a side of Good Shepherd. He takes his public service (primarily demon slaying) very seriously, but will flout the rules to accomplish demon slaying. Except for harming innocents. It takes him
 * Clap Your Hands If You Believe / Psychoactive Powers: A blend of these describe how the fae works. Human emotions inspire changes in laws of probability. The stronger the emotion, the greater the odds it will become real.
 * Crap Saccharine World:
 * Creepy Child: The Terata, a tribe of lost children who seem off somehow.
 * Cult: Many of the Iezu act as gods to their own minor religions, some of which are more cult-like than others.
 * The Terata.
 * Da Chief: The Patriarch, so very much--he is the exacting, intimidating, by-the-book foil to Cowboy Cop Damien.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Gerald Tarrant.
 * The Dark Side: The Church disapproves of using fae because it reinforces the pattern of its answering human imagination. Yet Damien still uses it, as long as he believes it's necessary and not a selfish use. Tarrant of course has no such compunction, and they often argue about it. Also
 * Deadpan Snarker: Both Damien and Tarrant have their moments.
 * Deal With the Devil: A major theme of the trilogy. People who strike these bargains pay with their humanity, identity, and personal agency. The Hunter got his demonic attributes through a very well negotiated one of these. Damien's arrangement with Tarrant is a form of this--he pays with the erosion of his morality. The villains who do a pact with Calesta or the Unnamed always fare badly. Lots of deals for everyone.
 * The entire interaction with the Fae is actually dictated by a Deal With the Devil of sorts. One of the original human colonists, Ian Casca, realized that there was a force on Erna that was interacting with them.
 * Death Trap: Tarrant falls into one where he experiences getting burned again and again as soon as he heals himself. Fun times.
 * Death World: Erna, where dark emotions like fear can manifest into malevolent monsters. Each book features at least one particular local with Everything Trying to Kill You. The Forbidden Forest, the valley of the Terrata, the Black Lands, Shaitan...
 * Defrosting Ice King: Tarrant. Lampshaded when Damien says that it was easier to deal with him when he was nastier. Does not help the Ho Yay.
 * Determinator: The Hunter allows nothing to stand between him and success--he determines what is most likely to work and makes it work. Amazing feats are routine, and the shadow of his Moral Event Horizon loom behind them all.
 * Distressed Damsel: Ciani.
 * Doing in The Wizard: It's hinted from the first book on, but the third book outright states that.
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Nameless.
 * Emotion Eater: The Hunter
 * The Empath: Jenseny. Taken a step further--she can even hear sunlight.
 * Enemy Mine: The whole concept of Damien and Tarrant agreeing to work together.
 * Evil Counterpart: the Undying Prince is the evil-er counterpart to the already evil Tarrant.
 * Similarly, the Patriarch is the Good Counterpart to the fallen Prophet.
 * Evil Is Deathly Cold: Tarrant's trademark.
 * Evil Is Stylish: Gerald Tarrant. He makes it a point to always be perfectly groomed. When appears before him, he insists that it should make itself look presentable to him.
 * Evil Overlord: The Undying Prince.
 * Evil Sorcerer: Tarrant, Amoril, the Undying Prince, the Master of Lema. Heck, in Church doctrine all sorcerers are like this.
 * Evil Versus Evil: Tarrant versus any of the other bad guys.
 * It's also a documented philosophy of the church: Set evil against evil. With a little luck, they'll destroy each other.
 * Fake Defector:
 * Fate Worse Than Death:
 * Faux Death:
 * Subverted somewhat in that
 * The Fettered: Damien and Tarrant are both bound to strict codes of conduct. Damien has his priestly vows. Tarrant has terms of his demonic pact (and the personal code that lets him maintain his human psyche on top of that). Damien and Tarrant's interactions with each other degrade their ability to hold to their codes.
 * First-Name Basis: Supposing you have the standard number of fingers, you have enough to count the total number of times Damien and Tarrant address each other by their first names. Tarrant calls Damien by his first name twice in the course of the trilogy. Don't expect any in the first book.
 * Functional Magic: Sorcery is used in internally consistent ways, described with fairly accessible Magi Babble. Sorcerers use Rule Magic; Adepts and the Erna-native Rakh have an Inherent Gift.
 * Garden of Evil: The Forest, as designed by the Hunter.
 * Gender Neutral Writing: Used to disguise  true gender.
 * Genocide Backfire: Tarrant runs a grizzly sort of heredity experiment . He periodically goes back and murders the whole clan, leaving one survivor--the one who looks most like him. Of course, this bites him in the ass when the current sole survivor.
 * The Good, The Bad, And The Evil: Damien is the good, Tarrant is the bad, Calesta and his partners/pawns are the evil, and the Nameless is the off-the-chart evil.
 * Grand Theft Me: The source of  immortality, though.
 * Half-Human Hybrid:
 * Heel Face Turn: Sort of.
 * In fact, possibly more like Heel Face Door Slam.
 * Heroic BSOD: Ciani, after her memories and Adept talents are taken from her near the start of the trilogy.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Sort of.
 * He Who Fights Monsters: What Damien is afraid to become.
 * Honor Before Reason: Stated to be the last piece of Tarrant's human identity. Although he'd definitely prefer if reason won out.
 * Hot Scientist: Ciani as a Loremaster.
 * Hot Witch: A Spear Counterpart. Sexy, elegant, mysterious, uses magic to maintain his appearance...you guessed it, it's Tarrant. See also Vampires Are Sex Gods below.
 * The Hunter: Seems so straightforward, but Damien, staunch slayer of evil, is the one who best fits this trope. The Hunter goes more for The Wild Hunt.
 * Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The Hunter's favorite game.
 * Identical Grandson: Andrys looking so much like his grand-grand-grand-and some-father is quite handy to the plot.
 * I Did What I Had to Do: Tarrant's justification for some of the things he does, if he bothers giving any.
 * I Gave My Word: Quite a big deal for Gerald Tarrant.
 * The Igor: Gerald Tarrant's albino servant, Amoril.
 * I Have Many Names: Tarrant has a lot of titles, almost all of them spoilers. ...to name the major ones.
 * Incurable Cough of Death: However, the show of weakness is so uncharacteristic it shocks everyone into silence. Also significant:
 * Intergenerational Friendship: Ciani and Senzei, although it doesn't look like it since Ciani looks like she's in her thirties. They first met when Senzei was just a child.
 * Jacob Marley Apparel: The shadows of the dead in Crown of Shadows are gruesome examples of the "stuck in the moment of death" type. The Gorn is justified in that they're moments of violent death given form by the fae rather than "lost souls".
 * Kill and Replace:
 * Killed Off for Real:
 * Knight in Shining Armor: Damien Vryce.
 * Andrys gets literal shining armor, but any delusions of shining knighthood are crushed quickly.
 * Lost Colony: Played with somewhat. The setting is low-tech, yes, but the people of Erna all know they're descended from Earth colonists. They know that their ancestors had advanced technology too, but absolutely none of it remains.
 * Mad Scientist: Tarrant. For instance, his accomplishments in genetics/heredity are impressive, yet horrifying.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Calesta, multiple times.
 * Master of Illusion : Calesta and all Iezu.
 * Mercy Kill: Performed by Tarrant on a comatose demon victim early in Black Sun Rising.
 * Mind Probe / Mind Rape: Your mind is not safe, especially if the Master of Lema and the Dark Ones are involved.
 * Ciani's Mind Rape early on kicks off the plot.
 * Villainous characters appreciate how violating it is to rifle through the minds of captives for information.
 * Tarrant comes close to this at times when he compels traumatized people to relate the horrible things they've been through in order to learn what the enemy is up to.
 * Monster Misogyny: Justified Trope: The Hunter targets beautiful, young women because it's apparently an effective way to terrorize a population. Of course, aesthete that he is, he just likes it better this way.
 * Mordor: The Waste in When True Night Falls, designed by the Undying Prince to ward off opponents.
 * Non-Action Guy: Senzei.
 * Obstructive Code of Conduct: The rules that Iezu must obey. The terms of his compact that Tarrant cannot breach. The rules of the Church Damien tries to uphold.
 * Older Than They Look: Ciani, thanks to Wizards Live Longer. Other adepts too, like Tarrant and the Master. Although the Master shows more signs of aging.
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Played straight, but there are implications of inversion too. The Hunter is the main subject of this trope, and he is an Emotion Eater, preferring to feed on fear and other negative emotions rather than blood (though he can make do with blood if necessary). Ordinary vampires are out there as well--fae constructs that the reader may assume conform to the popular conception of vampires. The Hunter claims he started out as one of these, but he's since surpassed "mere" vampirism.
 * It's actually implied in spots that he actually started out as a cannibal; vampirism was a stepping stone to what he is now.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: Hesseth and the Rakh. The males of the species are especially described this way. Hesseth still qualifies, despite claiming a greater degree of sensibility and mocking the male Rakh.
 * Psychic Link: Between Gerald Tarrant and Damien Vryce.
 * Pure Energy: The coldfire that Tarrant stocks in his sword is dark fae in solid form.
 * Rapid Aging:
 * The Renaissance: Humans had an equivalent era on Erna called the Revival.
 * Retired Monster: Or semi-retired. The Hunter has a sort of truce with the human settlements of the eastlands. If the humans endure his themed serial killing, he won't slaughter every last one of them. He's 100% okay with resting on his laurels... of course, anyone who makes the slightest move against him winds up messily and conspiciously dead.
 * Scarily Competent Tracker: The earth fae currents pick up signatures of the creatures who pass through them, and the Hunter, unsurprisingly, is uncannily good at interpreting them and using them to locate people.
 * Self-Inflicted Hell: What Tarrant fears most
 * Shape Shifter: The Iezu
 * Tall, Dark and Snarky: Gerald Tarrant, much to Damien's annoyance.
 * They Look Like Us Now: The rakh, who started to evolve when the humans came to Erna.
 * To Hell and Back: Literally.
 * Vampires Are Sex Gods: Subverted. Tarrant's incredibly attractive, but his vampirism renders him functionally asexual.
 * Villain Protagonist: Tarrant starts out as this, with Character Development subsequently moving him through Sociopathic Hero and into Anti-Hero territory.
 * Waif Prophet: Jenseny.
 * Weakened By the Light: Tarrant and other creatures of the dark fae.
 * We Can Rule Together: The Undying Prince's offer to Tarrant.
 * Wicked Cultured: Gerald Tarrant.
 * Wizards Live Longer: It's not that difficult for sorcerers to undo the effects of aging. Ciani is seventy, but looks like she's in her thirties. Really determined sorcerers (the Hunter or the Undying Prince for instance) can effect immortality.
 * Would Hurt a Child:  And of course, Tarrant would.
 * Wouldn't Hurt a Child: ...but thankfully Damien won't.
 * You All Meet in An Inn: Doesn't fully play the trope, but Senzei, Ciani, and Damien do first meet Gerald Tarrant in a tavern. Only this time they're the ones in the dark, shadowy corner, watching him.
 * Your Worst Nightmare: Subverted.
 * You All Meet in An Inn: Doesn't fully play the trope, but Senzei, Ciani, and Damien do first meet Gerald Tarrant in a tavern. Only this time they're the ones in the dark, shadowy corner, watching him.
 * Your Worst Nightmare: Subverted.