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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Daniel R. Hersch’s The Laughter from the Dark, when Cain, the first son of the first human family, murders his brother, his bloodline is linked to a cursed laughter that spreads through the city. His descendants, later called the Ones Who Laugh, use forbidden knowledge to escape Noah’s flood by tearing open a passage into the Dark Expanse, a black realm outside ordinary creation. Centuries there change them into an army seeking return and revenge. When they invade Earth, Prince Gilgamesh of Uruk sees that human soldiers cannot stop them. To protect his people, he travels to Mount Mashu, where Balih rules a hidden vampire city beneath the ice. Gilgamesh must unite ancient enemies before the Ones Who Laugh consume every kingdom they reach and bring their dark hunger to Uruk.
Daniel R. Hersch’s The Laughter from the Dark is unique Christian speculative fiction, and through the first-person narrative of Death, readers are told a story of sacred history as witnessed memory. Hersch does an excellent job of building up the hierarchy, with the Most High, the creator who rules existence, at its apex. Hersch fleshes the characters out completely, and the most fascinating among them is Gilgamesh, the prince of Uruk, who leaves to get help from Balih, the vampire ruler beneath Mount Mashu. Hersch makes that choice personal, since Gilgamesh risks death for Uruk. Enoch, Cain’s son and priest king of the Ones Who Laugh, is terrifying, leaning hard into a generational, inherited violence. Where Hersch shines is in visual prose, breathing life—and Death—into places like the ice city inside Mount Mashu. Well written and immersive, readers who enjoy biblical history recast through supernatural war will adore this. Very highly recommended.
