Puerta Oscura
Puerta Oscura ( Spanish : La Puerta Oscura , "The Dark Gate") is a book trilogy by the Spanish author David Lozano Garbala . It combines urban fantasy , horror stories and detective novels . The books were published from 2008 to 2009 by Grupo SM in Spain, and from 2010 to 2012 in German translation by Loewe Verlag .
Overview
- Puerta Oscura - Journey of the Dead . Loewe, Bindlach 2010, ISBN 978-3-7855-6863-7 (Spanish: La Puerta Oscura - El Viajero . Translated by Susanna Mende).
- Puerta Oscura - Laughter for the Dead . Loewe, Bindlach 2011, ISBN 978-3-7855-6864-4 (Spanish: La Puerta Oscura - El Mal . Translated by Kirstin Bleiel and Catalina Rojas Hauser).
- Puerta Oscura - Song of the Dead . Loewe, Bindlach 2012, ISBN 978-3-7855-6866-8 (Spanish: La Puerta Oscura - Réquiem . Translated by Kirstin Bleiel and Catalina Rojas Hauser).
prehistory
When the Venetian nobleman Fabrizio della Bellanza lost his wife Adriana Balici to her death 900 years ago , he was desperate. Adriana asked in the realm of the dead for a possibility for her husband to get to her, which was finally granted. A precious chest from the nobleman, a gift from the doge , was chosen as a link between the world of the dead and the world of the living ; it was then called the Dark Gate .
The gate opens every 100 years at midnight on November 1st ( All Saints' Day ) and lets a mortal into the realm of the dead. But to compensate for this, a dead being can enter the world of the living (a well-known case in the past was Jack the Ripper ). The person who arrives in the realm of the dead is called a wanderer and is allowed to use the gate more often after the first hike; however, a stay in the realm of the dead may not last longer than seven days. By 2008, the events of Volume 1, five people had crossed the threshold to the realm of the dead.
As a "tool of good" there is the Guardian Order . All members of the order (only one in each generation) are trained to protect the Dark Gate. At the time of the book series, coroner Marcel Laville is the guardian of the gate.
Volume 1: Journey to the Dead
General
The book was published in 2008 in Spain as El Viajero ( "The Wanderer") with an initial print run of 65,000 copies. It was translated into German by Susanna Mende and was published by Loewe Verlag in 2010 .
The German edition has 608 pages, divided into 55 chapters. The dedication reads:
"For my brothers: Carlos, Jorge and Fernando, hikers in the adventure of life"
As an introduction you can find a quote from Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Castle . A book passage from the middle section is inserted before the first chapter.
action
Fifteen-year-old boys Pascal Rivas and Dominique Herault visit the fortune teller Daphne in Paris . Pascal wants to know if the girl Michelle Tauzin wants to enter into a relationship with him, but Daphne can only see an undefined phantom threat. On Halloween Pascal, Dominique and Michelle go to a Gothic party in Jules Marceaux's house. In search of a disguise, Pascal climbs into an old chest; when he wants to go out again, he finds himself in an area completely unknown to him.
Pascal takes a closer look and finally comes across a replica of the Montparnasse cemetery . There he meets the dead Capitaine Armand Runné, who explains to him that he is in the "intermediate realm" where the dead are waiting to move on. Pascal meets other cemetery residents and learns the story of the Dark Gate. He then comes back unscathed to the Paris of the living.
In the Marie-Curie-Gymnasium, the teacher Henri Delaveau is murdered and the police are puzzled as the victim's entire blood was sucked off. While Commissioner Marguerite Betancourt is looking for an ordinary solution, forensic doctor Marcel Laville suspects a supernatural threat: the only fingerprint is from the murderer and rapist Luc Gautier, who died fifty years ago.
Pascal lets Dominique in on the secret of the Dark Gate after the fortune teller Daphne, who had apparitions , warned him about the evil. It turns out that when Pascal entered the intermediate realm, he freed a vampire who is now up to mischief in Paris. Jules is also inaugurated when Daphne finds out that the vampire has kidnapped Michelle and wants to send her to hell through a dark ritual : This is intended to lure the wanderer into the realm of the dead, where he would be forever if the vampire would destroy the dark gate would be trapped.
Police come across the bodies of teenagers Melanie and Raoul, who disappeared after Jules' party and died in the same way as Delaveau. Commissioner Betancourt and Marcel Laville then look for traces in the Gautier's crypt without permission: Luc Gautier's grave is empty and Marguerite is attacked by someone Marcel identifies as the teacher Delaveau. Marguerite later finds out that a certain Albert Varney has taken Delaveau's position and now suspects that Delaveau is the murderer. Daphne finds out that the real Varney must have been put out of the way by the vampire; Gautier slipped into the role of the teacher himself. The fortune teller then tries to find the vampire's grave in order to render him harmless.
Pascal sets out to free Michelle. He is accompanied by the wandering soul Beatrice and supported by other inhabitants of the intermediate realm. The two must conquer the Kronos Rock on their way to the realm of evil by making time travel into two dark periods of history, the time of the plague and the Holy Inquisition . They overcome the dangers of evil and reach Michelle, who is to be taken to hell by skeletons with another prisoner, the little boy Marc . The liberation succeeds and the four start their way back.
Luc Gautier has identified the location of the dark gate. He manages to get into the house with a trick. Daphne, Jules and Dominique defend themselves as best they can, but still threaten to lose. Marguerite and Marcel are called upon to act because of two murders in Jules' neighborhood. The coroner goes alone to Jules, where he reveals himself to be the secret "guardian of the gate" and takes up the fight against the vampire. Gautier almost defeats Marcel too, but Marguerite arrives at the scene at the last second and shoots the vampire, who appears in his form as Albert Varney, with her pistol, into which she has put silver bullets despite all reservations about Marcel's theories. The police consider the case closed and Varney the culprit. The Dark Gate is out of danger; Marcel, the guard, has kept his identity a secret from the commissioner and is recovering from the fight, as is Dominique and Daphne. Only Jules has retained a wound from the fight with Gautier.
Pascal, Michelle, Beatrice and Marc get back safely to the intermediate realm. Marc suddenly disappears there and Beatrice finds out that the supposed little boy was actually a damned man whom they have now freed and who is thinking of evil ...
Volume 2: Laughter for the Dead
General
The book was published in Spain in 2009 as El Mal ("The Evil"). It was translated into German by Kristin Bleiel and Catalina Rojas Hauser and was published by Loewe Verlag in 2011 .
The German edition has 592 pages, divided into 58 chapters. The dedication reads:
"For my beloved niece Ana Lozano, with the wish that, while she waits for the eerie encounter with the Dark Gate, to let herself be captured by the magic hidden in these book pages."
As an introduction there are quotations from Luis Durán's El Martín Pescador and from José Emilio Pacheco's Novela de terror . An introduction written in the present tense is inserted before the first chapter.
action
The Dark Gate is brought to the secret headquarters of the Guardian Order in the Palais Le Marais by the guard Marcel Laville . But in February Pascal is suddenly attacked in his room by an unknown being and barely escapes his life. After further incidents, the Dark Gate community becomes active again. It now consists of Daphne, Marcel, Pascal, Michelle, Dominique, Jules, Mathieu (classmate of Pascal and Dominique) and Edouard (apprentice of Daphne).
The demon Marc kills two heads of the European Triangle in quick succession , the London fortune teller Agatha La Serena and the Madrid fortune teller Fernando Guillén. Then he gets in touch with the Parisian magician André Verger, whom he makes his servant. Verger then puts his people on the Dark Gate and the Wanderer.
On behalf of the dead, Pascal helps to arrest the murderer Goubert and to expose the fraudster Daniel Lebowitz, who has blamed his father for murder and who commits suicide after confronting the hiker. During a short trip to the realm of the dead, he looks for traces of Marc and meets Beatrice again.
Marc does not manage to kill the Italian seer Francesco Girardelli, as Daphne warned him. But Verger seeks Girardelli personally and cuts his throat. When one of Verger's men identifies the location of the Dark Gate, Marcel gets him out of the way. Another is killed by Pascal.
The cleaning lady Sophie Renard dies in the Marie-Curie-Gymnasium and Commissioner Marguerite Betancourt suspects a murder because Pascal Rivas' locker was apparently searched. Marcel moves the inspector to guard Pascal, whereupon she actually arrives at one of Verger's men, but who commits suicide. Together with Marcel, she gets into a shootout with two other men who are killed.
Pascal feels torn between Michelle and Beatrice. To his astonishment, Beatrice visits him in the world of the living; she explains to him that she has come back to life through a special ritual. The wanderer finds himself unable to make a decision between the girls.
Two strange murders take place in Paris in quick succession: Guillaume Cardinet, a homeless man , and Bertrand Lagarde, a squatter . Their throats have been cut, but blood is missing. Meanwhile, Jules discovers that Luc Gautier managed to injure his neck during their fight. Without his being able to do anything about it, he slowly turns into a vampire . When he learns of the murders, he is convinced that he is the culprit, since he cannot remember the nights and vomits blood in the morning.
On his next journey into the hereafter, Pascal goes into the realm of the house ghosts, where Marc is staying. He meets the young suicide Ralph Buxter, who becomes his companion. However, Pascal is attacked by a house ghost who is loyal to Marc and quickly returns.
While researching the true nature of the demon, Dominique finds out that it is the three-time child rapist and murderer Marc Vicente. When he visits the demon's grave in the Montparnasse cemetery , he is surprised by Verger and run over by his car; his life is in danger.
Jules wants to commit suicide to prevent further harm. He meets Beatrice, who says that she watched him kill. Michelle and Mathieu join in and find out that Beatrice actually committed the murders: In order to appear alive, she had to ingest human blood; she then tried to pin her deeds on Jules.
In the meantime, André Verger has gained access to the Palais Le Marais, taking Marguerite Betancourt hostage . The witcher fights against Daphne and the guard Marcel. When Marguerite tries to stop him, he breaks a pane of glass over her, killing her. Verger threatens to win, but then Beatrice appears and rushes out the window with him.
Meanwhile, Pascal takes his third trip to defeat Marc once and for all. Daphne has discovered that the demon needs a wanderer's beating heart to return to the world of the living. Accompanied by Ralph again, Pascal goes to the playground where Marc had kidnapped his last victim. There he actually meets the demon; Marcel and Edouard support Pascal from their world. Ralph draws the attention of the suicide guards to himself and leads them to Marc, whom they catch at the last moment.
After completing the mission, the community tries to find a solution to Jules' vampire problem. It turns out that a blood transfusion could save him, with only his great-grandmother Lena Lambert being eligible as a donor, who was a wanderer but never returned. Pascal decides to look for her. Meanwhile, the hospital reports Dominique's death from cardiac arrest .
Volume 3: Song of the Dead
General
The book was published in Spain in 2009 as Réquiem (" Requiem "). It was translated into German by Kristin Bleiel and Catalina Rojas Hauser and was published by Loewe-Verlag in 2012 .
The German edition has 560 pages, divided into 46 chapters. The dedication reads:
"For Alberto Baeyens, another dreamer who has accompanied me through this whole process - which now reaches its climax with the song of the dead ... and goes far beyond that."
As an introduction there is a quote from Edgar Allan Poe's Spirits of the Dead . A book passage from the middle section is inserted before the first chapter.
action
After the funeral of their friend Dominique, the initiates of the Dark Gate discover that Jules, who has been infected with the vampire virus, has fled. He has given up hope of salvation and does not want to endanger his friends. Pascal then immediately sets off on another journey into the realm of the dead to find Jules' great-grandmother Lena Lambert. In the meantime, Marcel, Daphne, Michelle, Mathieu and Edouard are searching hard for Jules.
Pascal meets Dominique in the realm of the dead, who wants to accompany his friend on the journey. The two have to leave the intermediate realm and look in the Kronos rock for the hiker Lena, who is trapped there in the changing epochs of time. In the world of the living, Jules slowly loses control of himself and becomes a threat with his thirst for blood. His friends track him down, but he escapes them again. The search in different cemeteries does not bring any result.
The three young vampire hunters Justin, Suzanne and Bernard track down Jules. They see it as their job to save Paris from the vampire. Daphne finds Jules' hiding place. She wants to slow down his transformation through a magical incantation, but in the mental fight against the vampire she succumbs and dies of exhaustion. Marcel and Michelle go in search of the fortune teller when she is missing from Edouard, but meet the vampire hunters who they recognize as a threat.
After an arduous journey, Pascal and Dominique reached the Kronos rock and landed first in ancient Rome , among gladiators . The two boys have to compete in the arena as secutors against a tiger, which Pascal can defeat with the wanderer's sword. After defeating two Retiarians , he discovers Lena Lambert among the spectators. Before the boys reach her, she flees from an evil creature into the next epoch and the two follow her. You land in New York City at the time of the stock market crash .
The vampire hunters pursue Marcel and Michelle in the hope of tracking down the vampire. Bernard threatens Michelle to get information, but she escapes him. While pursuing Marcel's car, which, with the help of Edouard, is hoping to find Daphne, Justin and Suzanne come across Jules. This attacks Justin without biting him. Suzanne defends herself, whereupon Jules takes flight again. Marcel and his companions drive away the vampire hunters and shortly afterwards find the dead Daphne.
Pascal and Dominique are on the trail of Lena, who is known in New York as Eleanor Ramsfield, but through a carelessness they suddenly end up in a different time. As they soon discover, it is Hiroshima on the day the atom bomb was dropped . At the last moment they manage to leave time and return to New York in 1929 .
In order to finally capture Jules, Marcel drives with Michelle in a specially equipped car that night to the Père Lachaise cemetery , where the grave of Jules' "vampire father" Luc Gautier is located. The vampire hunters have also lurked there. In fact, Jules appears and Marcel is able to lure him into the car and lock him up there. The vampire hunters intervene and want to kill the vampire. But when Suzanne turns against Justin, she is shot by him; Bernard falls under the spell of the vampire and is eliminated by him. Marcel and Michelle can finally put Justin to flight too.
Pascal and Dominique meet Lena Lambert alias Eleanor Ramsfield and tell her about the fate of their descendant. She leaves Pascal a few drops of her blood, which is Jules' only salvation, and accompanies the boys out of the Kronos rock, because she has decided that she finally wants to die. The three set off, but get lost and finally come across a “lighthouse” that is inhabited by the tower guard Ronald. This shows them the way; Lena remains in the tower, however, because her aging process has already progressed too far.
Justin meets Bernard, who has recovered, and shoots him as he tries to escape. Then he chases Marcel's car and causes a collision. He dies in the following exchange of fire. Marcel and Michelle bring Jules safely to the Palais Le Marais . When Pascal returns, they inject Lena's blood into the vampire, but it is already too late; Jules dies, only his soul can be saved. Since Dominique and Daphne asked him to do so in the realm of the dead, Pascal finally decides not to use the dark gate anymore, whereupon it is sealed.
characters
Protagonists
Realm of the living
- Pascal Rivas : He is the fifteen-year-old protagonist in the book series. He was born in Spain ; his parents moved with him to Paris when he was five years old. He has gray eyes and brown hair. Pascal is in love with the older Michelle Tauzin.
- Michelle Tauzin : She is a Gothic fanatic, always wears black clothes and has long, straight blonde hair. She lives in a boarding school because she comes from a village outside Paris. She is sixteen years old.
- Dominique Herault : Due to a serious illness, he has not been able to walk since he was three, which is why he is in a wheelchair . He is well versed in computer science . He is fifteen years old.
- Jules Marceaux : He is sixteen years old, goes to the same class as Michelle and is a fan of Gothic like her. His great-grandmother Lena Lambert was a wanderer, which is why the Dark Gate is owned by the Marceaux family.
- Mathieu : He is fifteen years old, goes to the same class as Pascal and Dominique and is gay . He's very interested in history .
- Daphne : She is a Paris fortune teller and part of the Living Seer Community .
- Edouard : He is the apprentice of the fortune teller Daphne and has the special ability to sense and see ghosts . He is gay.
- Marcel Laville : He's coroner and friends with Commissioner Betancourt. He is the director of the Institute Anatomique Forense and secretly the Guardian of the Dark Gate.
- Marguerite Betancourt : She is a commissioner with the Paris Criminal Police and is friends with the coroner Marcel Laville. She is overweight , relatively unpopular with colleagues and superiors, and does not believe in supernatural appearances.
- Agatha La Serena : She is a fortune teller and one of the heads of the European Triangle . She lives in London and is killed there by Marc Vicent.
- Dionisio Guillén : He is a fortune teller and one of the heads of the European triangle . He lives in Madrid and is killed there by Marc Vicent.
- Francesco Girardelli : He is a fortune teller and one of the heads of the European Triangle . He lives in Rome and is killed there by Marc Vicent.
- Henri Delaveau : He is a teacher at the Marie-Curie-Gymnasium and the second victim of Luc Gautier after his return to the world of the living. He also becomes a vampire and serves Gautier, but because he cannot find the Dark Gate, his master punishes him.
- Melanie and Raoul : The two students from Marie-Curie-Gymnasium were guests at Jules Marceaux's Halloween party and fell victim to Luc Gautier on their way home.
- Sophie Renard : She is a cleaning lady at the Marie-Curie-Gymnasium and is killed there by a contract killer André Vergers.
Empire of the death
- Beatrice : She died at the age of seventeen on returning from a stay abroad when her plane went up in flames upon landing. Since she could not be buried in any grave, she stays as a wandering soul in the intermediate realm.
- Lena Lambert : She was the wanderer who used the Dark Gate in 1908. She got lost and entered the Kronos rock, where she was trapped. Therefore, she traveled through the ages and adapted there to her surroundings.
- Constantin De Polignac : The Count lives in a cathedral in the intermediate realm and gives Pascal important information.
- Capitaine Armand Runné : he was born in 1857 and died in the war in 1899 ; he is in the intermediate realm. He is the first Pascal met there.
- Charles Lafayette : He died around the age of 24 and is one of the oldest inmates of Montparnasse Cemetery in the Intermediate Realm.
- Alexander : He is a wandering soul and guides the wanderer for a short time.
- Ronald : While the old man waits for the call of the good, he guards one of the lighthouses that are supposed to help those lost in the realm of evil.
Antagonists
- Luc Gautier : He was a rapist and murderer and died in prison. On Pascal's first journey into the realm of the dead, he returns as a vampire to the world of the living and slips into the role of the teacher Alfred Varney.
- Marc Vicent : He died in prison at the age of 52. He had kidnapped, raped and murdered three children . When he is about to be taken to Hell, he takes the form of a victim to awaken the compassion of Michelle. He is rendered harmless by the guards of the suicides.
- André Verger : He was once a member of the Association of Living Seers , but was excluded because of his unscrupulousness. He is a sorcerer and necromancer, but also the chairman of a large real estate holding company. He enters the service of Marc Vicent and is eventually killed by Beatrice.
- Pierre Cotin : He's a criminal who works for André Verger, but Marcel Laville gets him out of the way.
- Daniel Lebowitz (in the first volume: Lebobitz ): After the suicide of his mother Melissa, he hid her suicide note, which led to his father being accused of murder and innocent in prison. Melissa transfers the matter as Ghost Pascal, who finds the suicide note, causing Daniel to commit suicide.
- The vampire hunters : The three young people have specialized in supernatural events and want to protect Paris from threats from vampires. Their leader is Justin, the others are his girlfriend Suzanne and the former bodyguard Bernard. Bernard is a little difficult to understand. Suzanne does not share Justin's fanaticism and so ends up turning against him, whereupon he shoots her. He also kills Bernard; Justin eventually dies from a bullet from Michelle.
reception
The book series was very successful in Spain (nearly 80,000 copies sold) and Latin America. So far, translations into German and Italian are available.
Reviews
“With the start of the fantasy series 'Puerta Oscura', David Lozano Garbala has already caused a sensation in Spain. The lawyer from Zaragoza hits the nerve of a broad readership with his mixture of urban fantasy, horror story and detective novel. Even if it is not characterized by an eloquent writing style, 'Puerta Oscura' is at least characterized by a fast-paced narrative structure. This is ensured by many surprising scene changes between the worlds of the living and shadow beings, as well as between the eras. Anyone who has not felt like having vampire blends with milk beards since Twilight can look forward to it: As it should be, Pascal's opponent is a yellow-eyed monster who does not throw a mirror image, bed down in the cemetery during the day and equally thirst for human blood, as it detests holy water. - Buenas noches vampiro! "
“[The book] has many merits, but just as many shortcomings. In addition to an original and creative, but very dark story with many great characters, the translation often fails and hinders the flow of the narrative. Also, some sequences are clearly too bloodthirsty and disgusting for a youth book. "
“The book is surprising. There are already so many vampire novels. But this is different. Even if good and bad also fight against each other here. [...] Of course, this book also lives from clichés that are expected. But they are well implemented. Furthermore, the characters are described very authentically. And some are good for a surprise here. The role of an actor is not always obvious at first glance. In addition, the story takes place in different worlds, even in several epochs. It is the brisk change of scene [sic!] That ensures a good pace. [...] So the author has come up with a lot so that there is no boredom over the 600 pages. And yet he managed to leave the reader room for their own imagination. "
filming
On September 28, 2010 it was announced that the producer Andrés Vicente Gomez of Lolafilms, together with the French production company Cinema Art, had acquired the film rights for all three volumes of the series. Filming for the first part is scheduled to start in 2012, but the director or scriptwriter is not yet known. The film is to be shot in English. A budget of 12 million euros is planned and the author has agreed to work on the script.
"A mí lo que me ha convencido es que el proyecto es hacer tres películas, no condensar la trilogía en una. De no ser así, no hubiera aceptado. A todos los escritores nos hace mucha ilusión ver nuestras historias en imágenes, pero también da mucho miedo todo lo que se va a tener que quedar fuera. "
“What convinced me was that the project envisages making three films and not compressing the trilogy into one. Otherwise I wouldn't have accepted. We writers are all excited to see our stories in pictures, but we are also afraid of leaving out parts. "
Trivia
In 2011, the author wrote a blog post on homosexual and impaired characters in children's and youth literature. Among other things, he accuses Joanne K. Rowling of failing to do justice to the differences between people in their selection of the main characters in the Harry Potter books . Since Lozano Garbala found it necessary to depict reality, the series features a wheelchair user and two homosexuals among the main characters. However, the publisher had no reservations about it and even encouraged the author to go into it in more detail.
References to mythology, history and literature
The book series contains some references to mythology, history and literature: In the intermediate realm, the dog Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld, while the ferryman Charon brings the dead across the Estigia lagoon . The structure of hell in circles is similar to that described by Dante Alighieri in his work The Divine Comedy ; in both cases there is absolute evil at the center of hell. The rituals associated with killing a vampire and the characteristics of the vampire are based on myths and horror literature . The ghouls also come from mythology. There is a historical reference to Jack the Ripper ; Further historical elements can be found especially during the journey through the Kronos rock : The plague epidemic (year 1536 ), the Holy Inquisition , the gladiatorial fights in ancient Rome, the stock market crash in 1929 and the atomic bombing on Hiroshima occur.
Web links
- The book series on the publisher's website (Spanish)
- Author's official website (Spanish)
- Volume 1 in the publisher's catalog (German) , Volume 2 , Volume 3
- Volume 1 on KinderundJugendmedien.de , Volume 2
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Lena Ullrich: Review . Geolino.de. Retrieved May 13, 2012.
- ↑ Marianao García: Report on La Puerta Oscura ( es ) Heraldo.es. March 9, 2008. Retrieved July 2, 2012.
- ↑ a b c El productor Andrés Vicente Gómez compra los derechos de la trilogía La Puerta Oscura para su adaptación al cine. Grupo SM, September 28, 2010, archived from the original on February 3, 2011 ; Retrieved March 1, 2016 (Spanish).
- ↑ Thomas Ays: Review . Booksection.de. Retrieved May 15, 2012.
- ↑ Heike Rau: Review . Leselupe.de. Retrieved May 15, 2012.
- ↑ David Lozano Garbala: Homosexual figures and other profiles that are little present in children's and youth literature ( es ) Davidlozano.net. Retrieved May 15, 2012.