Please cue up “blackmagic,” by TSOL before reading this post. OK, I mentioned this the other day, but it bears repeating: Fading Suns has black magic and demons in it. This is some Event Horizon shit right here. Demons and black magic make everything better. This is a proven fact.

The Dark Between the Stars came out in 1997 (the same year as Event Horizon…hm…) and is the sixth book or so in the line, giving you a pretty good idea how important Holistic thought it was to inject diablery into their medieval space saga.

At first blush, it looks disappointing. Most of the “black magic” is just psionics that have been outlawed by the church. Sad trombone. They’re interesting but well, not demonologists. And when you do get to them, the so-called antinomists, they are introduced more as people and organizations with a set of beliefs rather than actual powers. You’ll read their section increasingly asking yourself, “But, are there actual demons?” The answer is yes, but the way the book takes its time in telling you actually serves to build the occult mystique.

It all feels sufficiently rooted in actual historical occult beliefs, but refracted through thousands of years of weird sci-fi history. It is sexy and dangerous, basically, and reminds me a lot of how Doctor Who would approach certain devilish ideas (“The Satan Pit” and Torchwood’s “End of Days,” both in 2006). Most of the diabolical stuff is left open ended, so you can push it more Lovecraftian, or pull it more Event Horizon, or do something entirely different.

Alas, most of the demon sultans the book details are a bit prosaic and vague, though I do like the one that whispers to the crews of ships traveling through jump gates in hopes of leading them astray.