Darkness Descending: Harry Turtledove

Book II of Darkness; World At War. As the war that engulfs continents continues, the realisation dawns that life has changed forever. Sons die - as do mothers and fathers, atrocities become commonplace, once proud aristos become the playthings of the conquerors - but the worst is yet to come. Algarve, victorious in all its efforts, becomes bogged down in the desolate winter of Unkerlant, its main enemy. Algarve's king Mezentio undertakes blood magic - genocide - in order to move faster, and once this is seen to work, its use elsewhere cannot be long in coming. Only Pekka, a theoretical sorcerer in the small island nation of Kuusamo, holds the only answer to this horror. Cover art by Bob Eggleton.