By the Sword is the 12th novel in F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series. Wilson has stated that he's writing only two more books in the series, so this is the ante-penultimate book. You can almost sense the pace quickening. And yet, like a snowball rolling downhill, the RJ story absorbs other Wilsonian tales along the way, including intersecting events and characters from Black Wind. What started as two separate timelines in The Tomb and The Keep, have since merged into a larger epic cycle that originally went under the aegis of the Adversary Cycle, but since has moved across a multitude of novels to become the Secret History of the World. Readers familiar with the story know that it all ends with the already published novel, Nightworld, although this book has been heavily revised since its initial release. If you have held back from reading the updated version, like myself, the end of the world as we know it still looms a few books away. In the meantime, Jack's enemies have grown in strength and number.

The novel opens with Jack still trying to recover from the events in Bloodline, in which he lost his unborn daughter when the forces that oppose the Adversary continued to fashion Jack into a spear against their enemy. As a spear can have no branches, Jack has lost in painful succession his sister, father, brother, and then the daughter that the love if his life Gia was carrying. And yet Jack continues to find a reason for living, as Gia and her daughter Vicky remain alive in a bargain that Jack fashioned with the forces who recruit him. Seeking an outlet for his rage, Jack trolls the mugger locales of New York City, extracting cash from erstwhile muggers, which he then will donate to local Little Leaguers.

Here Jack encounters an old man, who goes by the name of Glenn Veilleur, but is in fact Glaeken, the eternal warrior who first encountered the Adversary's Rasalom back in the short story, “Demonsong” (1979). Glaeken is testing Jack, seeking out the prime candidate to replace him in the war against Rasalom. Although Glaeken steps out of the watchful shadows, he reveals little to Jack, mainly confirming a few theories, but promising more information soon.

On the surface these two men pose little threat to the various elements of their enemy. They are few against many, yet the many groups they oppose have their own agendas. These include the plans of Hank Thompson, who leads a cult-like group calling themselves Kickers. Hank bears a personal vendetta against Jack from the events in Bloodline. He lives with his followers in the Septimus Lodge, and he strives to carry out the plans of his father, who once served Rasalom, yet thought he could replace the powerful entity. When he dreams of a strangely marked Japanese sword, Hank sets his Kickers in motion to find the sword, with just as much energy as trying to find the girl he and his brother impregnated, and who now finds herself the ward of Rasalom himself. What, one wonders, is the destiny of her unborn child?

Others also seek the sword, from the powerful Kaze Group, in all appearance a Yakuza-connected business group from Japan, but with far deeper reaches. Kaze Group has appeared in other Wilson novels, and as news of the special sword's reappearance filters back to them, they send agents to America to retrieve the sword. Curiously, they send only a handful of men, either thinking the task too easy, or as an act of hubris. Jack also is hired to locate the sword, though such a task is far from his speciality. And strangest of all are the malformed monks, a group whose individuals slice off limbs in an effort to reach nirvana, and who seek vengeance for events that took place in Black Wind during WWII.

The action moves swiftly. The series nears completion, with only a couple of new books remaining. Many future events remain open, and with new actors that appear here to stay, I'm starting to wonder how Wilson will wrap up all the events and when Jack will actually gain the powers for which the members of the so-called good guys have been grooming him. By the Sword managed to restore some of my faith in the storyline after the previous book had caused some emotional anguish, yet the odds seem stacked against Jack and the rest of the human race. I am fairly glad that I remember few details from Nightworld, and since the book has been heavily revised I plan to wait until after the last new book before even trying to buy Nightworld to see how the story ends.

There are few of the trademark Repairman Jack fixes in this novel, yet time and time again he proves he's one resourceful person, not to mention somewhat lucky in fights and engagements. We even get more of Glaeken's backstory, a little bit of Highlander-like allusions, and a sword vs. gun scene that I had to re-read a couple of times from the impressive way Wilson dealt with such an issue, especially when the sword contains strange time and space-bending abilities. The Repairman Jack series may well go down as one of the most memorable fiction series, blending various elements of thriller, horror, mystery, and the firm conviction and individualism of its protagonist. Enjoy it while it lasts.