Synopsis: It starts with screams in the dark in true Shan style as the priestess Bec enters the world to battle the hoards of Demonata threatening to break through into our world and destroy everything.

Review: The fourth title in Darren Shan’s Demonata series. Another romp with the Demonata featuring a few familiar faces, interesting facts revealed and a very Shan ending.

Bec is a priestess born in Celtic Ireland (although it never confirms this in the text - I guessed Scotland). For a few years now wild and crude demons have been attacking, forcing humans to build walls around their villages and spend sleepless nights watching for danger. But is it their imagination or are the attacks getting worse? More co-ordinated and intelligent?

A druid arrives on a quest to end the threat of the demons forever but he needs help. An unlikely bunch set out to find a metaphysical tunnel that allows the demons in, and it’s getting bigger. To save the world they must close the tunnel and quickly before the really big, bad demons can get through. But at what cost?

Another typically Shan-ish title in this developing saga with gore and death and unpredictable twists. This is the first book written by Shan (to my knowledge) in the voice of a girl and I was mightily impressed with the skill of it. Never did I think he put a word or thought wrong in her female head. I have to say that this book was definitely the most poetic of those I’ve read, with some descriptions worthy of Keats! Whether this was the off-shoot of trying to sound like a girl or the development of his writing, I can’t say. Also after the initial blood-fests of book one and two, books three and four are relatively tame I feel. And, similar to book two, I did get a bit bored with the wandering around bits, where we marched through countryside not getting very far, very fast (at least in book two we changed scenery). Sadly, being a girl who likes her horror, by the end I was starting to feel a bit unsatisfied but the final pages were a welcome return to the terrifying drama I love Shan for.

Worth the read but I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble sleeping afterward. Recommended for 11+ with a taste for the darker things in life.

2006-11-21