Darren Shan, best known for his Cirque Du Freak series, finished his ten-piece Epic Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and horror-ridden series The Demonata in 2010.
A friend of mine recommended the story to me, lending me her copies of the first four books. The first, Lord Loss, although possibly slow at times for me, was a delightful read overall, and I was quite curious to continue.
I wasn't let down as the story came to a close. There were many plot points that surprised me, and since it is a fantasy piece primarily (with strong Sci-Fi later on), that is a good thing. I don't like being able to figure out the plot of a story hundreds of pages in advance, and with The Demonata, I was rarely able to guess how things would go until toward the end of the tenth book.
Darren Shan has a wonderful talent for horror, guts, humor, and dialogue. The last two may seem out of place, and that's fine.
One of my biggest points of contention was in the number of books. I don't think it needed to last ten. Given that, the actual events were nearly perfect for the story. I wouldn't remove any of them, again, just the number of books. Books seven and eight could have been merged into two parts of the same book. The same could be said for 9 and 10, but then again not everyone loves to read epically long books.
I find that I want the story to continue. I finished it half an hour ago and I miss many parts of it. Darren Shan reached his goal for me: he entertained me, and taught me some life lessons (or at least reinforced).
To learn more about Darren Shan, please visit his website: http://www.darrenshan.com/demons/index.html
Till next time,
JK
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