Queen of Demons

Drake, David

ISBN 10: 031286468X / ISBN 13: 9780312864682

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, New York City, NY, 1998

About this Item

First Printing. Flat-signed by author (no inscription). Black paper boards with blue foil-stamped spine. AS NEW & UNREAD. NO flaws. NO markings throughout - NO rem mark or ex-lib. DJ is AS NEW but has very subtle shelfwear. Price intact: $25.95. Photos avail upon request.

Seller Inventory # 000866

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Queen of Demons
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, New York City, NY
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031286468X
• ISBN 13: 9780312864682
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Queen of Demons follows the travels and adventures of memorable characters: Garric, his sister Sharina, their friend Cashel and Cashel's sister Ilna, and Tenoctris. Their journey takes them across the world of the Isles toward a confrontation with contending forces of evil, as the confluence of magic is reaching a millennial peak. The thousand-year-old sorcerer, The Hooded One, has been defeated after a great supernatural battle, but there remain a living king and queen in power - both bent on seizing control of the known world.
Queen of Demons reveals some of the dark powers of the evil queen of the Isles, and includes enough powerful magical conflict to satisfy even the most jaded fantasy reader.

Review

Queen of Demons is the middle volume of a mammoth heroic fantasy trilogy beginning with Lord of the Isles (1997). After dealing with a variety of menaces in book one, shepherd-boy hero Garric is on course to unite his archipelago world against the remaining forces of chaos, evil and unpleasantness, thus earning the title Lord of the Isles.

Again Garric's allies--including some interesting new helpers--are widely scattered in a tangle of linked storylines and headlong action, featuring many exhilarating fights against monsters, chimeras, phantoms, revenants, Hairy Men, Scaly Men, a cyclops, wicked wizards, and the book's two biggies: the unspeakable Beast which demands a diet of young girls, and the title's evilly beautiful, demon-spawned Queen. At regular intervals characters fall through another magic portal to find themselves in a new plane or dimension or hell world, there to discover mislaid friends, deadly peril, or more likely both.

Drake keeps his narrative bowling along with plenty of colour, occasional doses of practical politics, and no time at all for boredom. Arbitrary transitions and wild coincidences make it seem slightly tongue in cheek, a soap-operatic entertainment with an endless series of vicious villains to be zapped, outwitted or skewered with a trusty blade. At the very end, with Good seemingly triumphant, up pops another one:

The wizard stood on the back of the monster he had called to him. He raised his head, and the heavens echoed with his laughter.

More in book three ... --David Langford