 Over the years, I've mentioned a few times that my favorite book series of all time is The Demonada, something I'll bet a substantial portion of you have never heard of. I don't blame you for never hearing about it. It was a moderately successful teen series that was published between 2005 and 2009. It never took off into mainstream culture. It never got a movie adaptation like Darren Chan's more famous series, The Vampire's Assistant, nor does it have any large online following that I've found. A few people have read the series, and the consensus seems positive, but it's relatively unknown. Despite it being my favorite, I've rarely talked about it and never made a whole video about it. It might sound strange that I wouldn't talk about something I love so much, but it's hard to articulate why I love it so much. Typically, people's preferences are based on very specific things that they love or hate, which makes them difficult to relate to others. Some people absolutely adore love triangles, some people despise them, and it would be hard for either to explain to the other in exhaustive detail why they feel the way they do. Some people just enjoy enemies to lovers so much that they're willing to wade through all kinds of other problems to reach them. Some people are so fascinated by complex battle scenes, they're fine with the characters involved being planks of wood, and some people despise when women or minorities exist in their video games or blockbuster movies so much they try to convince the rest of us that it makes them objectively bad. The fact is that art is not a mathematical formula, and the more it affects you one way or the other, the harder it becomes to articulate why. So every time I've tried putting together a video on the demonata, I've eventually run into a wall. Another reason I've barely mentioned it is just that it's fun to roast something you hate. Plus, that hate gets more attention than talking about something you love. Look at the views for my top 10 most hated books versus my top 10 favorites. Night and day. But that's enough of an introduction. What is the demonata? If I had to put it simply, I'd say it's a new spin on the Harry Potter phenomenon that had swept the world when this series began. If I wanted to sound pompous, I'd call it a postmodern look at children's fantasy literature. I hate the cliche that anything good has to be described as a subversion or a deconstruction of something else. Both of those terms have been misused so much by shitty internet critics that they've lost most of their meaning. A subversion of tropes means to initially look like you're following a trope before doing something different with it. Look at Nico from Grand Theft Auto 4. At first, everything about him, from his character design to his criminality, screams that he's a standard crook like in any stereotypical mob movie or GTA game. You expect him to be harsh, tough, violent, and shallow. But as the story goes on and his backstory is revealed, he becomes a very complex, sympathetic character. A deconstruction means to examine a trope in a different way than it's usually used, often taking a trope to its logical conclusion and forcing the audience to view it from a different angle or realize this sort of thing doesn't make much sense. The Dead Redemption 2 is a massive deconstruction of the Wild West Outlaw trope. Life as an outlaw in the game is awful, full of paranoia, violence, and loneliness, and the character's inability to leave that life eventually leads to the demise of most of them. There's absolutely nothing romantic here. That said, the Demonata is a brilliant new look at the kid's fantasy genre. It isn't just darker and edgier, though those descriptors certainly fit. It takes a real hard look at what it would be like for a hidden magical world to exist alongside humanity, and how human ingenuity and love and teamwork mean jack shit when confronted with the endless expanse of a universe of horrors. At the beginning of Book 1, Lord Lost, we're introduced to our first protagonist, Grubitsch Grady, usually called Grubbs. He's a normal teenager living in modern-day Ireland, but he starts feeling strange about his family's increasingly erratic behavior. One night he comes home and finds both his parents and his sister dead at the hands of several demons. They're led by Lord Lost, a humanoid with multiple arms, constantly bleeding skin, and no legs. Instead, he has strips of flesh that hang down while he floats above the ground. The image alone is horrifying. Grubbs manages to escape, and when questioned by the police, he tells them what he saw. They throw him into a mental institution for several months, where he falls deeper and deeper into insanity and depression. Later, Grubbs' Uncle Dervish shows up and tells him he's not crazy. In fact, Dervish knows all about demons, and Lord Lost in particular. He's a very powerful type of demon known as a demon lord, or demonata. Grubbs fakes getting better mentally and gets to leave the institution so he can leave with his uncle in a small town called Carcery Vale. But Lord Lost and the other demonata are still around, waiting for a chance to come back to Earth. From here on, there will be heavy spoilers. Be aware. This sounds like the standard setup for a kid's fantasy adventure story, albeit with some more blood and gore. That's the thing about Darren Shan, though. He takes these genres and turns them on their head. He did it with vampires, zombie apocalypses, and huckleberry fin-style adventures through the wilderness. In the demonata, he does it for Harry Potter and other things like it. For starters, there's no sense of wonder or adventure as the hidden world is revealed. In Harry Potter and other things like it, the wizarding world has danger and unpleasant parts to it, yet it's set up as a great place to escape to. That's why Harry's life with the Dursleys is so cartoonish in its cruelty. Hogwarts needs to be damn near perfect by comparison so that the audience can fantasize about attending. As the demonata goes on and more details about the nature of this world are revealed, the only feelings that arise in the audience are dread, despair, depression, and pants-shitting terror. Lord Loss is immortal. He's not just ageless and very powerful. He literally cannot be killed by humans. He's a being of pure magic, and no matter what damage they do to him, he'll regenerate it soon enough. This applies to regular demons, too, to a lesser extent. Even if they're dismembered, they'll heal. The only ways to kill them permanently is to either use magic or to take them somewhere without enough magic energy to sustain them. The only ways to kill them permanently is to either use magic or to take them somewhere without enough magic energy to sustain them, which makes them disintegrate. Remember, though, that still won't work on demonata, only regular demons. They're so strong that the rules of magic barely apply to them. Then we learn that there are literally an endless number of demon realms, and each of them is infinite just like our universe. There aren't millions or billions or trillions of demons out there chomping at the bit to kill us just for fun. There are an infinite number of them, led by an infinite number of demonata. The only reason they haven't already done just that is that interdimensional travel is exceedingly difficult for them and because they have plenty of places other than Earth to terrorize. Then we learn that, among the demonata, lord loss isn't very powerful. He's an ant next to most of them. He's not even on the JV squad, and he could still wipe out all of humanity given the opportunity. Then we learn that they can open tunnels which allow entire armies of demons to come through to Earth permanently. Then we learn that the embodiment of death is on the side of the demons. Then we learn that entire planets have already been wiped out. And then, and then, and then. Every single detail about this setting makes it worse and worse for the humans until you can't imagine how the heroes might possibly make it out of this alive. Spoiler alert, many of them don't. Another great detail is that there are actual reasons why the majority of humanity doesn't know about demons and magic. It's extremely difficult for demons to cross into our dimension, even the powerful demonata, especially for any significant length of time. Our dimension is lacking in magical energy, meaning it's difficult for beings made of magic to travel here, and if they stay too long they'll start to weaken and die. They can usually only come over if a human mage opens a portal for them, or if they get summoned to another planet and spend thousands of years flying through space with the help of magical loadstones, but that doesn't come up until much later. And human mages only activate their powers if they are exposed to magic, usually by being near a portal to a demon realm when it opens, and when there's no portal open, Earth has so little magic energy that they can't do much. So it's not as though people can simply discover that they're magically gifted and decide to reveal the secret. The only mages in the world are aware of demons by default, and they know that most people wouldn't believe them if they tried to get the word out, so they don't bother. Most of them join a group called the Disciples, which contains and fights demons. A few others side with demons to try and gain power or prestige for themselves. It's such a small part of the world and story that I barely registered it when I first read, yet it still made things more believable and real so I could focus on more important stuff. Back to the story. In Carshary Vale, Dervish teaches Grubbs some basic magic, revealing that he instinctively used it to escape Lord Loss and his minions. He also teaches it to a young boy living in the village named Bill E, not Billy, Bill E, because character quirks. And Darren Chan seems to like using hyphens to make homophones out of common words. Bill E lives with his grandparents after the death of his mother and secretly believes that Dervish is his father but convinces Grubbs not to say anything about it for fear of ruining their current relationship. Animal corpses start appearing near the house and Dervish covertly disposes of them. Bill E tells Grubbs that he thinks Dervish is a werewolf since it apparently runs in their family. Turns out that Bill E is the real werewolf, though he doesn't know it, and after a full moon he turns into a wolf completely. Now that the change has taken hold, it's permanent. Dervish locks him in a cage and explains to Grubbs that this curse has been in their family for centuries. No one outside it has ever been affected. They also don't know where it comes from or what causes it. But a few hundred years earlier, one of their ancestors struck a deal with Lord Loss. If he could defeat him in a chess game, the demonata would cure his child of lycanthropy. But if he lost, Lord Loss would get to do whatever he wanted to both of them, which means taking them to his home realm and torturing them to death in the most creative ways possible because he literally feeds on despair. Grubbs' family was killed because his sister became a werewolf and his parents failed to defeat Lord Loss in the contest. Pretty stupid on Grubbs' mom's part, since she didn't know anything about demons, nor did she know how to use magic, and Dervish would have happily helped his brother out. But whatever. It also turns out that Bill E. isn't Dervish's son. He's his nephew. Grubbs' father had an affair in Carshary Vale years earlier and Dervish decided to look after him. Nowadays the contest is a little different than it was originally and requires one person to beat Lord Loss in chess while another defends them from his demonic servants. Time is of the essence, so Grubbs agrees to fight the demons while Dervish plays chess. They summon the demons and the battle begins. The fight is great, as are most of the action sequences in this series. There's a desperation to every movement Grubbs makes, making it clear this is a fight not just for his own life, but for Dervish and Bill E. as well. And every time you think he might have gained the upper hand, something goes wrong. He splits one demon's head open with an axe, then another one immediately puts it back together. He figures out how to heal himself, then he gets caught in a giant spiderweb. And that's to say nothing about the horrendous violence throughout this series, which makes it clear exactly what the consequences are for losing. The battle plays out badly. Grubbs's inexperience causes him to nearly get killed before Dervish rescues him, which is against the rules. They manage to convince Lord Loss to allow them to continue if they switch places, meaning Grubbs will have to beat him in chess. That also goes poorly until Grubbs realizes that Lord Loss is feeding on his despair and so he goes against common sense and stops planning his moves, acting very casual and bored. Lord Loss starts to lose his energy and becomes a worse player, allowing Grubbs to scrape out a victory. The demonata keeps his end of the bargain, though he's extremely salty about it and vows revenge on Grubbs. Dervish tries to convince Grubbs that he should join the disciples, but Grubbs manages to convince him that his magic is too weak to be of any use. The book ends with him turning on a lightbulb with his mind, meaning that Grubbs is not a mage, he's a magician. They're similar, magicians are just much stronger and much rarer. So that was Lord Loss, and it's a fantastic setup for the series while also being a good standalone. If you don't feel like reading more, it works as a complete story. It's clear from the start that this world is huge and we only see a portion of it, yet that's the best way to begin an epic story. We see one demonata and two of his familiars and we only learn about their interactions with one family. From even that little taste, we know that demons are not something to be toyed with and that the magic is not whimsical or fun. In fact, it causes the primary conflict. Without magic and demons, there would be no lycanthropy for the greaties to have to save their family members from. In Broadstrokes, the story is similar to what you would expect from a kid's story about discovering a magical world. What sets it apart is the world, as we just discussed, and the characters, which this is a segue into. Grubbs is not a standard protagonist. He's a coward and he fully admits that. When faced with the hordes of gaping maws and snapping teeth, he does what most of us would do. He runs the fuck away. And it's especially understandable because the book opens up with him witnessing his family being brutally murdered and the trauma literally drove him insane for months. It would be all too easy for the story to condemn him for his cowardice, yet it doesn't. It sort of condemns him for being too scared to use his immense magical powers later on, since so many people are depending on him at that stage, but that just makes him a more interesting character. He shies from conflict because he knows exactly what the consequences are for losing. What makes this work is that, when there's no other choice, Grubbs is willing to literally go into hell to save his loved ones. He knows what it's like to lose his family and will do anything to prevent that from happening again. If his cowardice was truly debilitating, he wouldn't have fought to save Bill E. Dervish sort of fills the mentor role in this story. He takes the protagonist into the magical world and shows him how to survive it. More important is the fatherly role he fills in Grubbs's life, though. Even when Grubbs makes it clear he doesn't want anything to do with the magical world, Dervish doesn't cut him out of his life. He continues raising him without fighting demons. It's common for mentor characters to fill a parental role, but rarely is it done in a way that works so well. Plus, he's kind of an asshole, but in a funny way. The end of the book features a scene with Dervish putting dried blood under Grubbs' fingernails and fur in his teeth while he sleeps so that he thinks he's turning into a werewolf, only to laugh and reveal the prank before Grubbs has the chance to kill himself. Then they both laugh, which means he doesn't have to feel bad about it. The only major character that fits squarely into any sort of archetype is Bill E, who is really just the best friend of the main character. There's nothing all that unique here. He's still a good character, though. He makes some decent jokes and isn't actively annoying. When he turns into a werewolf, you want him to be OK and you understand why the heroes would go to such trouble to help him out. The best part, though, is the villains. We only see a few demons and they all leave an impact. Besides Lord Lost, we see some of his familiars named Vayne and Artery. Artery looks like a human child at a distance. Up close, you can see that instead of hair, he has maggots eating the flesh of his scalp, balls of fire instead of eyes and mouths on his hands. Vayne has the body of a dog, the head of a crocodile and human hands instead of paws. Throughout the series, we get dozens of descriptions like these. Just about every demon we see is a disgusting abomination that breaks the laws of both physics and biology. Some are big, some are small. Some are combinations of animals. Some are grotesque amalgamations of limbs and organs with no defined shape. And remember, these things are all immortal and want nothing other than to kill humans in the most painful ways possible. My personal favorite is another familiar named Spine, who doesn't show up until later in the series. He's a scorpion the size of a cat that jumps on people's heads, gouges out their eyes, then fires maggots into their skull to slowly devour their brains. He barely features, but he's just so disturbing all his appearances are seared into my mind. And let's not forget their boss. Lord Lost is genuinely terrifying from Jump Street. The heroes have no way to kill him or even keep him at bay. It's clear that once they summon him, he could kill them with barely a thought. The only reason he doesn't is because killing them would ruin his fun. He wants someone to play chess with. As we later learn, this is the main thing that sets him apart from other demonata. He wants to keep his victims alive as long as possible so he can feed on their despair and pain. In the last book, the heroes find someone in Lord Lost's realm that has been getting tortured since the First World War. And if the demonata had his way, that man would have stayed there forever. Worst of all, the Greaties need him to cure their family members like Anthropy. They can't just imprison him or run away from him. They actively have to seek him out and invite him into our dimension. Both sides fulfill a need for the other and neither could ever wipe out the other without killing themselves in the process. There's a reason I named him my favorite villain of all time a few years ago. Well, a lot of reasons, the rest of which will become clear later on. Book Two, Demon Thief, does something unusual and focuses on a completely separate cast of characters. Young Dervish has a small role since it takes place 30 years before Lord Loss. Beyond that, it's about new people. It's from the point of view of a boy named Cornelius, usually called Colonel, who can see lights no one else does. Little, floating, two-dimensional shapes that glow and are always in his field of vision. He can also manipulate them to create portals between dimensions far quicker than anyone else, even experienced mages, though he doesn't figure that out until later. One day he goes through a portal into Lord Loss's realm and... nothing. His memory for the next several hours is gone. Soon after, his parents pack up him and his infant brother, Art, and move to a small town in the middle of nowhere. One day, not long after, a demon pops out of a portal, snatches Art, and flees. Colonel follows, along with some disciples who happen to be nearby. They recognize that he has some magical ability and agree to search for Art while on their other mission. The leader of the disciples is a centuries-old magician named Baranavis, who has dedicated his existence to protecting humanity. Specifically, he's searching for an ancient weapon known as the Cogash that was broken apart into an unknown number of pieces and scattered eons ago. Colonel has very little aptitude for most types of magic, but he impresses the others with his ability to make portals extremely quickly with the glowing lights. It turns out all he has to do is focus on something, such as a specific place or person, and he can assemble the lights to form a doorway. Eventually, they wind up in Lord Loss's realm and Colonel strikes a deal with him. He and some allies will enter a dimension contained in a chessboard to find, quote, the demon thief, and if they succeed, Lord Loss will let them go with art. After a journey through the board, Colonel finally realizes the truth. When he stepped through the portal in his room, he found artery and altered his appearance to that of a human child, then changed his own memory so he could convince himself that he had a brother. Turns out he was the demon thief all along. Colonel was a very lonely child. Upon this revelation, he's heart broken and realizes he can't bring the demon back to Earth with him, so he abandons the quest to save his brother. He can't return home. Time works differently between dimensions and during his days long adventure, years have passed on Earth. In the end, he gives up on the possibility of a regular life on Earth and joins Baranibus in his search for a way to destroy the demonata. At first, this whole book might seem odd. It completely discards the old character cast and goes off on a new adventure that has nothing to do with the Grades or Lycanthropy. The only common feature is Lord Loss. In fact, he's the only character to appear in all ten books. It makes more sense later on, though. A lot of important characters and concepts such as the Cogash and the large number of demon dimensions are introduced here and become important later. When I first read this series, I thought that it would just be a series of disconnected fights against demons with Lord Loss as a recurring villain. And I was fine with that. Both early entries were great. On top of that, we get a deeper look at this world and how big it is. We're properly introduced to the disciples and the way they protect Earth. They're brave, but their fight is desperate and ultimately doomed. Because of this, most of them have an almost religious devotion to protecting as many people as they can. Even when there are small demon attacks with only a dozen casualties at most, the disciples will throw their own lives on the line to save others. When faced with the unceasing cruelty of the universe, the only thing you can do to make your fleeting life worthwhile is to try and bring some happiness to yourself and others, or at least spare them some pain. This is in complete contrast with Baranibus, who takes a very callous look at things. He'll let a few people die in service of what he sees as the greater good, which is to save all of humanity by wiping out demons altogether. Baranibus believes he can kill them all using the Kogash, which others don't even believe exists. In a weird way, he's more of an idealist than anybody else. He hasn't given up on his grand dream to make the world a better place and try to focus on smaller goals. He wants to save the world forever and is willing to step over bodies to do so. He doesn't even lead the disciples in the traditional sense. They just follow him because he's good at what he does. But he doesn't give them orders or anything unless he needs them for something. Then they obey without question. It's a unique relationship to be sure. The world getting bigger and deeper isn't all that makes this one worthwhile, though. Later, we see exactly how this all ties together. Colonel doesn't appear again until the sixth book. Neither does Baranibus, sort of. When they do, though, they become just as important as Grubs and Lord Loss. Giving them their own adventure to start off is the best way to introduce them. Book three is called Slaughter and it goes back to Grubs and Derbys. I don't have much to say about it. It's about a movie director who summons Lord Loss and some other demons to make a movie and a bunch of people die. Grubs and company escape. Barely. It's not bad. It's a great story with its own twists, villains, close calls for the heroes. It just doesn't add much to the overall series. Maybe you could argue that it shows how dangerous demons are when they aren't contained as they wipe out a whole town in this one. But the next book does that even better. Book four, Beck moves to another new character, a girl living in 5th century Ireland named Beck. This was a time when Ireland was isolated from the rest of the world, divided into hundreds of petty kingdoms and technologically backwards. Demons have begun attacking people in large numbers. No one knows where they came from or what they want. Only that there are more of them every day and soon the whole island will be overrun. This does raise the question of whether it's worse to be killed by demons or ruled by the English. Unfortunately, the book never comes to a substantial answer about that. Beck is the final protagonist of the trio. She has the unusual ability to remember everything that's ever happened in her life with perfect clarity since the moment she was born. She is also a mage because at this time there was more magic on earth than it was easier to use. Their powers are stronger when demons are nearby, though. Her mother ran off from some other clan and left Beck at her current home as an infant, then died. Now her teacher, Bonba, has died and she has no real family other than her clan. A mentally disabled child named Brand shows up one day and warns them about something. All he can say is demons run fast. He's very good at running fast, though, which is the only way he's survived so far. When demons come for him, he runs away. Beck and a few warriors decide that he might have something important to show them and they go off with him. They have nothing to lose anyways, and if it'll help them against the demons, they have to try. Brand leads them to an abandoned village with only one survivor, a druid named Drust. Drust tells them that the demons are coming through something called a tunnel, which is basically a large portal that stays open permanently instead of fading away within a few minutes. They're going to keep coming until every living being in Ireland is dead. Down to the mice and the bugs. For now, the demons are confined to the island as they can't cross the ocean and sunlight hurts them. They will leave and destroy the rest of the world soon enough, though. Upon hearing this, Beck and the others agree to help Drust journey to close the tunnel. They travel through the wilderness and a couple of destroyed towns, fighting demons all the way. At one point, they reach some cliffs with a lodestone on it. Lodestones are artifacts full of magical power that prevents demons from coming too close, except really powerful ones like, oh shit, Lord, Lost is back. The characters have never seen a demon that can talk before, and it freaks them the fuck out. He tries to make them feel like their quest is hopeless so he can feed on their despair without much luck. They manage to force him out of their territory with the power of the lodestone, but this angers him and he vows revenge. One of the warriors who travels with them is a woman named Orna, all of whose children have been killed by demons. The first thing Lord Lost does after being banished is bring back some undead facsimiles of her children just outside the safe zone. They call out to her and she goes despite the others' attempts to hold her back. She then allows her zombified children to eat her alive while the others watch. There are a lot of scenes of gore and death in this series, many of which are gross or horrifying, yet don't stick in my mind for very long. This scene will haunt my dreams until the day I die. As the journey continues, more of the warriors are killed, wounded, or tormented in ways that are only slightly less horrible. During this, we're introduced to a race simply called the Old Creatures. They're an ancient race of magical beings who created the lodestones and have been gone from Earth for a long time. Many, including Beck, think they're a myth, but Drust knows better. He takes her to a cave next to the ocean to meet a few of them, where she sees they have the appearance of orbs of light and tell them the location of the demon tunnel. Unfortunately, the only way to close the tunnel is to sacrifice either a druid or a priestess, which is why Drust has brought Beck along. She's willing to die to save everyone, but the fact that he never told her is still a dick move. They also briefly visit a village that hasn't been wiped out yet, where we learn that Beck was originally from a clan that had tried breeding with demons, only to inflict themselves with lycanthropy. This means that Beck and grubs are both very distantly descended from demons. When they finally reach the cave where the tunnel was created, they learn that it could only be made here because it contains a lodestone. They found Drust's brother, Brood, a fellow druid, whose body has been fused with the cave. His organs and limbs spread apart and sticking out of the rock like a macabre art project. He's still alive and conscious, being constantly tortured by the demons for their own amusement. Brood sacrificed himself to open the tunnel because he thought that the demons would help prevent Ireland from being converted to Christianity and his way of life from being wiped out. This is the only sympathetic motivation for a human working with demons in the whole series. Every other example of this is solely out for their own power or revenge. A large battle occurs when they enter the cave, with all the warriors being killed one by one. Just as Drust is about to sacrifice Beck, Bran appears and stabs him in the back, unwilling to let his friend die. Drust, knowing he'll die anyways, tells Beck to sacrifice him, which she does. Her and Bran flee the cave as the entrance begins to close. Beck gets caught by the demons and uses her powers to force Bran out of the cave before the entrance closes. Lord Lost shows up briefly to gloat, letting her know that her actions have only delayed the inevitable before sicken his familiars on her. She dies alone in the cave, eaten alive by demons. Just like demon thief, this one is largely self-contained, but with important ideas that become prominent later. Beck is a great character in her own right, and the sheer desperation the people of Ireland are facing as the endless hordes of demons come through to their world is infectious. Making the audience wonder how things will turn out in a prequel is hard, but Darren Shan managed to do it here. Seeing the demons in a different context is great too. Celtic Ireland has little trouble believing that demons and magic are real, in contrast to the modern world, and they're used to constant warfare, so they take all the crazy parts of this world in stride, relatively speaking. It's a nice contrast that reminds us our modern technology is of little help against the world of magic. The only way we'll ever win is with magic, intelligence, and a willingness to do whatever it takes. Book 5, Blood Beast, is the worst in the series by a large margin. It's still pretty good. It's just that the stakes are lower, the story more confusing, and many of the characters less interesting than before. None of them are bad, they're just far below what I'd come to expect from the series. However, this is also where the story really gets going. The first four books are great, but other than a few characters and references, they don't have much connection. This is when, as the kids say, shit gets real and the main plot begins. After the events of Slaughter, Grubbs and Bill E. are both trying to make a normal life for themselves. They have a group of other friends who are unaware of the magical world, including a boy who bullies Bill E. named Locke. Grubbs is getting sick and losing stretches of time, seemingly because of werewolf transformations. He's also getting more magically powerful, casting spells far beyond what he should be able to do on Earth, either on accident or by instinct. Locke, Bill E. and Grubbs start digging in the woods, searching for fabled buried treasure and discover a huge cave with rocks blocking the entrance. They keep digging, but Grubbs notices that demonic magic is leaking from the cave, making them all act hostile towards one another. The cave also calls to his wolf side and he comes back to keep digging at night time after he transforms. More than once, he sees the face of a girl in the rocks, but it quickly disappears and he dismisses it. Eventually, they reach the main cave. Bill E. and Locke climb up a waterfall only for Locke to fall down and wound his head. He soon dies, but all his blood is absorbed by the rocks. Dervish helps them fake an accident in a nearby quarry, telling the boys that they need to stay away from the cave because demons can use it to enter our world. This was the same cave that they turned into a tunnel from the demon realms to Earth 1600 years ago that Beck gave her life to close. Whoops. Dervish contacts Baranibus and some other disciples, as well as The Lambs, an organization that kills werewolves if no one is willing to fight Lord Lost to cure them. Grubbs pulls away from Dervish as he begins a relationship with Junie Swan, a woman they met back in Slaughter who now works at Grubbs's school. The werewolf transformations continue to get worse and Grubbs only barely manages to hold on with the help of his immense magical power, which he can also hide from the others at will somehow. Despite this, he transforms one night and kills Bill E's grandparents. Junie agrees to protect him and, all his self-loathing aside, Grubbs still wants to live, so the two of them take a flight out of the country. In the air, demons attack the plane and kill several passengers. Lord Lost himself appears and Junie reveals she's been working for him the whole time. The book ends with Grubbs and the passengers trapped in the sky with their captors. Book 6, Demon Apocalypse, picks up right where that one left off. We get our first good look at the giant scorpion demon, Spine, which is amazing. Before Grubbs can be killed, Baranibus appears and jumps out of the plane with him. They can both fly because Grubbs is a magician. He just kept his powers hidden from everyone, including himself, because he knew that acknowledging it meant that he couldn't hide from his responsibilities. They travel to a cave where they meet Colonel. Colonel is older than in Demon Thief, but only by a few years. The decades spent fighting in demon dimensions has made time pass faster on Earth and the world has left him even further behind. Baranibus informs Grubbs that Junie killed Bill E's grandparents and brings him along into another dimension through a portal. They wind up fighting a fire demon, one who is literally a whole dimension unto himself, and when he dies, that realm ceases to exist. Metal. Grubbs is too cowardly to do anything, though, and so Colonel throws him back into the cave in disgust. He's stuck there by himself for several weeks until the others come back, having successfully killed the demon. A disciple arrives to tell them that the tunnel where a lock died has been opened and armies of demons are pouring through. The regular governments and disciples are working to stem the tide with little luck, and they decide to launch one last desperate attack on the tunnel to close it. They fight through the legions of demons taking heavy casualties along the way, before running into Lord Loss. The demon taunts him by showing him the severed heads of Dervish and his friends. Bill E is noticeably absent. They've lost several allies by the time they reach the tunnel entrance, and they look into it only to see an unending horde emerging. No matter how hard they fight, the demons have just had too much time to prepare and to bring in reinforcements. From the rocks, the girl whose face Grubbs saw earlier, who turns out to be Beck, rises up and returns to life. She holds hands with Colonel and Grubbs, forming the Cogash, and waves of magical energy pour from them. All three of the protagonists had a piece of it, which is the source of their unique powers. Colonel's ability to make portals quicker than anyone, Beck's perfect memory, and Grubbs's giant well of magical energy. They aren't in control, but they create a spell that brings them back in time several weeks. To the night the tunnel opened. Beck has vanished, but Grubbs, Baranibus, and Colonel now have a chance to stop the invasion before it begins. Time travel is not my favorite plot device. It almost never works because it always raises the question of why people don't just use it more often and why it doesn't lead to things like paradoxes, e.g. you go back and kill your grandfather, which would prevent you from being born, but in that case, you would never go back to kill your grandfather in the first place. In the Demonada, there's only one way to time travel, and that's to unite the pieces of the Cogash. As we learn later, though, every time one of the hosts dies, the piece disappears and goes to a new sentient being to possess, whether that be an old creature, a demon, a human, or something else. There are so many possible hosts spread across infinite dimensions that the odds of the pieces coming together is nearly zero. It's literally never happened in the 13 billion years our universe has existed. So it makes no sense no one would ever use time travel. It's impossible for them. While I still don't like it, Darren Shan managed to be one of the only writers I've ever seen who uses it properly. That reminds me, I still need to read Archibald Blocks. In the past, grubs and the others find Lord Loss holding Dervish and Bill E. hostage as he prepares to open the tunnel. They attack and during the fighting, Spine manages to gouge out Colonel's eyes and lay maggots in his skull, though he survives. They save Dervish and he kills Junie, who they think is meant to be the host for the tunnel, but the tunnel keeps opening. This is when we learn that opening the tunnel requires someone to sacrifice a life. Locke only fell to his death because Bill E. saw him slip but pulled his hand away at the last second, unintentionally killing him. No matter what any of them do at this stage, the magic has taken hold and soon he'll merge with the cave to be tortured for all eternity as the demons pour into our world. Grubs holds his brother for a minute, then stops his heart. His death is instant and painless, the only thing that could be done at this stage. Grubs admits he could never have done this if it was just to save the world, but to spare Bill E. from an eternity of torment, he does what he has to. Lord Loss, his plan in ruins, takes Junie's body back to his dimension while swearing that humanity is coming to an end. All the demonata have their sights set on Earth now. It's no longer his personal playground. To emphasize his point, the heroes see a great shadowy figure that looks nothing like any demon they've ever seen try to get through the tunnel to Earth, but it can't come through. Bill E.'s body becomes possessed by the spirit of Beck and she begins to change it until it resembles her own, effectively bringing herself back to life. It turns out that Baranibus is Bran, the disabled boy that Beck met 1600 years ago and they have a tearful reunion. His full backstory is revealed in Book 7, Death's Shadow. Grubs mentally shattered by the past several months, nearly shuts down once the action is over. Baranibus lets him know that he's half demon, which is part of why he's lived so long. He has his own monstrous side that he constantly fights against, just like Grubs and his wolf side. Although this means that all three of Grubs' dad's kids turned out to be werewolves. I don't know what that says about him. They go back to the demon realms to find out why this happened and what the being of Pure Shadows was, as well as to make Colonel some new eyes, leaving Earth and its painful memories behind. The Earth is saved, for now, but the demons are right there and preparing to attack again. There is no triumph here. Only dread it what may come next. Death's Shadow is next. This one follows Beck again, except for excerpts where we learn about Baranibus' life. Three thousand years ago, a princess was raped by a powerful demon and sent back to Earth Pregnant. To get rid of her and the baby, her father banishes her to the labyrinth of King Minos. If you're familiar with Greek myth, you know this is where the Minotaur lived. The Minotaur kills Baranibus' mother, but spares him and raises him almost as a father for years until Theseus comes along and kills him like an asshole. Baranibus finds more demons and spends centuries living among them, killing demons and humans for fun. He has trouble with killing humans, though, since they mourn their dead while demons just laugh it off. When he gets stuck on Earth, he tries to find a way back, leading to the events of Beck. He can't bring himself to leave, though, because he's fallen in love with Beck. He was never actually disabled, just very scatterbrained due to his half-demon nature and general lack of social interaction. When he realizes Beck is dead, he tries to commit suicide and is saved by the old creatures. They spend centuries training him before leaving him behind as Earth's protector and telling him about the Kogash. From then on, it was his mission to assemble the weapon and destroy the demon out with it. In the present, Beck is having trouble adjusting to the modern world. After she died, her spirit stayed in the cave, never moving on to the afterlife. She was stuck there in the dark by herself for one and a half millennia, not even able to sleep and she remembers every moment perfectly. She tried to warn Grubbs away when he came close, but it turns out that just making your face appear in rocks for a second doesn't send a very clear message. Bill E.'s memories help her adjust by letting her learn about technology and the English language, but it's still a difficult process. Her powers have also become stronger than before. Now, in addition to a perfect memory, she absorbs the memories of anyone she touches. The longer they touch, the farther back the memories go, which is how she learns Baranavis' backstory. One night, months after she came back to life, werewolves attack her and Dervish. After a brief fight, she absorbs their memories and learns they were sent by the lambs. Dervish is in the hospital when it's attacked by demons led by Juni. Juni's body is some sort of rotting corpse with her spirit shoved into it, which is impossible as far as anyone knows. Not even the demonada can raise the dead. Grubbs will go after the lambs with two other disciples named Shark and Mira, while the others all go to another realm with Baranavis. Colonel opens a portal to where Juni is, which turns out to be a cruise ship on Earth. Everyone on the ship is dead, but it's encased in a bubble of magic, which allows Colonel to keep his new eyes working. Since his new eyes are constructed using magic, he can only keep them in place with a high concentration of magic power. If he stays on Earth for too long, they'll disintegrate and he'll be blind again. They find a disciple named Kirili who was tracking down two rogue mages on the ship. They open a portal to let Juni and the demons through, then they killed everyone. They think it's a trap, but Baranavis says they have no choice but to proceed. On the bottom deck, Juni is waiting for them and gives a smug villain speech before opening another portal with a lodestone and summoning the shadow they all saw in the cave. It's an enormous creature that looks almost like it's made of smoke, constantly shifting and changing shape. Anything it touches burns away and it does the impossible by bringing all the dead people aboard the ship back to life. They, along with the demons, attack the heroes. The shadow grabs Bek, burning away her skin and flesh almost as quick as she can heal herself. She manages to wriggle out of its grip, though, and join the others. She tells Baranavis what the shadow is and, realizing how much trouble they're in, he finally allows his demonic side to take over. He changes into a large, lizard-like monster and smashes through the undead horde before breaking the lodestone. But before the shadow is banished from our world, it kills him. The survivors run to the deck of the ship, fighting all the way, and after a huge explosion, Colonel and the escape portal both vanish. The others manage to break through the magical bubble and escape in a lifeboat, though. The last line of the book is Bek revealing to Dervish and Kirillie what she told Baranavis. The shadow isn't a demon. It's the literal embodiment of death. The concept of death itself has somehow become sentient. Before it was simply a force of nature, like gravity or time, after Bek's spirit stayed in the cave instead of passing on, though, it gained self-awareness. More than that, it got angry that someone would dare defy its will. For a long time, death worked in secret before revealing itself to many demonada, including Lord Loss. It eventually took command of them, promising them eternal life and dominion over every dimension in existence. Death was the mastermind behind opening the tunnel in Karshary Vale where Bill E. was killed. Its shadowy body is actually crafted from the souls of the dead. Every time someone dies, it gets stronger and it can bring back certain servants from the dead, like Juni, meaning the villains aren't guaranteed to stay dead from here on out. Book 8, Wolf Island, takes place more or less simultaneously with Death's Shadow. This is narrated by Grubbs again. I've always considered the last four books in the series to be my favorite books, period. They're all on the same level. I can't bring myself to say one is better than the other. But if you made me choose, Wolf Island would be the best one. It begins with Grubbs, Colonel, and Baranavis trying to find information about Death before going back to Earth to help with the demon attack. Grubbs stays on Earth and goes to investigate why the lambs would be using werewolves to attack the disciples. Shark assembles a team that he calls the Dirty Dozen. They're all old soldiers from when he was in the military, though I don't believe the books ever specify which military he was in. One of them is a computer expert named Timas Brouse who tracks down the lambs base of operations. They fly there and try the diplomatic approach at first, demanding to speak with whoever is in charge. The facility is run by a man named Antoine Horwitzer. I see what you did there. And he assures them that he had nothing to do with all the evil stuff. Whenever the lambs had come to euthanize werewolves that weren't healed by Lord Loss, they had actually taken them off to study in hopes of finding a cure. They had spent generations breeding the werewolves until they had around six or seven hundred held captive. The leader of the lambs, a woman named Prey-Athim, actually took all the werewolves that they had bred and taken them to a central location, an island that is officially uninhabited and very cleverly named Wolf Island. The heroes fly there in a helicopter and see a large facility along with packs of werewolves roaming outside. Fighting their way past all the guards, they find Prey-Athim tied up in her office and we learn that Antoine Horwitzer was the bad guy all along. I'm so shocked. His mad scientist stick seemed trustworthy. He opens a portal through which Junie and some soldiers come through. She gloats that she just left the others on the cruise ship and they'll all die soon. A huge battle follows in which the werewolves are loosed on the heroes and their helicopter pilot is killed. From here, things just get worse and worse. The dirty dozen are picked off one by one, their helicopter is destroyed and they wind up fleeing deeper and deeper into the island. They only manage to survive because they're heavily armed with guns and explosives and Grubbs thinks he can make them an escape portal if they get to a nearby cave. All along the way, the wolf inside Grubbs is calling out to him, begging him to give into the change. By the time they get to the cave, only a few of them are left, but they manage to block the cave entrance. However, making a portal would take several hours and the werewolves are beginning to dig. The coggash tells this to Grubbs and they decide to catch their breath before running to the water. The werewolves don't swim well so it's their best chance to escape. When the wolves break into the cave, Shark stays behind to buy them some time, taking on a dozen by himself before disappearing. The survivors nearly make it to the shoreline before being surrounded. The wolves don't attack right away, though. The leader of the pack stops them because he wants first dibs on the meat. The coggash speaks to Grubbs again, telling him that there's only one way out of this. Grubbs finally relents and transforms into a werewolf. Then he fights the pack leader, quickly killing him. Then two more challengers come after him, who he kills easily. He lets loose an earth-shaking howl, daring any other wolves to come forward and show their strength. Not one of them takes the challenge. Grubbs is now their unquestioned leader. I'll say it now. Grubbs becoming leader of the pack is one of the greatest things I've ever read. Bar none. The only reason it didn't make my list of top 10 action scenes is because I don't know if it could be considered a pure action scene. It seems to me that it's more of a character moment that just happens to include some action. That's semantics, though. If I did put it on the list, it would be in the number two spot, right behind the last battle from Wheel of Time. I love this moment for a lot of reasons. The sheer terror of the hero's flight from the wolves, the way they finally hit the point of complete despair, the way they can't use much magic and have to rely on other methods to live, but the greatest part by far is seeing Grubbs finally master the wolf within himself. He's feared ending up as a mindless beast since the first book, and when that fear came to pass, he tried to flee from the problem, only causing more problems in the process. It's only by admitting his true nature to himself and then using the man to tame the beast that he's able to survive at all. It's an oddly Freudian moment with his moral super ego wrestling control from his monstrous id once and for all, but only doing so because of the mediating ego compromised. Grubbs still partially turns into a werewolf, permanently giving up his human form to become a taller, hairy beast with claws and fangs. Great for fighting, not great for hitting up chicks at the bar. Yet his human mind is still very much in charge, except for a few moments of uncontrolled bloodlust. Luckily, he manages to aim that bloodlust at targets that deserve it, such as demons, most of the time. The book seems to be saying, don't deny the parts of you that are dangerous or unsavory. When you deny them, you lose control of them. Take advantage of them. Become their master and use them to protect what you love. For thousands of years, the Grady bloodline has been cursed with lycanthropy. It's what bounds them with Lord loss and led to the deaths of hundreds, including Grubbs's parents and sister. Now, finally, the curse has become their strength. It's an amazing moment for Grubbs, the story and the theme of mental clarity always overcoming bestial rage and instinct that this series loves to push. From Book 1, the heroes only survive by thinking and by mastering themselves. When Grubbs flees from his werewolf nature, the tunnel opens and all his loved ones die. When he accepts who he is and takes control, he wins. Demons are predictable, easy to manipulate if you dangle a prize in front of them and only capable of fleeing in terror or charging an easy prey. They simply aren't a match for humans unless they have some other advantages, which they unfortunately do. What makes Lord loss so dangerous isn't just his magical power, it's that he's the only demon we see that can think and plan ahead. Actually, Grubbs only partially turns into a werewolf and werewolves are already only part-wolves. So wouldn't that make him one quarter-wolf? A fourthling wolf? Eh, whatever. He keeps his friends safe while he leads the entire pack to the lamp facility and once they get the doors open, the battle is effectively over. The pack jumps over the bodies of its fellow wolves before slaughtering the guards without difficulty. Grubbs fights Juni himself and she nearly kills him before stopping. She gets visions of the future and saw him destroying the entire world so she decides to leave him as she flees. I'm not sure how prophecy works in this world where time travel is possible, but okay. The heroes head to the harbor to grab a boat and find Shark, badly wounded but very much alive. This means he killed a bunch of wolves, then dragged himself across the island with his guts literally hanging out of his body and missing several fingers and with only one eye. Cool. They rescue Dervish and beck from their lifeboat and inform each other of what's happened. They aren't sure how they're possibly survived, but before they have time to brood, they sense a portal opening. Demons are attacking a nearby city in force. Grubbs has already gathered around 30 of the smartest and toughest werewolves on the island and leads them into the fray. Because the werewolves are part demon, they're creatures of magic, which means they can kill demons and that means they make wonderful shock troops. Despite all the doom and gloom, the book ends on a weirdly triumphant note. Grubbs leads his werewolves along with a bunch of disciples and human soldiers into battle against demons. It seems that the demonata and death are ramping up their attacks on Earth, preparing to wipe out everyone there once and for all. At the same time, the heroes are more ready to fight back than they've ever been and the world is uniting to face the threat. It feels like they have a better chance of success than at the end of Death's shadow. Dark Calling is the penultimate book and the last one to be narrated by Colonel. It begins with a brief recap of how he lost his eyes in the fight against the demon's spine and with his new ones he can see panels of light that he can't control, though they do whisper to him. During the events on the cruise ship, the lights he can't control form into a ball of light, which we recognize as one of the old creatures and it forces Colonel through the portal when the explosion comes, making his friends think he's dead. It takes Colonel to another world with acidic air and the ruins of some ancient civilization. It explains to him that this is the nearest inhabitable planet to Earth and it was formerly populated by the Atlanteans, who visited Earth millennia ago to give humans knowledge of writing. Later, they wiped themselves out with some odd technology. Weird detail, to be honest. The old creatures take on the form of Colonel's old brother, Art, so he decides to call it that. Art takes him from planet to planet on a journey to something called the crux. Along the way, they see several other intelligent races, all of whom also play chess. Art explains that a chessboard is a map of the universe, but what that means isn't clear until later. They come across a planet overrun with demons and barely escape with their lives. Art says that this planet was safe until recently, but the demonata managed to open a tunnel, much like they're trying to do on Earth and have now wiped out all life on the planet. Colonel even sees some gigantic demons carrying other demons fly up into space using lodestones to sustain themselves. And those are apparently heading off to find another planet to take over. The journey will take millennia, but they're patient. The majority of this book is exposition and I don't even care because it's presented so well. Its whole purpose seems to be to make the audience shit its collective pants in fear. Here's what we learn, condensed for the sake of time. The old creatures and the demons used to inhabit what they call the original universe. It was comprised of 64 separate dimensions, 32 black and 32 white, like a chessboard. Time didn't exist then, so the universe just always existed and always would. The old creatures, along with the original demonata, have been around literally forever. The different dimensions were all kept separate by the Cogash. The crux is the spot at the center of our universe where 64 squares float in space, the only remains of what came before. Eventually, the demonata managed to cross into other dimensions and begin fighting the old creatures. After the strain of too many crossings, the Cogash shattered and created two universes, ours and the demonata one. This is what we refer to as the Big Bang, which happened over 13 billion years ago. There may be infinite dimensions out there, but they were created by the demonata and all exist under the umbrella of their universe, which is why it's difficult for them to come to Earth. Our universe is far more than just Earth, though. Our universe is infinite and contains millions, if not billions, of sentient species, all of whom are at risk of demonic attacks, all of whom have their own mages and magicians, all of whom are being targeted by death and the demonata. Lord loss isn't particularly powerful by the standards of demonata. It's just easier for him to travel to Earth than he likes to find prey there. The others have so many places to choose from that they don't bother coming here. The power of the demonata and even some regular demons simply can't be overcome by the old creatures and other races working together. There are demons the size of stars, millions of times larger than the Earth itself, wandering space and carrying untold numbers of other demons across the void. All they want is to kill and torment living creatures. It's their entire purpose. Keep in mind that, as beings of magic, demons and old creatures don't count as living beings. They don't seem to have souls the way we do. Some demons are even entire dimensions unto themselves and when they die, their dimension vanishes along with them. This is pure cosmic horror, only without the added benefit of the eldritch gods being unknowably strange and unaware of human existence. The demons are easy to understand, yet that does nothing to help us against their collective power. We aren't ants to be crushed underfoot or flies destined to have our wings plucked off for petty amusement. There is no stopping the demons when enough of them get through as we saw back in demon apocalypse. They have time and numbers on their side to say nothing of the unfathomobile power of the demonata. Entire planets have been stripped of life. The demons have killed everything from the intelligent life that created civilizations to the bacteria leaving hunks of rock and metal behind as monuments to the failures of the old creatures and the ravenous unceasing sadism of the demonata. No matter what they do or what the heroes do, their enemies will only ever grow stronger while they grow weaker. Death and the demonata's plan is to first wipe out as much of our universe as possible until they can find the pieces of the kogash, then use it to destroy our universe and restore things to as they were before the big bang. Then all demons will live forever and be free to frolic and murder to their hearts content. The size and scope of this universe are almost unparalleled and the truth of that isn't revealed until the penultimate book. I've never read fantasy on this scale before, not even so-called epic fantasy. Tolkien and others may have crafted deep worlds with thousands of years of lore, but how many have you seen before with a literal eternity of lore and infinite worlds to look back on? The only good news here is that the kogash isn't split into thousands of pieces as many characters feared. There are only three. The eyes, the memory and the power. And those pieces are held by Colonel, Beck and Grubbs, respectively. I would personally have called them the mind, the body and the spirit, but whatever. Beck got a hold of her piece when she met Lord Lost 1600 years ago, because he'd been holding it for a long time without realizing it. Somehow, combined with her spirit getting stuck in the cave, she cheated death and this is what gave its sentience. With all the pieces, they might be able to do something to stop all this destruction. The old creatures disagree. They've constructed what they call the Ark, an entire planet with members of hundreds of different species and they want Colonel to join so he can create portals large enough for the planet to go through whenever demons come near, allowing life to continue even with the demonata attacking. They'll even make him immortal in exchange. Colonel thinks it's a good idea, but he has to at least try to save the day before agreeing and he goes back to Earth. It's been a few weeks since he was separated from his friends and by now the demon attacks have grown bigger and more frequent. The whole world is aware of them and the threat they pose. With all three pieces of the Kogash together, they're able to repel an attack very easily, but they know they can't keep this up forever. They realize that Baranibus's soul is still trapped in this realm as part of Death's body so Colonel opens a portal and leads them to the inside of him. It's a world of dark shapes, screaming souls begging for release. When they find Baranibus, he's still cognizant enough to tell them that they can destroy Death's body from this spot. However, it will only be temporary. He's finally given up and accepted that there's no way to win. The heroes tear open Death's body, releasing all the trapped souls and denying it a physical form until it can gather more, only to be surrounded by Lord Loss and billions of minor demons. A battle follows during which several members of the party are killed. Dervish is badly wounded and Beck gets captured, but when she's brought to Lord Loss, she and him appear to be calmly talking, which makes Colonel and Grubbs think she's betrayed them. She even tells them to leave her behind, cementing their suspicion. They make it back to Earth and Colonel says goodbye to the others. They gave it the best shot they could and now he has to return to the Ark and save whoever he can. In response, Grubbs gouges out his eyes to prevent him from creating an escape portal, telling him they'll find a way to win or die trying. Dervish is dead. Baranibus is dead. Most of the old disciples are dead. Beck has betrayed humanity. Colonel is a blind prisoner on Earth. An endless horde of demons led by Death itself is coming to cleanse all life from the universe and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. What now? Finally, we reach the last book in this series, Hell's Heroes. The ending of this series is the greatest thing I've ever read. Period. The US cover of the book is fantastic. At a distance, it's a skull. Up close, it's Colonel Beck and Grubbs. Not really relevant to the story, just something I wanted to bring up. The first thing to happen is that Dervish succumbs to his wounds. Grubbs mourns and digs his grave. A month later, Grubbs has been worn down after fighting wave after wave of demons. He's brought in more werewolves from the island, but there are fewer of them every day. More people are discovering they have magic in joining the fight, but there are simply too many demons to ever defeat them completely. One thing I did really enjoy about this book is that there isn't a huge focus on humanity in fighting while fending off the demonata. There are a few mages who work with them for some promise of power or immortality and Coloneling Grubbs' spat is less than pleasant. However, once the threat is revealed, most all of them realize the gravity of the situation and come together to try and survive. Whenever there's an attack, people go close to the portal to absorb some power and see if they have any magical ability. If they do, then they immediately join with the disciples and help stem the tide in any way they can. Even if they're not all that trained or experienced, some magic is better than none. Every single mage is needed if they're to have a chance of survival. Regular soldiers take part in the fighting too. Their mundane weapons can't kill demons, but they can hurt them and give mages a chance to finish them off. Then there are the medics and other support staff that keep things running smoothly and all the governments that get them the needed resources. Everyone comes together when they have to and I find that heartwarming. It's much less cynical than you would expect from a series this dark. Grubbs has a recurring dream of Beck and Lord Lost making some sort of deal, which cements his thoughts that she betrayed them. He doesn't know the specifics of the deal, but he hears them talking about loadstones and he decides to destroy as many as he can. The first is in the cave near Karshary Vale where Beck and later Bill E. died. Grubbs destroys the stone without much trouble, then Shark and Timoth show back up. Shark rightfully chews Grubbs out for being unable to truly confront his fears, mostly his fear of losing those he loves. Grubbs then apologizes for holding Colonel hostage and agrees to let him go after taking him to the demon realm so he can rebuild his eyes. While there, Beck appears and tells them it's all over and they should give up. More demons arrive, forcing them to flee to the first dimension they can. Lord Lost's. Grubbs figures as long as they have the chance they should free the prisoners being kept there. They do so, killing those two weak to move as a mercy. Notably, they find one man who has been there so long he doesn't know the First World War has ended yet. It's a funny little moment, followed by a sinking feeling of dread as he realized this is the faith that awaits all of humanity if Grubbs can't find a way to stop the demonata. They meet Lord Lost and Beck, trying to reason with her but she refuses, claiming that everyone she ever loved to died 1600 years ago. She then kills a bunch of prisoners all at once, allowing death to transform its body and also possess Beck. Kind of. And come after them. Colonel leaves to go back to the Ark, taking Grubbs with him so he can ask the old creatures for help. They refuse and then death in Beck's body appears, letting them know that she can go anywhere where Colonel is due to the Kogash being in both of them. Death and the demonata know where the Ark is, in other words. There's no chance for life to continue, even if they give up on Earth. Before they flee, Beck regains some control and tells them to run, making Grubbs suspicious that she's not totally evil. Colonel, now seeing no other path forward, stays with Grubbs and keeps fighting. Six weeks have passed on Earth since they left, and the demons have managed to open six tunnels in that time. They close one, only for another to immediately pop up. They realize that they should save their strength and only focus on the tunnels that are big enough to threaten the whole world. Smaller ones that only let demons roam for a few hundred kilometers are to be evacuated and left alone. This basically means abandoning entire countries, but that's the sort of brutal logic they need to operate on now. Colonel senses a tunnel big enough to cover the world opening, and they go there, along with Shark, Timas, a few hundred mages, and all the remaining werewolves. The tunnel is located in the same place where Beck and Drust first met the Old Creatures, a large cave underneath a cliff next to the ocean. At the top of the cliff, Timas sets up a bunch of computer equipment and reveals that the governments of the world know this is their last chance to survive. If they fail, that's it for all of us, so they gave Timas control of all the world's nuclear arsenals with only a single order. If the last attack fails, all of humanity dying in nuclear fire is a more merciful fate than leaving them to the demons. The tunnel isn't quite opened yet, so the mages manage to fight back Lord Loss, Beck, and their familiars for a bit. Grubbs even uses the power of two-thirds of the Kogash to nearly kill Lord Loss, but Beck redirects the power into herself and the tunnel breaks open. Tons of demonata pour through, eviscerating the entire army in seconds. This is when Grubbs truly realizes how weak Lord Loss was compared to other demonata. He has a brief chat with Colonel where they decide to make one last suicidal rush for the lodestone in hopes of breaking it and closing the tunnel. If they succeed, maybe the demons won't be able to make another one big enough. They both know that's not true, though, even as they say it. All they're doing is maybe buying the rest of the world a little more time. Even when all hope is lost, Grubbs refuses to give in. If he's going to die, he'll die with a positive KD ratio. They try to use the Kogash again only for Beck to redirect the power into herself, then back to them, making it grow and grow. Grubbs nearly cuts her off before she winks at him, and he decides that she has some sort of plan. Soon, the Kogash fully activates and power pours from the three of them. They tear apart every demonata in the cave, then they shred the whole world and begin spreading outward, shredding every atom in both universes until they're completely destroyed and things go back to the way they were before the Kogash was broken. Beck, Colonel, and Grubbs recreate their own bodies since they're basically a god now, and she reveals that this was a plan she came up with alongside Baranavis. Before, the Kogash didn't have a mind or will. It just was. Now that they're in control, they can rebuild the universe. Since Beck absorbed the memory of every atom, it can be exactly as it was, except better because they'll kill all the demons. Sort of. Yes, Juni was right. Grubbs did destroy the entire universe, but then he helps to rebuild it. I've never in my life had something catch me so far off guard. It's certainly a creative way to defeat the villains. They kill every demonata in existence instantly since time doesn't exist anymore, though Beck convinces them to leave the regular demons alone. After all, most of them are weak and not worth bothering with and don't deserve to be killed. Yes, this series ends on a controversial note. What if genocide is bad? I guess that's fine. There was just zero build up to it. Demons were just ontologically evil and had to be eliminated to protect people. Then all of a sudden we have to feel bad for the weak ones. The weak ones still did plenty of damage, so it seems dumb to me. They find Lord Loss and Grubbs is about to kill him before Beck tells him he was in on the deal. He helped bring them together and agrees not to overstep his bounds by causing too much death or sorrow. After all, they need a force of evil in the universe and if it wasn't him, it would have to be them. And Grubbs can't go against her because if the Kogash fights itself, it'll break again. Lord Loss is even fine with all the other demonata being killed. He calls them a beastly lot and says they brought it on themselves. He now gets to rule over all demons and terrorize trillions of planets. The greatest reward anyone has ever gotten for being evil. And he has all of eternity to enjoy it. Grubbs, Beck and Colonel set to recreating the universe exactly as it once was all 13 billion years of history. They argue a bit about how exactly that would work since they need to change a few things near the end to avoid the universe tearing itself apart again. They decide to figure it out over the next few billion years. There's some sort of other force in the background that even they can't fully sense some sort of God or gods above their understanding that creates souls and receives them after they die. Grubbs says, let there be light. And with that, the demonauta concludes. What a journey that was. Thousands of years, dozens of dimensions and untold billions of deaths were all covered here. The series isn't even that long. Each book is only around 250 pages, meaning it's about the length of two Stormlight archive books put together. Still, so much happens and I had to leave out a ton of stuff. I barely went into detail about the side characters and they're one of the best parts of this whole thing. I love the way Shark has been fighting demons since the Vietnam War and mostly kills them with his bare hands. Even after losing his fingers, he just starts gouging them with his remaining digits. I love Kirillie and the way he starts as a sniffling coward before finally manning up and fighting toe to toe with Lord Loss, at least for a minute. I love Junie and how much of a simp for Lord Loss she is. I love Goal, an old warrior who accompanies back on her journey to the tunnel way back in book four and how he takes so much in stride. He spent his whole life fighting and all that's changed for him is that his targets are no longer other people. I love Pray-Atham and the way she genuinely cares about the werewolf she has at her research facility. I love T-Moss and the matter-of-fact way he approaches every situation. Despite not being great at fighting, he never seems to panic. When situations get hairy, he uses his own skills to help save the day. I love Grubbs's three werewolf lieutenants, Curly, Larry and Moe, and the way they're completely loyal to him and so on. This series has a lot of death in it, but in order for that to have any sort of impact on the audience, the characters in question have to mean something to the audience. At the same time, they have to affect the story in some way, otherwise they feel like a conveyor belt of disposable, interchangeable parts. By not only making every character likeable and giving them life spans of varying length, we have to guess what will happen. By both making every character likeable and giving them life spans of varying length, we have to guess what will happen. We're kept off balance the whole time. I can't wrap this up without mentioning the three protagonists more, so here's the part where I do that. Grubbs is definitely the main protagonist. Six out of the ten books are from his perspective, including the first and the last. He's our introduction to this world and arguably the most influential in terms of the story. He accidentally opens the cave with Beck's spirit. He keeps Colonel on Earth against his will. He brings the werewolves over to the hero's side, et cetera. And he especially has the most reason to hate demons, mostly Lord Loss. Beck and Colonel are hurt by him sure. He kills Grubbs' entire family one piece at a time. Grubbs starts out as far from a hero, and it's only after his brother Bill E. dies that he finally accepts his role as a magician who needs to fight the demonada. Even then, he seems far more motivated by spite and vengeance than a desire to protect innocence. How much of that is his human side and how much is his werewolf side is up for debate. Colonel is a much quieter character, for lack of a better term. He suffers from horrible loneliness as a child to the point where he kidnaps a demon and magically convinces himself it's his brother. And when that connection is gone, he just abandons living on Earth all together. He still wants to protect people as much as he can, but it's in a detached, almost clinical way. There aren't any friends or family that he wants to stay alive, nor does he harbour any grudge against the demonada. He just fights because it needs to be done. Beck is in a similar position since her entire clan has been dead for centuries. She seems lost from the other character's perspectives and even more so from her own. She just floats through the current of life after being resurrected with no goals or dreams of her own. Fighting the demons because it seems like the right thing to do or out of self-preservation. There's little real passion When you consider that, it makes sense for Grubbs to think she would betray humanity in favour of being one of Lord Loss' favoured servants. She was the only one who could have ever accepted the idea of killing everyone in order to save them. Because if the plan failed, she would have lost less than the others. Grubbs would probably have refused to do the plan because if it didn't work, then everything would have been destroyed. Colonel wouldn't have done it because he would find the idea of killing innocents repugnant. They needed Beck, just like she needed them. They complement each other and serve as foils to each other at the same time, which is a surprisingly hard thing to do. They aren't just three different characters who we see the events of the series through the eyes of. They all play an important role in the story and they all experience very different things. When one is gone, we wonder where they are and hope they come back soon. They all have a unique voice and unique talents beyond the powers that Hogash grants them. Beck receives the details of Baranibus' plan to save the universe when the narrator is Colonel, so the audience doesn't know about it. If that scene was from her perspective, the author would have had to cheat and hide the information from us, making the reveal feel cheap. Books 7, 8 and 9 all take place simultaneously and all follow very important aspects of the world and the story. That couldn't happen with one point of view character. It would have to happen in sequence, which would make little sense and take away from the sense of urgency that the end of the series has. The hero would simply go from one encounter to another, barely surviving all along. There's so much great stuff to talk about here I haven't even touched on the magic. It's entirely based on willpower and imagination, meaning you can do basically anything if you put your mind to it and have enough energy to work with. Of course, the humans never have enough energy to do anything too crazy unless the Kaigash is united so they can't power through things. Most people have magical specialties, not that they're divided into any formal schools or types. Some people just naturally are better at using magic to hide or making fire or healing or stabbing Lord Loss and choking him with vines. One girl we see in the last book fights demons using yo-yos. The creativity is endless. Yet there's such a hard ceiling on what humans can do it never becomes a get out of jail free card. I'm not normally a fan of soft magic systems. This one is an exception. It works amazingly well and I love it. Some people read a book and clamor for an adaptation of some sort. I'm not one of those people. Hollywood movies are not the pinnacle of media that all others should aspire to. Books are perfectly good as their own pieces of media that have unique strengths and weaknesses, not a stepping stone to something bigger and better. That said, I'd love to see this brought to life in some way. A video game or some sort of animated series would be the best way to bring all the hyper violence and creative imagery to life. So I hope one of those comes around someday. Just not a movie. There's not enough time to cover all the lore. And I remember what happened last time Hollywood touched one of Darren Chan's book series. Some of the best books I've ever read have mixed something familiar with something new and unexpected. The Expanse, Mistborn, World War Z, all of these take some ideas we've seen a hundred times and pulls them in new directions, breathing life into genres that can often feel stale. The Demonata brings that common trope of the kids discovering a magical world that most people don't know about and brings it in a unique direction. It would have been so easy for it to just be darker and edgier. And it certainly is in some ways, but there's so much more to it than that. The cosmic horror angle and the sheer dread at the thought of this being real nips any possible fantasy of wanting to live in this world in the bud. In an era where so many attempts at doing something different or subversive, either fall flat or eventually turn into one of the things they started off mocking, it's great to see something succeed so spectacularly in this sense. Very few people online have ever read or discussed the Demonata and that's a shame to me. It seems to have sold moderately well and some in my audience are familiar with it. I just see so few others ever bring it up. Even I haven't talked about it as much as I should have. So hopefully this video can draw more attention to the series and allow more to experience it. If you made it this far, thanks for watching. If you didn't watch the whole thing, I hope you get likeanthropy. Special, special, special thanks to everyone who watched, including all the patrons whose names are here and the $10 and above the $10 patrons are Appo Savilane and Olivia Ray and Brother Santotys, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Anceliovich, Dark King, Dio, Echo, Eevee, Flax, Great Griebo, Carcat Kitsune, Elle Lindberg, Liza Rudakova, Lord Tiebreaker, Matthew Bodro, Microphone, Peep the Toad, Robi Reviews, Sad Martigan, Sillier the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Tesla Shark, Vaivictus and Wesley. Thanks to all of them. I couldn't do it without them. Well, maybe I could, but it would be much less fun, much worse to do. And thanks to everyone who watched. If you want your name on here, consider donating. 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