The Demi-Monde: Winter
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'State of the art... Discworld's noir cousin' Stephen Baxter.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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EXPERIENCE THE ULTIMATE IN VIRTUAL REALITY. The Demi-Monde is the most advanced computer simulation ever devised. Created to prepare soldiers for the nightmarish reality of urban warfare, it is a virtual world locked in eternal civil war. Its thirty million digital inhabitants are ruled by duplicates of some of history's cruellest tyrants: Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin's arch executioner; Torquemada, the pitiless Inquisitor General; Robespierre, the face of the Reign of Terror. But something has gone badly wrong inside the Demi-Monde, and the US President's daughter has become trapped in this terrible world. It falls to eighteen-year-old Ella Thomas to rescue her, yet once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realises.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun with Puns in an Alternate Historian's Sandbox,
By
This review is from: The Demi-Monde: Winter: Book I of the Demi-Monde (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
The Demi-Monde is a lovely surprise. It's a book packed full of playful language, great ideas, and interesting characters, both historical and fictional.From the premise (artificial hell populated with scum like Heydrich and Beria, used to train US soldiers) I expected it to either take itself too seriously, or embrace the insanity. Fortunately, it does the latter. Rees' exposition and world building has a light touch that makes me think of a nerdier Pratchett. Every faction name appears to be a pun or joke - the Fascist Northern European section of the demi-monde is known as the Forth-Right (Fourth Reich?) and their religion is UnFunDaMentalism (because nothing's less fun than Fundamentalism), while the militant wing of Empress Wu's radically feminist faction (branded with the derogatory term - LessBiens) is the Suffer-o-gettes. I don't know about you, but I love this sort of thing. It serves as an excellent juxtaposition to the doom and gloom that constant warfare, racism, sexism, everythingism engenders. Whoever created the Demi-Monde has a sick sense of humour. Rees has a sick sense of humour. Ella Thomas, a student with a penchant for dance and jazz, and Vanka, a charlatan psychic are ostensibly the main protagonists in the book. They are both interesting and their personalities clash well with the world and the characters around them. Yet Trixie Dashwood is the real scene-stealer throughout the book. Her transformation - without giving much away, since it is rather surprising - is fascinating. Highly recommended for its explosion of ideas and sense of humour. I eagerly await the turning of the season.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Know What You're Getting,
By
This review is from: The Demi-Monde: Winter: Book I of the Demi-Monde (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
If, like me, you've read the blurb and looked at the cover and are expecting a dystopic, gritty, dark sci-fi you may end up a little disappointed. The main idea of a computer generated world intended to train soldiers for asymmetric warfare is interesting, as is the idea to populate it with some of the most unstable and unpleasant characters from history, but beyond this things start to fall apart.Why, for instance, in a program aimed specifically at training for wars in Afghanistan and other similar environments is the Demi-Monde comprised mostly of overpopulated cities? Surely that's a different kind of warfare altogether. Also, why choose the technological basis of the late Victorian era? Other than to provide a nice link into the increasingly popular steampunk sub-genre, I mean. Cynical thoughts aside, I'll admit I also found most of the characters a bit hard to like. Norma makes a good start, but swiftly goes downhill, until I ended up not caring what happened to her. Trixie is an unpleasant snob who shows a glimmer of promise, before descending into farce. Ella is the best of the lot, but even she has some wobbly moments, where she seems to become someone totally different. Her passive moments were particularly grating. And Vanka, while sort of interesting, I just didn't like. The Demi-Monde itself is clever, but the novelty is quick to wear off. Especially thanks to those ridiculous puns (UnFunDaMentalism, PsyChick, WoeMen, HerEticalism). Sci-fi readers are generally fairly intelligent, so I think they could spot the jokes without being repeatedly smacked in the face with them. I did enjoy the tumbled up history, especially the little details that slipped through without being pointed out with capital letters. Like the militant feminist leader Jeanne Dark and the fledgling train robber, Cassidy. In amongst all this daftness, historical hotpotch and occasionally irritating characters there is a plot. Eventually. Quite a lot of time is spent setting up the world and characters, so if you want action be prepared to wait for it. Once it does finally kick in (around halfway) it bumps along quite nicely to the finish. There are few surprises, but a barrel load of unfinished scenarios (practically every plot strand finishes mid-scene) might be enough to make you pick up the next book, just to see if any of them finally get what they deserve. Or it might make you throw it at the wall in frustration. Unless by this point you no longer care. It's not a terrible book, but it wasn't brilliant either. I expected more than what I got, which left me under-whelmed and disappointed. Expect silly puns, changeable characters, messed up history and a lot of exposition and you might end up enjoying it. Plenty of people have. I wonder if book two is any better?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A page turner.,
By Shaun Jeffrey (Crewe) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Demi-Monde: Winter: Book I of the Demi-Monde (Hardcover)
Straight away I'll state that I'm intimidated by doorstop books. They look like they'll take forever to read, but in the case of The Demi-Monde I zipped through it at a blistering pace (at least it was blistering for me and I have the papercuts to prove it). Rod Rees has constructed a well thought out world populated with characters that you'll love and hate, some purely fictitious, others based on the most vicious and brutal characters out of the pages of history. Blending fact with fiction and history with religion, this is a seamless piece of work and I for one can't wait until Spring. A compelling read.
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