Demon Thief (The Demonata) (Paperback)

This book has a new main character, Kernel. He moves house to a much more quiter area in the countryside, but there is a witch living there. She opens a portal to another universe, the Demonata's universe. When a demon comes out it causes terrified panic and kills as many people as it can, then snatches Kernels little brother and runs back to its universe. Kernal follows it. On his journey he finds out about his extrodinary magic powers and meets a magician and some other companions. As I said this book as a lot of violence in. Darren Shan creates Demons and other worlds so imaginary and excellent. Such as six armed green dog, and a world of howling trees and solid water.

In the fighting scenes there is a lot of gore, and he explains the blood and guts in excellent detail. Because of this I would not reccomend this book to anyone under the age of 12. In the other book when he did not reccomended this book to under twelves it actually wasn't that bad, but in this it is. Loads of people die in this book, even some of the main characters.

The reason why I am not sure whether this book is a prequel or sequel to Lord Loss is because this book was written after Lord Loss, but Dervish Grady is ateenager in this one. The only real resembalance from this book to Lord Loss is Dervish Grady and Lord Loss.

As you can see on tthe cover of the book, the three demons from the old book (Artery, Vien and Lord Loss) are still in this book with many other new demons. Also in this book you get to see what Lord Loss' castle is like, and what the conditions are like. We only learned a bit from the book Lord Loss, only about the heat and the webs.

The ended is very good - a cliff hanger.

Use of Language: 10/10
Story: 9/10
Character Development: 1o/10
Ending and Beggining: 9/10

Overall: 9.5/10

The Demonata is in my opinion better than Lord Loss. A new set of characters are introduced and a new hero, Kernel. The world is the same as in Lord loss, just approached from a different angle, with the main character venturing into the demon worlds and fighting the demons on their own terms rather than the more sedate summoning of lord loss for a chess game (admitedy that was not as boring as it sounds since the prize were the players lives and souls) in book one. Lord Loss does feature in this book, and yet again sets a game in which the players souls are at stake, whilst his familiars Artery and Vein also return with a vengence.

Another thing I like about Shan is that he introduces the dilema of evil things done in the name of good, and whether one or several human lives can be worth the fate of mankind. With the recent global military action in the name of good this rings home the nature of "collateral damage" when it is the life of someone you know and like. Several characters in this book live on the blurred line between light and shadow, good guys kill, bad guys save, and Lord Loss (suposedly the biggest baddest rotten stinking meanie in the whole book) has no heart and is supposedly then without feelings of love or hate.
The new worlds are imaginative and the action is continuous, and as I mentioned above we are not spared from the gratioutus or horrific nature of violence and death. In amongst the gore is just enough black humour to keep your spirits up, and for a Shan book the ending is practically positive!

I can't wait to see how Kernel (book 2) and Grady's (book 1) plots combine, the only link is the vile Lord Loss whom both of the characters have met. The universe of the Demonata is fascinating.