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The Demi-Monde: Winter: Book I of the Demi-Monde [Paperback]

Rod Rees (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 29 Sep 2011 | Series: The Demi-Monde

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.

Frequently Bought Together

The Demi-Monde: Winter: Book I of the Demi-Monde + The Demi-Monde: Spring: Book II of the Demi-Monde + The Demi-Monde: Summer: Book III of The Demi-Monde
Price For All Three: £25.33

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Product details

  • Paperback: 522 pages
  • Publisher: Quercus (29 Sep 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1849163049
  • ISBN-13: 978-1849163040
  • Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 97,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

'State of the art... Discworld's savage noir cousin' Stephen Baxter.

'Delectably dark ... A feisty and nightmarishly enjoyable debut' Sunday Times.

'The world he's created is a psychopathic nightmare, while Ella, by contrast, is a touchingly vulnerable heroine whose quest is fraught with both physical and psychological dangers' Guardian.

'An amazingly quick and enjoyable read … and a beautifully designed cover' British Fantasy Society.

'Part Matrix, part Escape from New York, with a dash of Film Noir and a whole host of imagination. Beautifully written' Falcata Times.

'Explosively creative barely defines Ross Rees's The Demi-Monde: Winter. It blew me away' James Rollins, New York Times bestseller of The Devil Colony.

From the Back Cover

'We want you to go to hell, Miss Thomas.' And for five million bucks Ella is prepared to give even hell - or in this case, the Demi-Monde - a shot. And all she has to do to earn it is find the President's daughter and lead her to safety. But as Ella discovers, getting into the Demi-Monde is the easy part: surviving to collect her money is quite another. With thirty million digital-Duplicates at war in the cyber-killing field that is the US Military's virtual-training ground, the Demi-Monde is a challenging place - especially as the Dupes are programmed with a craving for blood and are led by some of history's most vicious tyrants. And the many bizarre conceits in the Demi-Monde have a sinister reason behind them. In the Demi-Monde Ella can trust nothing and nobody ... not even herself.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun with Puns in an Alternate Historian's Sandbox 27 April 2011
By Craig Lam TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly Excellent 7 April 2011
By Michael Sutherland VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
The Demi-Monde seems to have a terrible, cliched premise, but actually delivers a completely compelling read. A virtual reality experiment gone wrong, the US military is at a loss as to what to do when their pseudo-world, aimed at training soldiers, not only loses soldiers, but also manages to entice the daughter of the president - and then can't retrieve her. Enter Ella, our heroine and onetime jazz singer, who goes into the Demi-Monde with the intent of retrieving her - for a sum.

It sounds like a terrible plot, but it's utterly compelling after a bit of a slow start. The characters are tightly written, the desperate plot of good guys against some of the nastiest figures from history eminently believable. After a while, despite the size of the book, I didn't want to put it down. I won't try to compare it to any film genres, and the assurance that it's comparable to Iain M Banks simply isn't right. Rod Rees' style is accessible and straightforward without being simplistic, and his world well-created.

Excellent and well worth a read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A page turner. 1 May 2011
By Shaun Jeffrey
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A seriously good read 13 Jan 2011
By Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
2011 is going to be a year of top quality reads if, the recent selection I've read is a cross section of releases is anything to go by. So far, there has been some great crime tales, some serious fantasy and now a science fiction story that just blew me away.

Contained within the pages of this tale by Rod Rees is a tale that has multiple storylines. Part Matrix, part Escape from New York, with a dash of Film Noir and a whole host of imagination. Beautifully written, this title also has a whole host of unforgettable characters which, when blended with a serious kick ass plot alongside a great sense of pace made this book a seriously guilty pleasure to enjoy. So much so that I wouldn't be surprised to find out that others have hit the "One more chapter" phrase during reading. With over 500 pages the pace hardly lets up and flies by in a flash, so much so I expect a few jobs to have workers taking a day or two off due to lack of sleep. Just don't hold us accountable if the boss catches you out.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it - great humour with a serious message! 17 Feb 2011
By Bruce TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I really enjoyed the whole experience of this book. It is certainly a weighty tome and I loved the cover with the feel it engendered, of something old-fashioned, yet technological.

The maps and glossary were useful to refer to throughout and the short chapters, starting with quotes, allowed you to keep skipping back to look at references, while keeping the narrative flow going.

As it starts, you are deluged with a mass of information and I can see how it would be easy to give up - but I assure you it is worth the effort and you get the idea of how all the groups are set up. In fact, every group is an amusing verbal pun, which helps you remember what they stand for and what could have been over-complex becomes amusingly familiar, quite quickly!

I mentioned the puns and this is the joy of the book - an exuberant use of language, which even seems amusing when talking about the most serious of subjects. The Demi-Monde and by consequence this book, deals with the most horrible specimens of humanity we have ever known and yet we are able to find the way this is all set up as humorous.

Partly of course, this is all because we know it's a computer simulation, but partly it is the clever language and the aptness of the puns, that mirror real world concerns about terrorists and the paranoia about certain ideologies.

On the other hand there is a serious premise, in that we know modern armies are struggling to deal with what the author calls "assymetrical" wars - like those in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan - where one side has massively overwhelming military might and yet cannot overcome the lesser forces easily.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Lose yourself in this world of wonders
The Demi-Monde - a computer simulation designed for the US military, peopled by some of the most dangerous and psychopathic characters from history, for training the US military in... Read more
Published 6 days ago by andy angel
3.0 out of 5 stars The Demi-Monde
With the premise of a virtual world full of history's most notorious characters used for training soldiers for warfare, I found the idea of 'Demi-Monde' fascinating, original and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by L. M. Cowan
4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining hybrid of several genres
Rod Rees has done a good job of incorporating a handful of different genres into a very readable and entertaining novel, merging strands of sci-fi, history and thriller into one. Read more
Published 13 months ago by H. C. Vaandrager
5.0 out of 5 stars An Exciting Steampunk Fantasy-Inspired Virtual Reality Novel from...
Enter at your own peril, the virtual reality world of the Demi-Monde, a steampunk fantasy conjured by early 21st Century American military planners intent on teaching urban... Read more
Published 18 months ago by John Kwok
5.0 out of 5 stars An Exciting Steampunk Fantasy-Inspired Virtual Reality Novel from...
Enter at your own peril, the virtual reality world of the Demi-Monde, a steampunk fantasy conjured by early 21st Century American military planners intent on teaching urban... Read more
Published 18 months ago by John Kwok
1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of money
First of all, you must understand this: there is no ending in this book. None. Everything is left hanging in mid-air, like a 2-part episode in a TV series. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Hammerbolt
2.0 out of 5 stars UnFunny, UnInspired and leaves you wanting less.
As excited as I was to read this book, that feeling quickly faded.

Based on a shaky premise that to train soldiers to fight in Afghanistan the best virtual environment... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Conor
3.0 out of 5 stars Know What You're Getting
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. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Book Gannet
4.0 out of 5 stars Bring on Spring
All too short but left me wanting more, Rod Rees' opening segment of his planned four part series is gripping. Read more
Published on 16 Jun 2011 by Road Apple
3.0 out of 5 stars Plot-driven thriller
There must be lots of attractions to an author in adopting the 'virtual world' scenario.

For Rod Rees, he gets to juxtapose historic figures from different ages of... Read more
Published on 21 April 2011 by leftfooter
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