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.
The Demi-Monde: Winter
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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. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
'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. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
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.
--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
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.
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
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.
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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 1 month 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 12 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 17 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 17 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
Based on a shaky premise that to train soldiers to fight in Afghanistan the best virtual environment... Read more
Published 18 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 20 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 23 months ago 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
For Rod Rees, he gets to juxtapose historic figures from different ages of... Read more
Published on 21 April 2011 by leftfooter
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining tosh
You will have picked up the premise from the other reviews - the US military has created a huge simulation for training purposes and overpopulated it with an inflammatory racial... Read more
Published on 17 April 2011 by M. J. Farncombe
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