Customer Reviews

Daemons are Forever (Secret Histories, Book 2)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Daemons Are Forever (2008) is the second fantasy novel in the Shaman Bond series, following The Man With the Golden Torc. In the previous volume, Edwin Drood and Molly Metcalf confronted the Heart. With the help of the strange matter within Eddie, they broke its power and shattered it into thousands of diamond shards. Then they confronted the family, faced down the Matriarch, and remade the Droods into a force against Evil.

The strange matter within Eddie had been chasing the Heart for a long time and thoroughly approved of the manner of its passing. Strange -- AKA Ethel -- decided to stay for a while (maybe a few thousand years) within this dimension to help Eddie and the Drood family. It gave Eddie a new torc and armor that was silver rather than golden.

In this novel, Eddie takes Molly out for a spin in a fully restored -- and enhanced -- 1933 Bentley to pick up some items at his Knightsbridge flat. When they near the place, Eddie notices a slew of spies and agents in the street. He takes the car through a lower dimension into the garage, discovers that his flat has been torn apart, gets whatever is left, and starts to leave.

Codename Alpha -- a rather overbearing sort -- is waiting for him outside the building, with two helicopters and dozens of men. Eddie does not pay any attention to his voice on the bullhorn while discussing the situation with Molly. Finally, they wipe out the lot, take down the helicopters, and then drive home. The Armourer is furious about the few scratches on his car.

It seems that the political animals are getting restless. The group waiting outside his flat were from the Department of Dirty Tricks within MI5. The Prime Minister is trying to take advantage of the family's perceived weakness, but he picked on the one man who still had his armor and paid the price.

Eddie convenes his Inner Circle and selects a target for a conspicuous display of family power. The Loathly Ones are soul eaters who were originally brought to this dimension by the family during World War II. Now they have grown to be a clear and pressing danger. So Eddie decides to totally destroy their power.

In this story, Eddie leads a raid against a Loathly One construction in South America and has a Pyrrhic victory. Only ten other Droods returned from the raid. Of course, they left the remains of thousands of Loathly One drones and an interdimesional gate on the battlefield, but nobody in the family noticed the victory.

Edwin finds that the family is backsliding. The Matriarch is bitter and just waiting for Edwin to fail so that the family can call her back to lead them. Only his Inner Circle is siding with him and even they are bickering about petty matters.

This tale shows Eddie having great frustrations and doubts about his abilities. Still, he looks for other family members to take over some areas where he feels deficient. He finds one in the past and another in the far future.

The family becomes less hopeful over time. When Eddie disappears for eighteen months on a journey to the future, the family lets Harry Drood take over the leadership. The Loathly Ones have almost taken over the world by the time that Eddie returns.

The story is typical of the author. Even this new series leads one into despair before the final -- and last minute -- save by the hero. The next volume is The Spy Who Haunted Me. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Green fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high adventure, various magics, and family intrigue.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I'll start out by saying that I'm a fan of Simon R. Green. His novels are witty and full of great sounding descriptors for all manner of beasties. You can't get more than 10 pages into a novel of his before you're finding out about elves, demons and all manner of such. Great stuff.

This novel is the second novel in a new series of books by him. Basically, think James Bond with magic instead of technology. Except that there still is technology. It's just a little bit more mixed. Since this is the second novel, this really is not a good place for anyone to start out reading here. Heck, I found that I had to go back to the first book and start re-reading sections to remember who the characters were. And without reading the first book, this novel would have been a lot more difficult to comprehend.

That being said, this novel picks up right after the end of the last one. The main character, Edwin Drood, is back cleaning up the mess he made in the first novel. No, I don't want to describe more here as it would all be a spoiler. Except for this: One negative I have with this book is that the author brings in a character from another series of his. So, here you are in the middle of this new series and poof! you're reading about another one of his characters from another series. I can only speak for myself but I did not think it worked at all. In fact, I kept thinking that the author needed something to beef up the book and ran out of ideas. Oh, but wait, I can bring in another plot line, blah blah. Just didn't work for me. For someone who doesn't know the other series, maybe it's just fine.

All in all, it was action packed and a fun read. Just that distraction of another character I could have done without.

As I said in my review of the first book, The Man With The Golden Torq, I haven't read anything from Mr. Green but his Hawk and Fisher series, which I loved for the same reasons I like this series.

Well, Eddie Drood, field agent extraordinaire (according to him) has broken the evil power that held his family in sway and gave them their power. Basically, Eddie broke the family and now it's up to him to fix it.

From supernatural threats as well as his own family's machinations, Eddie must save the world yet again, but this time as a symbol of authority (which he hates being).

With the help of his British wit and his love, the witch Molly Metcalf, Eddie must put everything to right yet again and do it with the flair that only he possesses.

If you like droll British humor, this series is for you. I happen to love it. Plus, I'm not burdened with having read his Nightside series, which seems to ruin it for other readers.

This second book is better than the first, I dare say, and I look forward eagerly to the next one.

A SPOILER here, a SPOILER there...

- The Armourer (gazing at the ultimate weapon): "You have got to let me get that down to the Armoury and take it apart."
- Edwin Drood: "No, Uncle Jack."
- The Armourer: "Oh come on, I've got this really cool hyper-hammer I've been dying to try out."

British writer Simon R. Green's imagination seems limitless. The Man With the Golden Torc (Roc Fantasy) introduced his readers to a new realm of magic, sci-fi, and desperate, against-the-odds adventuring. We learned of the all-powerful Drood family, which for almost two thousand years has secretly ruled the world, even as it protects humanity from unnatural menaces. And we met Edwin Drood (known as Shaman Bond to the unwitting world), an elite field agent who was framed as a traitor and forced to go on the run, relentlessly pursued by his family. By the end of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TORC, Eddie had turned the tables around and, by destroying the Drood Heart (the source of the Drood's power), had shattered the long-held family status quo.

DAEMONS ARE FOREVER opens with Eddie in wobbly charge of the family. Rumors of the Droods' current vulnerability had leaked out, and various forces are up and about, seeking to test the family's strength. In response Eddie intends to make an example of one of the Big Bads, to lend an impression that his family is still powerful and in control. He targets the the soul-consuming Loathly Ones, the worst of the demonkind. But, in this, the Droods may have bit off more than they can chew, because the Loathly Ones are already on the move...

There's an extra incentive here, as the Droods were the ones responsible for the Loathly Ones' presence on earth. Worryingly, the Droods come to find that the Loathly Ones serve merely as the vanguard for other-dimensional creatures called the Invaders, or the Hungry Gods, seeking a foothold on Earth. And these monsters are ready to burst thru into our reality.

Man, what must it be like to be inside Simon Green's head? Pound for pound, he has to be one of the most consistently inventive fantasists out there. DAEMONS ARE FOREVER may be an obvious wink to the James Bond literature and flicks, but it doesn't lack for originality in terms of wild ideas and cool concepts. Green packs in the pages with nifty characters such as the Hungry Heart and the Vodyanoi Bros - and these are only the throwaway characters! And what would a 007 homage be without some crazy gadgets? The Droods' Armourer (Eddie's Uncle Jack) comes up with amazing knick-knacks, with my favorite being the dimension-hopping Bentley. Speaking of gadgets, how unreliable is the Time Train and just what is the ultimate weapon called the Deplorable End? Intrigued yet?

Of course, Eddie is still with his Molly, the anarchic witch of the wild woods. But, happily, Green reintroduces other supporting characters from the first book. Eddie thinks that, over the centuries, the family had relied much too much on their golden armour and that the Droods now need to learn new tricks and develop a different mindset. He calls on old acquaintances to conduct tutorials, which is how we meet up again with the veteran demon fighter Janissary Jane, the supernatural serial killer Mr. Stab, the luck-thief Subway Sue, and the grungy half-elven Blue Fairy. Meanwhile, Harry Drood, whose father Eddie killed, returns to the fold and looks to wrest away leadership from Eddie - and he's brought a hellspawn with him. Eddie does receive help from several other fronts, namely from the otherworldy entity who now provides the Droods with their new and silver armour. This entity prefers to be called "Ethel," but Eddie adamantly refuses ("Please, call me Ethel." "Over my dead and lifeless body."). Green also cheerfully throws in a character crossing over from one of his other series.

Despite the James Bond connotations, there's not a lot of superspy stuff going on (other than the cool gadgets). This series mostly tells of big, bold, rollicking adventures, with occasional tongue-in-cheek moments. Simon Green is almost a genre unto his own; no one does it quite like he does. Or maybe no one throws in so many elements in the pot like he does. Green isn't what I would call a subtle writer. For one thing, his characters do go on with their over-the-top last stand speeches (I don't know if other writers can get away with it). The action sequences tend to be violently operatic in their scope and extremes. Reading his stuff is like watching one of those old cliffhanger movie serials, but more visceral. Mostly, Simon R. Green knows how to entertain you, and he develop his characters enough that you do end up caring for them. You almost can't help getting swept up by the man's sheer energy and scampering imagination. I say, definitely keep the Shaman Bond series going.

Lastly, with all the vivid images and crazy subplots in this book, what stands out the most for me, somehow, is how Molly disposed of the Frankentein monsters... I thought that was one of the cleverest things...

I really liked the first one in the series, and I couldn't wait til I picked up a copy of the second adventure. It was a major let down.

The plot was weak. Drood has to prove to the world that just because his family was down, but they weren't out. Drood feels the only way do to this is to pick a fight with a group, and how them and the world that the Drood family isn't as weak as people think. Honestly, that's pretty much the plot. That's the biggest problem I had with the book. Drood had to pick a fight, and he picked the weakest creature (supernatural beings) to fight. To me, Drood and the family seemed like bullies. Drood kept on stumbling around and he was doing things, just to do them. **SPOLIERS** Some examples are that he had to go to the past to get the best fighters to help him and the family fight....then he had to go to the future to get a fighter too. It was just so silly.

The characters seemed to be paper thin. I also had the feeling that the characters seemed bored to be in the book. More as I read, the more I disliked them. Even my favorite, Mr. Stab.

If you read this after the first one, don't expect to much.

From time immemorial, the powerful Drood family has worked behind the scenes, saving the world from every imaginable threat. Until, centuries past, an alien entity corrupted the family's governing body. Since then, their agenda has been ruling the world. When field agent Eddie Drood is declared rogue, he discovers the family's corrupt secret, destroys the Heart and takes control. (The Man with the Golden Torc.)

In Daemons are Forever, Eddie Drood is not a popular man. He is resented by some, hated by others, and does not know who to trust within his own family. What is more, when he destroyed the Heart, the Droods lost their golden armor, and now the powers of the world think they have a chance to bring the family down. Only Eddie has armor, this time silver, given to him by the strange matter that replaced the Heart. He decides to show the world that the Drood family is still a force to be reckoned with and targets the Loathly Ones, alien creatures who can infect and eventually take over both human beings and animals.

The Droods, who are responsible for bringing the Loathly Ones to Earth in the first place, do not see them as a significant threat, Eddie included. But although his army destroys the Loathly Ones' nest it does so with much loss of life, and he learns that this is just the tip of the ice-burg. The Loathly Ones are working to bring the Hungry Gods to Earth from their own dimension, and when that happens they will destroy the world.

Eddie, as the narrator, shares his doubts and disappointments, both his own and with his family. He needs their help, but refuses to compromise his decision to return them to honor and decency. Eddie has always believed that "family comes first," but his resolve is tested when his love, Molly Metcalf, is infected by the Loathly Ones, and Eddie realizes that she is more important to him than family.

Characters from the first book return and new ones are introduced; we see a different side to some, and lose others. Some reviewers do not like the introduction of characters from Green's Nightside and Deathstalker series', but I think they fit the plot, in which Eddie travels to the past and future, and to other worlds, in search of help.

"Daemons are Forever," is chockfull of battles, duels, blood and gore, mayhem, heroics, sacrifice, magic and alien technology, well-defined characters, and a dab of British humor; narrated with Green's trademark rapid-fire style and wit. Will Eddie triumph in the end? How could he not?

The technology gets more outlandish and the family politics more convoluted. The story moves slower because of this, but the entertainment value is still good. However, you probably won't feel compelled to finish this one in a single sitting.

While I realize nobody reading Simon Green's books is looking for great literature, the one-dimensional quality of the characters in Demons are Forever grew tedious. None of the characters has any depth; you figure out what they are early on and they never surprise you. And they all feel like they come from the same molds as the Nightside crew.
I also object to the gratuitous introduction of a Deathstalker character. It was unnecessary and bodes poorly for future cross-series incursions. In my opinion this is a clear indication the series has "jumped the shark."

This is a rare mix of humor and perilous plot. If you don't like the sometimes broad and other times sly British humor you will not appreciate this book. I strongly suggest reading The Man With the Golden Torc (Roc Fantasy). This is an obvious send-up on Diamonds Are Forever (title nor the book). But Daemons from the Greek used by some Romanic poets to stand for the best and worst of our compulsions and in modern usage means a semi automatons computer program performing a closely related set of tasks. So the title is already humorous.

Eddie's new super car has a feature that even the Bond Movie guys would envy. It goes into overdrive and travels through parallel dimensions to get around obstacles. Molly is also a hoot as when she stated that she turned unpleasant members of his family into things and mentions the pheasants they had for dinner.

The characters are getting better and not unexpectedly Eddie's reform of the family leaves him in the unpleasant position of being in charge.

Excellent mix of peril and humor and the plot is excellent. Over all nice read. Although the presence of some characters from Green's other series can be a bit disconcerting. Bun Bear and The Sea Goat are not a problem nor is Merlin Satanspawn but Deathstalker fits in less that smoothly. Still very good and motivated.

BTW Melmoth the Wanderer (Oxford World's Classics) s considered one of the great horror stories by such luminaries as HP Lovecraft.

Yet another horrid cover. The opponent looks like a badly drawn Baneside or possibly a cowboy ghoul who died of a surfeit of lather fringes. And where Eddie got the radioactive copper gauntlet from is a mystery.

I always love Simon R Green's books. Nightside, Hawk and Fisher, does not matter. While at times the dialog is predictable it is usually really good. What I do not like is that now he has become popular enough and all the new books are published in hardback when all the others are paperback. Nightsides newest book prime example, I simply am not going to pay over $15 for a 250 page hardback.

As for this one, it is the normal story line, new leader messes up, everyone is against him and he pulls it out in time. The reason I gave it 4 stars is the same as the previous paragraph, the new characters and the dialog.

Entertaining read for anyone who likes off color humor and some really good lines.