The Demon Awakens [Mass Market Paperback]

R.A. Salvatore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 1998

In THE DEMON AWAKENS, bestselling author R. A. Salvatore creates an astonishing new world for readers to explore--and an intrepid hero to lead the way: Elbryan Wynden, who must confront the dark tides of destiny in his epic search for justice and peace . . .

A great evil has awakened in the land of Corona, a terrible demon determined to spread death and misery. His goblin armies and fearsome giants ravage the settlements of the frontier, and in the small village of Dundallis their merciless attack leaves behind two shattered orphans: Pony and her lifelong friend, the youth Elbryan. Taken in by elves, Elbryan is raised to become a formidable ranger--a fateful role that will lead him into harrowing confrontation.

Meanwhile, on a far-off island, a shower of gemstones will fall onto the black sand shores. These heaven-sent stones carry within them an incredible power--the key to all that is good in the world and all that is evil, and it is up to one young monk to liberate them from the corrupt monastery that harvests them. Pray that they don't fall into the wrong, clawed hands . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The demon dactyl awakens in a mountainside cave on Corona populated by elves, goblins, humans, centaurs, and giants. When goblins destroy the village of Dundallis, orphaned Pony and her friend Elbryan survive. Aided by magically powerful gemstones, they fight to defeat the evil dactyl. Recommended for fantasy collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Salvatore's new saga opens in a volcano, with a "demon dactyl" awaking and sending out goblins to ravage the peaceful land of Corona. The scourge orphans young Elbryan Wyndon and the maiden Pony, and the two have to flee for their lives. Meanwhile, on a beach far, far away, multicolored gemstones rain down and prove to have enormous potential for both good and evil magic, depending on whose hands they fall into. After many peregrinations, Elbryan and Pony end up guardians of the gemstones, but that is only their first victory. Salvatore lacks the command of language and the humor of some other exploiters of the classic elements of fantasy, yet he lacks nothing in pacing and well-handled battle scenes. Morever, the extra elbow room he gives himself in this stout volume (and its probable successors) allows him to improve his characterization and world building. This is his most ambitious book to date; if it is not superlatively original, it is certainly very readable. Roland Green --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing; First Edition edition (November 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517287722
• ISBN-13: 978-0517287729
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (126 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,297,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

R.A. Salvatore has spent so many years winding himself into fantasy worlds that he's still trying to figure out how to unwind. He is the author of more than forty novels and more than a dozen New York Times best sellers, including The Two Swords, which debuted at or near the top of many best seller lists.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Fantasy Story, January 30, 2002

By 

Brian Smith (Oklahoma City, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Demon Awakens (DemonWars) (Mass Market Paperback)

I've been a Salvatore fan since I first read the Icewind Dale Trilogy, and I actually am enjoying this series a little more. The story follows Elbryan, a youth in Dundalis who is left orphaned after his town is sacked by goblins and giants, Pony, Elbryan's playmate and love interest who grew up with him, and Avelyn a monk studying the magic holy stones in the Abellican church. They all come together and must face off against an evil demon dactyl that is gathering an army of powries, which are evil bloodthirsty dwarves, goblins, and giants.

The transitions between each character work well by chapter, and you really end up caring about each of the main characters. The difference between this and the Drizzt novels is that all the charactes are vunerable. In other words, some of the characters you come to love may not last, let's just leave it at that.

The only problems are the usual problems with Salvatore's writing, overuse of certain words (ex. stoic, stoically...). It's a small price to pay for such a fun and exciting book. The holy stones make magic seem new and interesting also.

Definitely pick up this book if you have the chance, you won't regret it.

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacks sophistication to tackle raised themes, November 25, 2000

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Demon Awakens (DemonWars) (Mass Market Paperback)

The world grows corrupt and decadent, allowing the Dactyl to come back to life. In its hunger for pain and suffering, the Dactyl slowly gathers its evil throng, and finally erupts upon the unwary world in a titanic war of destruction. The reader follows the lives of the three heroes from adolescence through adulthood as they slowly realize that their goal is to warn (or, alternatively, save) the world. The one female and two male heroes are: Jylseponie (Jilly or Pony for short), a girl who loses her memory after her village is burned and ransacked by goblins; Elbryan ("Nightbird") the Ranger, who, having witnessed the same carnage as Pony, is trained by the elves to become an ultimate warrior; and, finally, Avelyn Desbris, a young monk with phenomenal magic powers who loses faith and escapes with a trove of magic stones, having witnessed the ultimate corruption of his order.

To put it plainly, Salvatore seems to lack the sophistication to properly exploit the complicated themes he raises (lost faith, long-lasting trauma, wanderlust, alienation, captivity), and because of this flaw the most involving aspects of the plot become mundane very quickly. An viable alternative would be to flesh out the dark, somber world of the Demon Wars saga, but it is not pursued. His world retains the feeling of modernism and rarely allows the reader to "immerse" himself in the reading. The reader is left dangling between the Scylla of a fragmentary world and the Charybdis of characters that grow flatter as the book progresses.

Although generally quick-paced, the chapters are frequently interrupted by overlong, overdescribed skirmishes, where each individual stike and parry gets its own sentence. Since very little imagery is involved, the skirmishes quickly lose individuality.

A long, fairly average read, the first in a fairly long series.

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Been There, Done That, March 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Demon Awakens (DemonWars) (Mass Market Paperback)

R.A. Salvatore offers us nothing new here - but then, he rarely does. I loved every page of The Dark Elf Trilogy and am a huge fan of Salvatore's TSR character, Drizzt Do'Urden. However, Salvatore's other offerings thus far have been lacking in creativity and originality (see The Crimson Shadow). The Demon Awakens gives us more of both - but that's not to say it doesn't have some redeeming qualities.

The main characters depicted here are Avelyn the renegade monk, an Elven-trained ranger named Elbryan, and the woman he loves, Pony, who has also suffered her fair share of trials and tribulations. The monk, Avelyn, is a delightful, interesting character while, as one might expect, the others add very little to the experience. Unfortunate in particular since the series focuses primarily on THEM. As for me, I think Elbryan is a Drizzt wanna-be with an attitude problem, and I only found him interesting in the early stages of the book when his Elven initiation is under way. All in all, he's one of my least favorite main characters of all time.

The story itself offers nothing overly exciting. The Demon Dactyl (give me a break) is taking over the world with his armies of Goblins and Giants from his volcanic lair (Mt. Doom, perhaps). If you've read one Salvatore battle scene between a ranger and a dozen Goblins you've read them all. Fortunately they are handled better here than deeper into the series when such encounters are mind-numbingly frequent.

All in all this book has its share of good traits, but almost all have a "been there, done that" effect on most readers. However, it IS worth a look to fans of fantasy and Salvatore, but it is the only effort in the Demon Wars series I would recommend at all.