Knight of the Demon Queen

This is among my favorite fantasy novels. Ever.It does what I want speculative fiction to do: walk over edges. Yes, the characters are tortured. Yes, a happy ending is not (in this volume of the series) apparent. But this is not a nihilist book: always, in the background, we know that love and loyalty have importance to Hambly's universe. And the grit, the horror, provides a wonderful anecdote to all that Pollyannaish pap that's out there on the shelves.In addition, Hambly's background as a historian gives her the skills to write wonderfully grounded, believeable fiction. Her worlds work, from ecology to economy. Don't miss this one.

Yeah, the characters are sort of being tortured, but that's what makes the books so original: it's not the typical 'happy ending' fantasy book. Also, the heroes are not neccesarily dead, for each one there is the (slim) possibility of escape -- but what's the point in a world being controlled by demons? Everything is terrible, so you don't get that instant gratification. This series is the only truly dark and somewhat depressing fantasy series I've ever read. Sure, other series can feature demons and bad things happening to the main characters, but they always win in the end. I'm not quite sure what Hambly was thinking with the "Hell of Walls" (cyberpunk) section. I certainly found it interesting, albeit a little confusing. In conclusion, if you want to read a fantasy series which dares to defy the traditional cliches of young, innocent heroes and happy endings, read this.

I hope people read the reviews of this book, as opposed to just looking at the star count. The book is horribly, possibly too stark and pessimistic, but it is still well written and imaginative. Dragonsbane was not a walk in the park and this is going on with the waning world theme that pervades this series and the Darwath books. Fantasy is not always an escape.

You'll never get what you expect from a Barbara Hambly book. Perhaps this is why her books haven't degenerated into predictable series fiction. This is a case in point, as the continuance of her series seems likely to kill every character in it, or at least destroy them in other ways. John the Dragonslayer remains a vivid, honest character caught between his personal life and the open need of the starving and bandit-plagued Winterlands who depend upon Lord John to defend them. His mate Jenny is torn between her need for magic and her desire for a human life, and in the first book DRAGONSLAYER she found she needed both. DRAGONSHADOW saw Jenny possessed by a demon, whose addictive magic made her betray everything she loved and whose defeat left her a scarred, despondent cripple, yearning for the demon's touch. KNIGHT OF THE DEMON QUEEN drags John and Jenny behind it screaming into all the Hells that exist or that men can make for each other. She's rough on her characters, our Barbara. And on the basis of this book, I hereby promote Ms. Hambly to goddess, since the last thing I expected was a cyberpunk episode in a 'Dragon' book. I wish it was longer, but I'm glad I didn't have to wait 2 years for it; evens out in my opinion. But maybe I just can't resist a world in which heroic deeds tend to be done by men who wear glasses ...

During the past few years, Hambly has spent much of her time sending her characters to hell, sometimes figuratively (in her mystery series (Graveyard Dust, et al)) and sometimes literally, as in this series. Decades ago, many characters might have experienced such a journey, but most of them would emerge unscathed, except for the rare one such as Frodo. A more recent trend is to see how much damage, physically, emotionally, and mentally, a character can endure and yet return. While not completely dark as that, the separate travels of Jenny and John are something you would rather stay home and read about rather than experience yourself. The hells include the usual physical difficulties, but also the ones of figuring out who to trust, how to survive in different environments, and having to worry about personal survival, the survival of those that you love, and at the same time worrying about the future of the land that you live in.I cannot recommend that anyone start the series with this book. Knowledge of what happened before is vital. As it is, since it has been months since the previous book, trying to separate out the various minor characters and determining whether they are important enough to worry about and why, is very difficult.On the other hand, Hambly brings us, among her hells, a new world, a mix of Blade Runner with the cities of Walter Jon Williams, a place that is not our own, but one that might be one of our own future hells. That piece is very well done.I hope that Hambly can bring about a conclusion of all this in the next book. Besides the concerns we have for the main characters, the lights are going out across the land, even without this plague of demons. While I do not expect a solution to all the problems facing Jenny and John, some more immediate than others, it would be good to allow them some peace and a chance to regroup.