Daemonomania

When this book came out, Bantam Publishing thought it would be a terrific idea to not mention that this was third in a series of books. As a result of this choice, the publication of this series has been erratic and relegated to smaller publishing houses that can not reach a broader audience. This is because people bought this book thinking it was a standalone, and were understandably confused when characters showed up whose background was given in previous books. Who is that? Why are they important? Pierce is writing a book? What is it about? What is all this stuff about Dee and Kelley communicating with angels? Why is he not explaining any of this? Indeed, the background ideas of there being multiple histories is hardly touched on in this book...I mean, the reader should all ready know this stuff after reading the previous two, right?

It's interesting, this development in Daemonomania's publishing history... namely because it does encompass quite a bit of what the book is about. The passage-time between histories is drawing to a close, where the old world and all the other possible worlds pass beyond man's kin and a new world is set into place. What determines which world comes into being and which fades into that misty nether-realm beyond the West? Why, choices that are often made without thought and knowledge of the consequences. Choices like not saying this book is third in a series of four...or taking six years to write this book after the considerably more successful Love & Sleep. It is only after making these choices that we discover what is exactly at stake, and as we fight for what we care for, we find that the possibilities and options that seemed once so plentifully available to us are inaccessible... or have now become impossible. Autumn has come, transitioning the world from the summer of possibilities to the cold winter in which no work can be done.

Magic is much more plentiful in Daemonomania than in the previous installments. And yet, the world seems much more real in the stoic sense than in previous installments as well. It becomes brutally apparent that all the magical possibilities, all the supernatural experiences will mean nothing if the world that comes into being after the passage time has no place for them.

This is a bleaker novel then the previous two. Not bleak in any overly violent or gritty way... but in the way life often is bleak. That forces beyond our control because, perhaps, of choices that meant more then we could have imagined were made by us or by those we wish to protect. Irreversible courses are set and a new world is made... paradoxically not according to our desires but definitely by our choices.