Review: The Demon's Lexicon, by Sara Rees Brennan

Stephanie Meyer seems to have plunged us all into a craving for YA Urban Fantasy with brooding, mysterious  males and teenage misfit heroines, and The Demon Lexicon delivers all this for us in a concise ( by Twilight standards) 322 pages.

As the book’s blurb tells us:

Sixteen year old Nick knows that demons are real. Magicians call up demons in exchange for their power. The demons can appear in any shape, show you marvels, promise you anything – until you invite them in and receive their mark. What happens next? First you get possessed. Then you die.

Nick’s been on the run his whole life, ever since his mother stole a charm from the most feared magician of them all, and the only person he trusts is his brother Alan. Alan’s just been marked by a demon. Only Nick can save him, but to do so he must face the magicians – and kill them. The hunt is on. And Nick’s going to discover things he never dreams were out there...

Nick is the original dangerous male: he has impenetrable, dark eyes and a lithe, muscular body and he can do things with knives and swords that would strike fear into a Samurai’s heart. Worse still, he feels no fear. Or pity. So, when his soft-hearted brother agrees to help pink-haired Mae and her demon-marked brother Jamie, he is disgusted.

Mae, however, is no Bella. She is a tough, feisty number, whose ability to look after herself is only marred by her inexperience in wielding weapons.  Indeed, the reader senses that she grows in stature as the novel progresses. And this may explain why the follow-up, The Devil’s Covenant, gives her the major role.  

From the beginning, you know that these two are destined for each other. But as the blurb indicates, this is no love story, rather a quest to save Nick’s brother Alan (and Mae’s brother, Jamie too). And as a quest, it works well. There’s no shortage of action, a fast pace and plenty of spooky, even stomach-churning scenes. (A particular favourite is when someone’s eyes turn to black beetles and run out of his eye sockets, down his body, and across the room to take a closer look at Nick!)

Nevertheless, love, in all its forms, is a powerful theme in the story. Alan’s love for Nick governs all his actions. Mae’s love for Jamie enables her to undertake tasks that horrify her. And clearly, love is the key to rescuing Nick when he discovers the secret his mother and brother have been keeping from him. 

And this was the one thing that bothered me: it seemed to me that Brennan had set up her world of magicians and demons so well that it is impossible to see a way out of Nick’s predicament at the end.  She has set herself a huge task in the sequel and I will be very intrigued to see if she can pull it off.

On set with Invasion of the Not Quite Dead

Date:                     Sunday 16^th August 2009

Place:                    A fruit farm in deepest Kent

Present:                AD Lane, 16 crew members, 4 actors, 11 extras, 1 actor’s girlfriend, and me

The weather could not have been better: the sky a deep azure blue, and the sun glistening on the newly applied fake blood.  A number of inhumanly pale farm labourers pick apples for their co-worker to sell to equally sickly-looking passers-by. Another labourer, in a boiler suit, gazes into the distance, the smoke from his cigarette swirling around his head and momentarily masking his peeling flesh.

And Vincent de Paula, Director of Photography, glides slowly past with his camera.

This is the first time AD Lane has sat in the director’s chair since graduation and you might have expected him to look a little nervous. Instead he seemed totally at ease, chatting happily with crew, and cast during the breaks, and introducing himself to each and every extra to ensure they felt comfortable. This is my only experience of a real shoot but I was struck by the overwhelming calmness of the proceedings. I had expected the long periods of hanging about, whilst equipment was set up, or cast walked through their part, but I was surprised by how polite everyone was even during the actual filming. It was all please and thank you and there was the most delightfully gentlemanly discussion between Director, Assistant Director and Director of Photography at the end of filming before the Assistant announced, almost apologetically, ‘I think that we have a wrap.’

Maybe this was the reason why Antony brought the filming in under budget and in less time than expected.  Another might be the commitment of everyone involved. You only had to listen into a tiny part of the chatter to realise that everyone there was a zombie freak. Take the young couple who had driven over two hours from Hertfordshire just to be extras. They get married in early September and yet they found time to take part. They get married in September and yet they have already invested £450 in the film and want to invest more when they know how much they have left after the honeymoon! And they didn’t even want a speaking role; they just wanted to be part of a zombie film. Now, that is true dedication and you have to believe, with that sort of support, Antony can’t fail.

So what of the trailer itself? I’m sworn to secrecy, and anyway I didn’t see the morning’s filming. But I can tell you it will feature the film’s heroes in Leslie Simpson and Efisia Fele (otherwise known as Fangoria’s Penny B Dreadful) along with the cigarette smoking zombie, Frank Jakeman.  Antony is hoping to get it out in time for Hallowe’en, preferably previewing it at a festival and you can be sure that it will raise more questions than it will provide answers. The intention is to keep the punters guessing right to the film’s release.

I’ll let you know when the trailer is available, but if you want to get a preview then you will have to dig into your pocket and sign up to one of Antony’s producer packages (http://www.theindywoodproject.com/). You too could be a zombie then, since all producers will be invited to be extras in the film itself.  Oh, and don’t think you need to be a zombie freak to be involved either. It turns out they really are a very friendly bunch with more than a slight penchant for Nice biscuits!

Tunbridge Wells Strikes Again

The idea for Strife was sparked off when I wondered what might follow if the bandstand disappeared overnight. Now a short story based on another of my Tunbridge Wells musings has been accepted for publication in an anthology for adults being published in November. The story, called the Rock House, is about a spooky house built into the rocks on an area of common land and the even spookier old lady who lives in it.

Tunbridge Wells common has a number of houses that are half built into the rocky outcrops that occur in the area and they have always struck me as incredibly magical-looking buildings. I'm sure no-one like my fictional old lady lives in any of them but I do wonder what sort of person could live in a house that seems to grow out of the living rock. Any ideas?