Synopsis:
Gods rule this planet. Demons stalk its canyons while Kings beg for mercy. Can three mere humans rewrite its destiny?
The otherworldly religious conflict of Dune, the cosmic strangeness of Gideon the Ninth, and the heart-pounding action of Red Rising converge in this horror-tinged epic science fantasy debut.
Ysira Naktis was a human sacrifice, marked for death. Unlike the thousands ‘harvested’ each year, though, she did the unthinkable. She survived—and what she brought back with her could change the fate of worlds.
When Ysira’s estranged son is chosen to become the vessel of a god-killing demon, she is faced with a choice: allow him to harness cosmic power at an unspeakable cost, or doom millions to save him. She finds an unlikely ally in Brother Jacen Kheris, once a gifted exorcist, now a guilt-ridden addict, desperate for purpose.
From a demon-haunted canyon to a starbound satellite, they must battle their way through cultists, aliens, and the gods themselves. The truths they unearth are deeper and more sinister than anything they could have imagined.
In this cinematic thrill ride, Jesse Aragon plunges us into a world as intricate and inventive as it is brutal.
Review:
Don’t let it be said that Jesse Aragon’s debut novel, The Demon Star, isn’t ambitious. In fact, I daresay that it might be the most ambitious book I’ve read this year. I could feel Aragon swinging for the metaphorical fences with each twist and turn. For me, it didn’t hit each and every time, but this novel is certainly a major release to keep an eye on, especially as Aragon keeps writing installments in this series.
While The Demon Star will certainly be a must-read for a lot of readers, for me there is a little bit of a question about what kind of book it is.
It’s a Sci-Fi that feels like a Fantasy. Or maybe it’s a Fantasy with Horror vibes. Or perhaps it’s a Horror with Sci-Fi elements.
There are plenty of sci-fi tropes that Aragon works through while throwing jump scares and viscous bodily fluids at you all under epic fantasy “chosen one” themes. At times I kinda forgot what genre I was reading and maybe that’s a little bit on purpose. It didn’t confuse me necessarily, but if you’re looking for a pure sci-fi space opera, this definitely bleeds into other genres at times.
The novel is told mainly from the POV of two characters — Jacen, a priest who begins to question everything about what he believes; and Ysira, a woman who re-discovers a relationship with the son she gave up at birth. Their lives are intertwined in many ways, but these two are not romantic partners. Instead, they both provide outside viewpoints and insight in their own way when Ysira’s 12-year-old son is chosen as the host for a god.
Even in the publisher’s description, there are comparisons with Dune, Gideon the Ninth, and Red Rising, and I can see each and every one of those play out in the pages of The Demon Star. But here’s where I’ll add another — but one from the TV screen: Stargate SG-1. For most of the decade-long run of SG-1 as well as the original movie that inspired the sci-fi show, the antagonists were the Goa’uld, which were parasitic worms that burrowed into a person’s skull and attached to their brains. Once joined, a human and the parasite were more than the sum of their parts, but the Goa’uld often had longer lives and took multiple hosts over hundreds or thousands of years. As I thumbed through the pages of The Demon Star, there were a lot of reminders between the gods in Aragon’s universe to the false gods that the SG-1 team spent years trying to defeat.
Not to say it’s a copy and paste of Stargate. Aragon takes it in completely different directions and the stakes and consequences are much more dire and serious than the hour-long SG-1 typically presented, but even still, the comparison is apt.
I would definitely recommend The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon and am curious to see what she gives us next, no matter what the genre.
Thank you to DAW for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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