A review by geofroggatt
Bec by Darren Shan

3.0

As demonic Fomorii ravage their land, Bec and a band of warrior companions leave their devastated rath to answer a plea for help. An orphaned priestess-in-training, Bec hopes the journey will help her solve the mysteries of her birth. But fighting demons has a steep price. This book was initially hard for me to get into because of the setting. It's the fourth book in the series, but the first chronologically. Darren Shan's Demonata series is interesting in the way that it can be read in almost in any sequence and the books are able stand on their own in the beginning. Bec takes place in 5th century Ireland, the same time St. Patrick is working to Christianize the area. Bec is a good book, different from the others, a prequel of sorts, very high in fantasy level. While the others were in more modern times and touched by our world, this one is instead high fantasy, in a desolate world not our own, one which follows different rules for the demon world. It introduces the concept of chess in the book (kind of) or Lord Loss's beginning interest in it. It did occur to me I need to read these closer together, or else I'm going to start getting them confused. Each book so far is with different characters, order of events and time settings. As before there's a decent offering of violence and gore level for this age group, and Shan doesn't hold the punches back when it comes to displaying his creative mind and his knack for writing inventive fiction. Understandable enough as a standalone but confusing with how it ties into the other stories at first. I liked the way that some of the mythology is expanded upon retroactively.