In the fantasy story ‘The Demon of Windhelm’, author Daniel Madden takes us on a quest to answer just such questions. However, as befits a swords and sorcery adventure, it’s not just puberty that the protagonist must contend with. The author fairly buries the main character under a mountain of woeful baggage.

Coming of age can be intimidating at the best of times. Burdened by all kinds of changes in yourself and your perception of the world around you, it’s common to feel alone and isolated. If only you could shed your new uncomfortable skin and return to the familiarity of a safe and loving childhood.

But what if you realise there is nothing to return to? What if there is no-one you can trust to help you? Nowhere you can run and hide from the angst and tension building within?

How would you cope when you feel adrift and drowning in a cold and uncaring world?

It’s bad enough being an orphan with an unknown past and a dark brooding secret that nobody, least of all you yourself, knows about or understands. Imagine adding to this: the dubious blessing of an untrained gift for elemental fire magic; a sheltered but unloving monastic upbringing; both demonic and angelic possession at the same time; the sudden terrible destruction of the only home you’ve ever known; the passing of your death sentence. All together, our hero might well be justified in just curling up and dying in the still smoking ashes of his once thriving rural home town.

Young Daelin is, however, made of sterner stuff and instead, gets up, dusts himself off and sets out single handed on the quest of a life time, all his magical and mystical baggage in tow. Along the way he meets a typical cross section of odd ball fantasy characters:

…a whirlwind adventure of tense self discovery…

Disappointingly, the narrative’s potentially greatest source of inner tension and discovery (the fact that Daelin is possessed by some kind of demon) is revealed with little effort almost at the very start of the book, it’s even placed front and centre in the book’s description. Then, thanks partly to the narration being in first person past, what ensues is less of a whirlwind adventure of tense self discovery and more of a flaccid trudge through the author’s fantasy world. Basically, if the protagonist has survived to be able to recount his own story at some future date, we needn’t worry about any challenge he faces because, whatever happens, he obviously succeeds in the end.

Not only is the progress of the story quite slow in places, but I found the author’s style of prose to drag quite a lot too. Descriptions were often unnecessarily detailed and the principle connection to any character’s mental state came by way of rather awkward disembodied exposition rather than witnessing the expression of their emotions through dialogue or action. Add to this the frequent typographical errors and the occasional hiccup in the continuity and my enjoyment of this potentially 4 star story ended up sinking to just 3 stars over all.

Though there is some rather graphic violence and mild nudity, the main character remains, despite sufficient temptation, determinedly a-sexual throughout the whole book. Coupling this with the protagonists youth, perhaps teenage readers with less sensitivity to the quality of the prose might really enjoy this yarn.

If you do decide to give it a try, please leaving a short comment to let me know what you think about my review.
Even better, if you have already read it, let me know if you agree with my assessment or if you think I have grossly misrepresented something, but do remember NO SPOILERS! We don’t want to ruin it for others.

Find out more about Daniel Madden and his books at:

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