Magic, sorcery, demons, fairytale creatures, swordplay, and much more permeates The Demon Wars Saga, another creation of noted author R.A. Salvatore that’s both masterful in its delivery and addictive since each book will easily keep a person flipping the pages to see what comes next. Spanning across seven books, the story takes the reader through a tale that begins with a young boy, Elbryan Wyndon, and his friend Jilseponie, who survive an attack on their home of Dundalis after it’s sacked by monstrous creatures. While Elbryan is taken in by an elfin race called the Touel’alfar, Jilseponie is raised in the city of Palmaris. While these two main characters seek out their destinies, a young monk by the name of Avelyn enters the service of St. Mere Abelle of the Abellican Church, a dominant force in this story, and home to the monks that hold the precious gemstones that are a huge part of the story due to their different powers and properties, as each one is specially prepared after a group of monks travels to a secret island to harvest these ‘gifts from God’ after they call from the sky.
Avelyn is kind of an oddity since he doesn’t really fit in with his fellow monks, but he’s particularly strong when it comes to the use of the gemstones, and his fighting skills are adequate enough that by the time he meets Elbryn, who has become a full-fledged Ranger under the guidance of the Touel’alfar, he can take on the hardened young man despite his portly appearance. In this world, the monks are renowned for their fighting skills as well their supposedly pious nature, and of course, their ability to use the precious gemstones. As one might expect though, the stones can be used by anyone that can tap into the power they hold, but the monks covet the stones in a very big way, as they actually punish anyone that’s caught with them outside of one of their abbeys. The land of Corona is in danger from the first book onward, however, as the ancient enemy known as the demon dactyl, a creature of immense power, has awakened, and is summoning every dire creature and foul beast it can find to do his bidding.
From giants to powries, dwarf-like creatures that wear berets dipped in the blood of their enemies, the enemies of the people of Corona, humans and elves alike, gather to destroy everything they see, as the demon dactyl is a creature of chaos and destruction. Despite being destroyed, at the expense of Avelyn, in the first book, the dactyl’s influence is felt through the rest of the story as the creature’s spirit latches onto a high-ranking monk of the St. Abellican church, and from there latches onto Jilseponie’s son, Aydrian, and begins to influence his actions as he grows to manhood. At one point Elbryan dies after incurring too much damage at the hands of the monk, Marcalo D’Unnero, an old enemy that knew and trained with Avelyn and has a cruel streak a mile wide. This character actually continues on until nearly the end of the story, when he’s finally best by Jilseponie, who learns how to fight throughout the story and becomes as much of a legend as her late husband, Elbryan.
By the time a reader reaches the final book, Immortalis, the story has reached a fever pitch and has become so addictive that many people have admitted that they didn’t want to put it down. One thing to say when it comes to the thought of turning this saga into a series though is that it might take the act of sinking right into the action to get the attention of the people, especially since it would give them a reason to keep watching. There are moments in this saga when things slow down to a crawl, as is to be expected since like all stories there does have to be a certain amount of exposition if the audience is to understand what’s really going on and how they’re supposed to feel about certain characters and situations. The main characters need to be presented front and center most times in order to make it clear who the story is about, but the story still needs to show them traversing the world they live in to showcase the wonders of Corona.
As far as the secondary characters that are to be found throughout the story, such as a centaur that interacts with Elbryan, and the various elves that are a bit hostile at times but are still enigmatic enough to be seen as useful, it would definitely be important to get them as accurate as possible. Not only would this continue to flesh out the story, but it would give the saga the personality that it really needs to prove that it can become a favored series among fantasy fans.
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