Title Demons Series --- Editor John Skipp Cover Art --- Publisher Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing - 2011 First Printing Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing - 2011 Category Anthology Warnings Horror themes, rape, possession, gore Main Characters See below Main Elements See below

• "Cherub" - Adam-Troy Castro
• "The Devil" - Guy de Maupassant
• "The Book" - Margaret Irwin
• "The Monkey's Paw" - W.W. Jacobs
• "The Hound" - H.P. Lovecraft
• "The Black Cat" - Edgar Allen Poe
• "The Devil and Daniel Webster" - Stephen Vincent Benet
• "Nellthu" - Anthony Boucher
• "The Howling Man" - Charles Beaumont
• "The Exorcist (Excerpt)" - William Peter Blatty
• "Hell" - Richard Christian Matheson
• "Empathy" - John Skipp
• "Visitation" - David J. Schow
• "Best Friends" - Robert R. McCammon
• "Into Whose Hands" - Karl Edward Wagner
• "Pilgrims to the Cathedral" - Mark Arnold
• "The Bespelled" - Kim Harrison
• "Non Quis, Sed Quid" - Maggie Stiefvater
• "Demon Girl" - Athena Villaverde
• "He Waits" - K.H. Koehler
• "Happy Hour" - Laura Lee Bahr
• "Staying the Night" - Amelia Beamer
• "Daisies and Demons" - Mercedes M. Yardley
• "And Love Shall Have No Dominion" - Livia Llwellyn
• "Mom" - Bentley Little
• "20th-Level Chaotic Evil Rogue Seeks Whole Wide World to Conquer" - Weston Ochse
• "Consuela Hates a Vacuum" - Cody Goodfellow
• "Out Blood in its Blind Ciruit" - J. David Osborne
• "Empty Church" - James Steele
• "Angelology (excerpt)" - Danielle Trussoni
• "The Coda of Solomon" - Nick Mamatas
• "The Law of Resonance" - Zak Jarvis
• "Stupid Fucking Reason to Sell Your Soul" - Carlton Mellick III
• "Halt and Catch Fire" - Violet LeVoit
• "Scars in Progress" - Brian Hodge
• "The Unicorn Hunter" - Alethea Kontis
• "Other People" - Neil Gaiman

2011 BRAM STOKER WINNER for Superior Achievement in an Anthology!

This mind-blowing anthology cracks open the lid on demonic lore, from the possessed to fallen angels and the Devil himself.

The next book in Black Dog's supernatural series, Demons presents thirty-six terrifying, tantalizing tales in which evil spirits wreak havoc on the world. Neil Gaiman, William Peter Blatty, Kim Harrison and Robert R. McCammon join H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Beaumont, Bentley Little, Maggie Stiefvator, Danielle Trussoni, David J. Schow, Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Christian Matheson, Adram-Troy Castro, Amelia Beamer, Cody Goodfellow, Carlton Mellick III, and dozens more, both old and new. Horror legend John Skipp, editor of Zombies and Werewolves and Shapeshifters, provides fascinating insight into the history and details of demon lore, and its role in popular culture. Between the extensive resource materials and the lovingly selected stories - ranging from fantasy, horror, paranormal romance, and magic realism to full-blown Bizarro - Demons is an indispensable text, and the most fun you'll ever have with the forces of evil.

Let's see if I can give a one sentence review of each story and at the end, will go over the whole.

"Cherub"- A good start to the anthology, though I didn't "get" the ending. Made me think of the Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series where one's soul (or dæmon) is a physical entity associated with you but still separate and visible to others.

"The Devil" - Not all devils are demonic...

"The Book" - Almost channeling Lovecraft where a book becomes all consuming to a human, driving him mad.

"The Monkey's Paw" - Oh...wow...I read this in high school and it creeped me out. Did a pretty good job of creeping me out this time too. Careful what you wish for!

"The Hound" - I'm in the process of re-reading Lovecraft this year so The Hound got read twice. Don't go mucking about with occult stuff, and whatever you do, if you dig up a grave, don't take anything!

"The Black Cat" - I tried reading this once before and didn't even try a second time, I just can't handle people murdering cats. Why? I dunno, you can kill as many humans as you like but cats seem more helpless somehow, and it's not like the cops will come after you so repercussions tend to be minor...except presumably in this case.

"The Devil and Daniel Webster" - Can a lawyer outwit the Devil?

"Nellthu" - Ah, this one was short but sweet, this is someone who knew the right words to bind her demon.

"The Howling Man" - Monks in some remote village have the devil in a dungeon, then he gets out, then he is caught again...didn't quite get it.

"The Exorcist (Excerpt)" - I dislike excerpts, there's no start, no real end. I've never seen the movie either, but might appeal to one who has and is wondering if they want to tackle the book.

"Hell" - Random? No demons, just some malicious humans? Or did I miss something? The weather was hot so maybe that is the hell reference?

"Empathy" - Personal demons, but handled in an interesting way

"Visitation" - A bit mind-trippy about how demons aren't real unless you can be tricked into believing in them.

"Best Friends" - Wow...very graphically violent. Demons climb out of a teenage boy's head, ransack the psychiatric ward and then crawl through the air vents to the maternity ward. Was actually kind of disturbing and creepy, though I was expecting more of a twist ending with people telling the psychiatrist that he imagined everything and the demon the thought he bludgeoned to death was actually...well I'll let you read it.

"Into Whose Hands" - "this subtle and knowing story spends its whole time sneaking up on you" is the intro...and unfortunately it was a little too subtle, a definite twist ending leaving me wondering what it all meant. Now a couple days later...maybe...just maybe, I might be getting something?

"The Pilgrims to the Cathedral" - I thought I wouldn't like it, you go along a long time without anything remotely demonic (though it is thoroughly sinful)...but that ending. It was horrifying and gross and disgusting and nightmare inducing...and yet it was weirdly good, and old drive through fighting to stay alive in the only way it knows how.

"The Bespelled" - you end up rooting for the demon in this one, as he goes through the process of acquiring yet another soul for his collection by manipulating his summoner.

"Non Quis, Sed Quid" - one of the few tales where a woman is knowingly dating a demon and enjoying it, but I have to admit, I read this maybe a week ago and I've mostly forgotten what happened and it's only two pages long!

"Demon Girl" - this was a cool twist on the coming of age tale, after all, demons presumably have to go through puberty too, and all the embarassing one's body does, and yeah, that loss of innocence thing tends to come along for the ride.

"He Waits" - I really enjoyed this one, girl meets a tall dark stranger. She later is kidnapped to be a sacrifce for a demon summoning which doesn't go quite as planned. There was something particularly sexy about this particular demon.

"Happy Hour" - Guy meets girl in bar. Guy tries to hit on girl. She warns him upfront there is something about her he should know before getting involved, she'd been possessed by a demon in the past. Guy thinks he should run from the crazy lady but can't helping wanting to know more.

"Staying the Night" - EEEEEEWWWWWWWW. Sexually transmitted worms that control your mind, GROSS! I need to wipe this story from my mind it icks me out so much.

"Daisies and Demons" - Two girls, best friends, one of whom recently became a demon (how? not sure, guess not important), her friend surprisingly calm about the situation, but nothing much seems to faze her, as they go together, with the demon girl's demon boyfriend to torment her ex.

"And Love Shall Have No Dominion" - No, no, no...super creepy, stalker, graphic rape from the POV of...well I guess he's a demon from the title of the book but he could be your plain old human psychopath too. Written in poor "internet" English, which made it even creepier.

"Mom" - You'd think this one would disturb me too, but all the guys have to do is kill their demonic mom. She never manages to possess them, or rape them, or any of the thing that happens female victims (see the story above), in fact I think was intended to have some humour in it as the brothers are resigned to killing their mom, over...and over...and over again (she gets reborn but crawling out the backside of a demon...ick)

"20th-Level Chaotic Evil Rogue Seeks Whole Wide World to Conquer" - the vampire babies were incredibly creepy but I really didn't get the "chaotic evil rogue" bit other than it was an excuse for the protagonist to deserve what he got, an evil wannabe.

"Consuela Hates a Vacuum" - a demon possessed vacuum cleaner, need I say more?

"Out Blood in its Blind Ciruit" - I didn't quite get this one...were there actual demons involved (other than the mother's summoning), or were the two Mexican cops just so messed up from dealing with all the human evil they started seeing supernatural stuff that wasn't there? I didn't get the point of it.

"Empty Church" - How better to know your enemy than to seek out the truth about him...they say the Devil attends chuch to learn more about God, even if no one else will listen (actually I thought some of the ideas of merging religion and science kind of interesting)

"Angelology (excerpt)" - I wanted to read this book this year, but the series isn't finished yet (and not sure it ever will be). This excerpt makes me hope it will be completed eventually.

"The Coda of Solomon" - Demons as business men, and the Demon of Lost Causes, and they always get you back

"The Law of Resonance" - Demon raising through modern electronics, just lay out your transistors into the right patterns and you can turn a group of women into a pack of pseudo-meanads. While the poor women are once again sexual victims, they kind of win in the end.

"Stupid Fucking Reason to Sell Your Soul" - I liked this one, from the ogre that comes to take you to hell inside of his gut, to the stupid reasons people will sell their souls

"Halt and Catch Fire" - Take a little of "The Book" and the electronics of "The Law of Resonance" and you have a housewife learning to use a computer that has, well, a daemon in it. I mean all computers do (along with bugs, viruses, zombies and oddly creepy stuff) but this one is a little more real than most.

"Scars in Progress" - Brian Hodge - this one was more eerie than scary, where strange men seem to lurk in places abandoned by us, just standing in wastelands, watching, and being watched

"The Unicorn Hunter" - A retelling of Snow White, but before she finds the dwarves she finds a demon, and helps him hunt and kill unicorns. Because the one is too evil and the others too good, and are messing with the balane of our world.

"Other People" - Gaiman has yet to disappoint me, this was dark, disturbing and with a twist that will go on forever.

I also really enjoyed the two appendices, the first covering the history of demons of how the Devil in particular evolved. Starting off as a kind of monster (like Dante's three headed beast that's just kind of stuck in the middle of Hell, unable to do anything), then people remembered he's actually a fallen angel so he became beautiful again (as in Milton's Paradise Lost), and at times, sometimes a sympathetic being that stood up to a God that permitted no free will (absolute good can be stifling and boring, just as absolute evil is not desirable). And then a review of demons in literature, film, and music. I may have to add a few more books to my to read list.

And on the whole, there were some I loved, some left me scratching my head, and some I hope to never read again.

One theme I did pick up on was how the demons interacted with humans depending on whether the victim was male or female. If female, the demon almost always posses her through sex, frequently rape. Not a single guy victim was sexually violated. The females also tended to attract the demon just by being the "weaker sex" while the guys usually had to do something to attract the demon's attention. And then the guy will often succeed in defeating the demon while the story doesn't end so well for the girls. Of course there are some bad-ass girls that take demon lovers and do well with it, but mainly the girls were victims and the guys the ones to swoop in and save them (even if the guy happens to be the demon). And even the bad-ass girls have to become a demon themselves to get vengeance on a bad boyfriend. I was a bit annoyed by all these authors, even female authors, where the girls get possessed (or do the possessing) almost exclusively through sex, but the guys, you know, get possessed by a book, or by stealing an occult item from a grave. They didn't even get seduced by a female demoness. I'm not usually so feminist about these things but this was pretty blatant and got a little repetitive reading the stories one after another. Sigh.

An interesting side story, Skipp wrote that he was frustrated in that another anthology, Sympathy for the Devil, came our first and already grabbed a lot of the stories he wanted to include here. At the same time, that forced him to reach out to authors and get new, original stories to include in his own collection. I actually had Sympathy for the Devil on my to read list, I just ran out of time to fit them both in. So now I look forward to another year, to read those tales Skipp wanted to include but couldn't.