SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY
In a magical world, the residents are forced to entertain people from our world on events called “Pilgrim parties”. On these parties they are led through the towns where people play the part of warriors in massive battles and others play the villains to be defeated. A man and his family's lives are turned upside down when they are forced to organize these events and he has to play the role of the Dark Lord.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Derk is a wizard who attended university but hated it as he was mistreated. He lives on a huge property where he creates distinct animals like flying horses and pigs with wings. His main pride are his griffons who can speak and have human intelligence.
Blade is Derk's son. He wants to go to university even though his dad dislikes the idea. He ends up leading the tours as the pretend wizard, complete with fake beard.
Mara is Derk's wife. She is rather tolerant of her husbands eccentricities and treats the griffons like her own children.
Shona is Derk's daughter. She wants to go to Bard university and loves playing her violin and singing.
Kit is one of the many griffons that Derk hatched. He plays the biggest role of the griffons, helping Blade and Shona. He is rather rebellious and known for causing trouble.
Querida works at the university and is one of the many wizards involved with setting up the pilgrim parties.
Scales is a dragon that shows up at Derk's house and ends up playing an important role in the pilgrim parties.
Mr. Chesney is the man from our world demanding the pilgrim parties. He is incredibly powerful and not only demands the parties, but sends over convicts again their will to fight in the wars. He also requests certain party members get killed off. The source of his power is eventually revealed.
PACING
The pacing of the story is rather slow. There are lengthy detours where you get long history lessons about things that don't really matter. I didn't need to know about every animal that Derk had created, but we get a tour anyway. I didn't need to know about the priests story about seeing a god, but I got that anyway. There is so much excess in the story.
GRIFFONS ARE FAMILY
On the inside of the book, I read a summary asking what it would be like to grow up with griffons as brothers and sisters. I don't know what it's like. Because neither Shona nor Blade ever bring it up. There is no history of how they first got to meet a griffon. On how living with them was like, traveling with them, and how people thought of their strange family. How their relationship started and if it was ever strained. How did it effect the marriage? Did Mara think her husband was nuts? It was all left to my imagination.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS
There are so many griffon brothers and sisters that I cannot recall them all. I certainly can't recall what makes them different. I think there was one named Don, and one called Calette. I think Calette liked to build gadgets. There were also two other griffons named Lydda and Elda.
WORLD
The world is detailed to the extreme, being Jones' strong point. She creates a world with its own gods, demons, priests, universities and races. There are elves and even werewolves. It's easy to get lost in all of the details. From the way they used magic to stretch the house and the way that transporting from one area to another had a certain sound it left. Nothing is neglected.
DERK & MARA
In the beginning of the story, Derk mentions that he thinks his wife, Mara is going to leave him. And something about her borrowing money. But the thing is, there is no interaction between them to suggest such a thing. Although to be fair, there is not much interaction between them at all.
BLADE
Blade wasn't a very distinct character I am afraid. In the beginning we see the argument with him and his dad about university. And then he talks to his mom about it. And then he never talks about it again. Something that was painted as so important and the first thing we learn about Blade vanishes into the wind. He does mention about the name the oracle gave him in the beginning, and in the end we learn about who that is. But by then I forgot and no longer cared.
SHONA'S ROMANCE
Shona eventually meets a man from the pilgrim parties named Geoffrey. It's mentioned that the two take an interest in each other the moment they see each other. But we don't get one sentence of their relationship. We are just told they are in love.
Shona was already a two dimensional character and I was sad that I couldn't at least learn why she and Geoffrey got on so well. After all, Shona is certainly more of main character then the characters of Sukey and Reville. And yet they both get distinct personalities and character development, albeit not believable development, but at least they got some.
WHO'S THE MAIN CHARACTER?
I was kind of confused at the beginning, because we see everything from the University professor's perspective. When Blade and Derk were introduced, I didn't know if they were main characters or not. I kind of felt that they weren't important and that the whole set up was a mess.
I wish we had started the story from their perspective, living their own lives with their own troubles and then stumbled upon the professors. Even after we met them, Querida was often the perspective the story was told in. When Blade gets his own side story later I was surprised to see he was a main character too.
YOU SHOULD CARE
There are things throughout the story that I believe were supposed to be important. Like Kit learning that there are other griffons then him and his siblings, but they live in another land. Blade knows Kit will want to meet them. But I didn't know why.
There was no mention of the griffons being sad that they were the only ones of their type. I know I would be unhappy to learn I was a freak and there were no others like me. I might even resent my creator. But there is no mention of any such feelings.
FORESHADOWING
There are aspects of the story that fit together. Like the blue demon mentioned in the first few pages and then summoned by Derk. It ends up coming back in near the climax and being important.
We learn who Blade's magic teacher is supposed to be and learn at the end of the book.
Derk thinks that Mara will leave him and we learn out why she was acting that way (although the reader actually never gets to see her act any way) near the climax.
I GUESS HE KILLED HIM
A character who ends up being in league with Mr. Chesney is killed by a demon. But no one even blinks at the murder, thinking they could have stopped it or should have. The only thought it: “so that's how demons eat.” I found it kind of unsettling. Is murder wrong, or only when Mr. Chesney does it?
THE DEATH OF A FAMILY MEMBER
Derk witnesses one of his children die, but doesn't go to retrieve the body. I was left confused. No one could have died, I thought. There should have been a more emotional reaction; A longer scene. Something! In the end I just chalked it up to bad writing.
CLIMAX-SPOILERS
Chesney shows up and eventually a distraction is made, suggested by Reville (so he could swipe the demon in Chesney's back pocket). He is distracted by a stampede of animals and trapped like he trapped the demon.
CONCLUSION
The idea for the story is original but it just wasn't executed well. The world is overly detailed to the point where the characters are dull and unimportant. They not only have no personalities but no real relationships either. Certainly their relationships have no history. They just are. We get long scenes that have no real reason to be there, that just add unnecessary length to the story. I was 70% through the story and I just wanted it to be over. I give “The Dark Lord of Derkholm” two stars.
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