The Demi-Monde: Book One in the Demi-Monde Saga

by Rod Rees

Overview

“You can’t help getting caught up in the smartly-paced story…which is served up with lashings of steampunk relish.”
—SFX (UK)

“Rees makes the book work: the world he’s created is a psychopathic nightmare.”
—The Guardian

In the Demi-Monde, author Rod Rees has conjured up a terrifying virtual reality, a world dominated by history’s most ruthless and bloodthirsty psychopaths—from Holocaust architect Reinhard Heydrich to Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisition’s pitiless torturer, to Josef Stalin’s bloodthirsty right-hand man/monster, the infamous Beria. The Demi-Monde: Winter kicks off a brilliant, high concept series that blends science fiction and thriller, steampunk and dystopian vision. If Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, James Rollins, and Clive Cussler participated in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, the result might be something akin to the dark and ingenious madness of Rees’s The Demi-Monde: Winter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062210814
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Pages:	517
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Rod Rees has built pharmaceutical factories in Dhaka, set up a satellite communication network in Moscow, and conceived and designed a jazz-themed hotel in the U.K. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Daventry, England, with his wife, Nelli, and their two children.

What People are Saying About This

James Rollins

“Explosively creative barely defines Rod Rees’s The Demi-Monde Winter. It blew me away as the novel skated on the razor’s edge between where we are today and where we’re headed tomorrow. As much a cautionary tale as a gripping thriller cut from a digital cloth.”

Editorial Reviews

Explosively creative barely defines Rod Rees’s The Demi-Monde Winter. It blew me away as the novel skated on the razor’s edge between where we are today and where we’re headed tomorrow. As much a cautionary tale as a gripping thriller cut from a digital cloth.” — James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Colony

“Strong characters, along with the clever interweaving of seemingly disparate plot threads, make this a standout selection for fans of high-tech sf and cyberfiction.” — Library Journal.com (starred review)

“Novel and fresh….An adventure tale wrapped in a computer simulation.” — Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“A brilliant, high concept series that blends science fiction and thriller, steampunk and dystopian vision. If Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, James Rollins, and Clive Cussler participated in Suzanne Collins’s THE HUNGER GAMES, the result might be something akin to the dark and ingenious madness of Rees’s THE DEMI MONDE: WINTER.” — BookReporter (starred review)

“Elegantly constructed, skillfully written, and absolutely impossible to stop reading.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Superb….Such an inventive world is engrossing on its own, but the wildly unpredictable plot and characters make for plenty of surprises and twists.” — Wichita Eagle

From the Publisher

Novel and fresh….An adventure tale wrapped in a computer simulation.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

A brilliant, high concept series that blends science fiction and thriller, steampunk and dystopian vision. If Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, James Rollins, and Clive Cussler participated in Suzanne Collins’s THE HUNGER GAMES, the result might be something akin to the dark and ingenious madness of Rees’s THE DEMI MONDE: WINTER.

BookReporter (starred review)

Superb….Such an inventive world is engrossing on its own, but the wildly unpredictable plot and characters make for plenty of surprises and twists.

Wichita Eagle

Explosively creative barely defines Rod Rees’s The Demi-Monde Winter. It blew me away as the novel skated on the razor’s edge between where we are today and where we’re headed tomorrow. As much a cautionary tale as a gripping thriller cut from a digital cloth.

James Rollins

Elegantly constructed, skillfully written, and absolutely impossible to stop reading.

Booklist (starred review)

"Elegantly constructed, skillfully written, and absolutely impossible to stop reading."

Booklist

"A brilliant, high concept series that blends science fiction and thriller, steampunk and dystopian vision. If Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, James Rollins, and Clive Cussler participated in Suzanne Collins’s THE HUNGER GAMES, the result might be something akin to the dark and ingenious madness of Rees’s THE DEMI MONDE: WINTER."

BookReporter

A computer simulation intended to train soldiers for the unique conditions of urban warfare, the Demi-Monde is a miniworld in a state of constant civil war, its various sectors ruled by "Dupes," personalities drawn from the most nefarious names in world history. When the U.S. President's daughter, Norma Williams, becomes trapped in the Demi-Monde, a young jazz singer named Ella Thomas accepts the assignment to enter the computer-generated world to rescue her. But when Ella stumbles upon a plot to merge the real world with the Demi-Monde, her mission suddenly expands from a simple retrieval to the survival of the real world. Rees's debut mirrors Tad Williams's "Otherland" series in using a virtual world setting, but incorporating historical events and personages as building blocks of that world adds a freshness to this story. VERDICT Strong characters, along with the clever interweaving of seemingly disparate plot threads, make this a standout selection for fans of high-tech sf and cyberfiction.

Library Journal