Lord Loss (Book One of The Demonata): Book 1

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While confronting Lord Loss, Dervish is constantly distracted from his chess match as Grubbs is unable to fight off the two familiars. Dervish finally uses magic to save Grubbs, but Lord Loss sees this as breaking the rules of the game and is about to let his familiars kill Dervish, Grubbs, and Bill-E. However, Dervish is able to convince Lord Loss to let Grubbs finish the chess game, while he battles the familiars. A terrified Grubbs then makes a bad game worse. Then Grubbs realizes that Lord Loss is feeding on his despair and then decides to play with an aloof attitude. This throws Lord Loss' concentration, allowing Grubbs to win the game. Lord Loss then cures Bill-E, but someone must battle him in his realm. Grubbs offers to go, but Dervish refuses to let Grubbs fight and goes instead. Dervish leaves to the Demonata universe, leaving Grubbs behind with Bill-E. Grubbs lies to Bill-E, telling him that Dervish used a calming spell to try to cure his lycanthropy. Grubbs figures that it's better for Bill-E to believe that Dervish is his father, since his real father is dead. Fourteen months later Grubbs has been caring for Dervish in his zombie-like state, also dealing with the fear that he'll turn into a werewolf. One morning, Grubbs wakes up to find blood under his nails and hair in his teeth. Thinking that he has turned, he prepares to call the mysterious Lambs Dervish told him about, to kill him before he does any harm. As Grubbs reaches for the phone he hears someone call his name. Turning to look he sees Dervish, with his senses regained, holding a tin of paint and a woollen scarf. The book ends with Dervish saying, "The look on your face!" Although not the most frightening of books it was certainly spine tingling, I'm not easily scared but the book managed to create such realistic visions of the demons in my mind, even the finest of details being given to us by the narator - Grubitsch 'Grubbs' Grady. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, particularly if the others are as brilliant as this! In Lord Loss, the title character is first seen killing the family of our protagonist, Grubbs, accompanied by Vein and Artery. Using his power to cure lycanthropy, a game of chess is instigated against him by Dervish. Dervish rushes to save Grubbs when he's threatened, then Grubbs takes his place and makes a bad game worse. But once he notices that Lord Loss is feeding off his misery and desperation, he puts on a disinterested façade and storms to victory. Because of Grubbs' insults to both the game of Chess and Lord Loss himself, Lord Loss vows to make the Gradys suffer, a vow that intensifies in venom as the series progresses.

I can beat just about anyone my age - I've won regional competitions - but I'm not in the same class as Mum, Dad or Gret. Gret's won at national level and can wipe the floor with me nine times out of ten. I've only ever beaten Mum twice in my life. Dad - never. But it's not like I can tell her, is it? I can't pipe up with, "Oi! Mother! You're disgracing us both, so shut yer trap!" The family skips town(reason, as always, unspecified) and settles into a village. All's well until Kernel meets Mrs.Egin, a bitchy witch. She blabbers stuff about some demon thief and goes bonkers. The thing about Darren Shan that I appreciate is that the child characters are not sanitised little genius saints who are basically mouthpieces for the author's agenda. They are not mouthpieces to tell kids what the author believes is wrong with the real world now, like so many YA books are right now. These are children who can be rude and are boisterous, they can be annoying and selfish, but they are all relatable. Not out there to flatter the kids and tell them what to think. As a massive fan of the Darren Shan saga I had high expectations for this series, I was pleased to discover that the first book - Lord Loss well and truly lived up to all of these! A suprise in a way that it was so uniquely different from everything I have ever read that I found myself reading it entirely through in the one sitting. I was not able to put it down. I must say, I do still find that my favorite of Darren Shan's series is The Darren Shan Saga, but only one book in it would be a little biased of me to be saying this. At the moment, I will be most certainly rushing out to buy the books after this one, a deffinant must-read for all fans of horror.I smirk at the thought, and of course that's when Mum pauses for the briefest of moments and catches me. "What are you grinning at?" she roars, and then she's off again - I'm smoking myself into an early grave, the school's responsible, what sort of a freak show is Mr. Donnellan running, la-di-la-di-la-di-bloody-la! Lord Loss is a young adult book, so it’s got all the YA stuff that you’d expect—Grubbs trying to fit into his new school, making friends, struggling with the trauma of what happened to him. There are problems with the book, Darren Shan struggles in places to write dialogue for a young teenager, for instance, but I found myself overlooking these issues. That’s in large to the characters and the world that he created. I wanted to write something terrifying, I wanted that the people who read it would be so scared that it would make them develop a trauma about zombies, and wouldn’t be able to sleep for days! Smoking's dumb," he says. We're in the kitchen (I haven't been out of it since Mum dragged me home from school early, except to go to the toilet). "It's disgusting, antisocial and lethal. Why do it, Grubbs? I thought you had more sense." The Demonata series has a great plot with memorable characters and surprising twists along the way.

Regardless of the flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and I think, even if you haven't read the first book, you could easily enjoy it and understand it to a good degree. AND PLEASE DONT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU HAVE EXTRAORDINARY IMAGINATION SKILLS AND HATE A MASSASCRE OF A FAMILY Grubbs Grady - on his way out? A deadly disease I caught on holiday? A brain defect I've had since birth? The big, bad cancer bug? I can tell there are complicated intricacies waiting in further sequels. This one kept it a little simple for effect and establishing structure. There were twists and surprises as they are slowly unveiled, but nothing too stunning. I finally figured out where the chess came into play - interesting stuff. I dug the idea of the family curse, the magic use, and the ties with the demon master Lord Loss. Darren Shan does an amazing jobs with his books. Each one of his book is literally a movie running in your head. His description of everything in the book is great. He's always outdoing himself and never lets us down. This book is just another great story into his series.First thing first, don’t read this review if you haven’t read Lord Loss by Darren Shan. Lord Loss is a wonderful, horror filled novel and this book I’m reviewing is its sequel, so go read the first! Do you think it's clever? Filling your lungs with rubbish, killing yourself? We didn't bring you up to watch you give yourself cancer! We don't need this, certainly not at this time, not when - " What's wrong, Gretelda?" I giggle, fending her off, calling her by the name she hates. She normally calls me Grubitsch in response, but she's too mad to think of it now. Kernel then shows Beranbus how, when concentrating on making portals to anything that's with them, the lights don't pulse. For anything that's not with them, the lights pulse. When concentrating on the promised piece of the weapon, the lights don't pulse, and Kernel concludes that the piece of the Kah Gash must be him. Trust me. It's gory and gross. I would never recommend this book to my lil bro. And I've hidden the ebook deep inside the PC so that dad doesn't accidentally find it or worse... read it. Dad hates violence, I can't watch horror movies, play utterly gory games or read stuff on that when he is around

That changed utterly and completely over the next year and a half, as I was led on a bizarre and unorthodox chase through my imagination and an ever-expanding universe of demonic ideas. By the end of it, I was looking at a 10 book, tightly interconnected, non-linear, ultra-ambitious series about demons, magic, and the origins of life, the universe and everything -- but more about that later! Your loss." Dad clears his throat. "The ballet's out of town and finishes quite late. It will be easier for us to stay in a hotel overnight." I shrug wordlessly. What's there to say? They're being unfair. Of course smoking's dumb. Of course it gives you cancer. Of course I shouldn't be doing it. But my friends smoke. It's cool. You get to hang out with cool people at lunch and talk about cool things. But only if you smoke. You can't be in if you're out. And they know that. Yet here they stand, acting all Gestapo, asking me to account for my actions.

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There are some disturbing/violent scenes throughout which are described in great detail so if you really hate gore I'd suggest skipping, but if you don't particularly mind gore I'd give it a go as it does feature a good story. Lord Loss is the first novel in the Demonata series written by best-selling teenage horror author Darren Shan. It was originally published in the UK on 6 June 2005. Soon after, it appeared in Japan and America, where Shan's previous series, The Saga of Darren Shan, had sold millions. The novel is set in Ireland and is told in present tense first person through Grubbs Grady, a child whose family are all chess players. Aaaaand... LORD LOSS, the Demon Lord. I personally think that he resembles Voldemort in the way he speaks, calm but harsh. There's violence and gore - from someone dead being used as a finger puppet, to beheadings, and even a bizarre story about the original owner of the house getting rid of a baby he didn't want by feeding it to his pet piranhas. It's not continuous, but it's brutal in the scenes which are meant to be horrifying. Of course these scenes hold up strong in their tensions. You never know what the author will pull out of his hat, after all. This is a fast paced story of Kernel, a kid who can see lights and can move them and everyone thinks he’s mentally ill for that. The true reason of the lights is because he can open windows to different universes and access through them. That’s how he discovered the universe of demons, better known as The Demonata.