God's Demon

To go from seeing the splendor of God to descending into the pit of Hell would be an eye opening moment that I would wish upon anyone. The image of Hell that is conveyed in God's Demon is so horrible and twisted, but it seems so architecturally beautiful at the same time. The story is written by Eligor, Captain of the elite squadron of the Flying Guards. His story begins from the point of the Fall from Above, the costly mistake of choosing to side with Lucifer in the battle against God.

Eligor rose up from the field where he fell, next to Sargatanas, a seraph now turned Demon Major. Sargatanas as the Demon Lord of the area, with Eligor and his squadron as his personal flying guards, they begin building the city of Adamantinarx-on-the-Archeon. The palace was built using the earth they had landed on, but the rest of the buildings and roads were made of soul bricks. Soul bricks, humans who had fallen into Hell, the pond scum under the hooves and talons of their demon masters, formed into bricks, still alive and ever aware with their eyes watching and blinking. The souls were also skinned for their hides, and fashioned into demon clothing. Other souls become books, when their glyphs were activated, they recited the contents of the pages within.

Sargatanas was the most angelic of the Demon Majors. While he conformed with the rest of Hell, Sargatanas treated his minions with more respect and dignity than the other Demon Majors, especially Beelzebub. Prince Beelzebub, The Fly, is the Lord of Dis and ruler of Hell in Lucifer's absence. Sargatanas, remembering his time spent Above, is against all the pain and anguish Beelzebub brings, and grows restless in his position in Hell. Then the decision is made to see if God can forgive even a fallen angel, and Sargatanas will bring about the rebellion in Hell to see Beelzebub destroyed. Even the very bricks themselves will fight for the cause, for it brings the possibility of going to Heaven.

Wayne Barlowe does such great imagery in God's Demon, Hell is the most hideously beautiful place. I would never want to live there, or even have a summer home there, but to immerse myself in Hell through Wayne Barlowe's words for a small fraction of time was quite nice indeed. There are 2 minor points that slightly irritated me though. In the first several chapters, the passage of time is slightly confusing. What seems like a week or a day in the beginning is actually centuries. Shortly into it the timeline does even out and we're not skipping years upon years at a time. Also here are 3 or 4 'A' names that are so similar in text that if you're not careful its easy to get them confused. I did google Barlowe to see if theres another book after God's Demon. Instead I found this, artwork depicting the images he set forth on paper. Enjoy.