Jon Taylor’s Reviews > Between Two Fires > Status Update

Hell seems pretty rough.

Less keen on the doppelgänger stuff. Weird how I can deal with the monsters and demons but when the down to earth hero starts getting all magical, it’s a turn off. But we’re moving to the end now.

The nun-demon was especially creepy, the voice perfectly constructed deceiver as Satan would be. Noted also that she (it) was not described which was extremely effective.

It’s well paced - some huge, biblical battles followed by smaller more intimate moments of fantasy. The demons are spectacular - I like that Buehlman gives them the terrible majesty deserving of Satan’s warriors. There is no hint of irony or post-modernism as befits the tale.

The imagery is very powerful as this moves into the fantastic (or Biblical). The devils are truly horrific and disturbingly imaginative. Really excellent - wish all horror was this powerful and original.

Chapter about stories: what we want from them, what’s really there. Using them to sate our baser instincts and not for betterment. Should stories have lessons we can learn from them? Is the lesson in the eye of the beholder? Do we take what we want from them anyway?

The statues are horrifying. Real nightmare fuel. This is crying out to be a movie, I reckon. Scenes are fast and the plot moves along rapidly.