City of Masks

Volume XXX / Issue 14 - December 8 / 2023

City of Masks

Author: 
Kevin Harkness
Series: 
A War of Banes & Demons; Bk. 2
Vancouver, BC: Shouting Room Books, 2023
378 pp., trade pbk., available on Amazon.ca
ISBN: 
9781778226267
Grades: 
Grades 7 and up
Ages: 
Ages 12 and up
Review by: 
Ronald Hore
3
Excerpt: 

Two ropy arms appeared in their lenses, tipped with nightmare claws. The creature walked on thin legs, oddly jointed things that carried it into the stone cut. Lord Kirel could see that its small black eyes never left the figure standing at the other end of the defile.

“What-what is it?” he asked and straightened to wipe his mouth and cough.

“What do you mean?” Tarock demanded, perhaps glad of the distraction. “It’s a demon, you idiot. If you mean what kind, I don’t know.”

“Silence!” Gost said. “And watch. It doesn’t matter what kind. If she can withstand the fear it casts and kill it, she can kill any kind of beast we bid her to.”

There was a hiss that reached up to where they stood arguing, and the three men returned quickly to the distance tubes. The demon snapped its mouth twice, twice, and charged the woman facing it. She stood, spear outstretched, still as the rock around her.

“Move, you fool,” Gost whispered, “or this is all for nothing.”

The story continues the adventures of a youth, Garet, now 18 and a junior member of the city’s demon-slaying banes, a story that began in City of Demoms. He is romantically involved with the girl, Salick, a higher-level gold-sash bane and a year older than he. The political infighting inside the city of Shirath continues with ward masters seeking to supplant the king, and a group of former Duelists now wearing protective masks in an effort to be able to match and replace the banes in slaying demons.
Feuds continue within the bane hall while Garet and his friends manage to uncover and break up the masked rebels. Garet develops a theory that the demons are being guided and these are not random attacks but an all-out war between demons and humans. When no one at the banehall listens to him, including Salick, and the decision is made to exile a fighter belonging to the masks to certain death, Garet leaves the banes and becomes an agent for King Trax to try and uncover the truth. The book concludes with a major battle where they defeat a large demon army, the king remains in charge, and sends out agents into the world to seek the truth, including Garet and Salick, reconciled and heading north.

City of Masks includes a list of the other books in the series, a one-page map of the lands, a four-page table of contents of the 35 chapters, and three pages with a list of the characters names, closing with an author’s note. All chapters begin with headings such as “Demon And Mask,” and “The Duties Of A Green”.

With detailed battles and adventures, and a touch of romance, City of Masks should appeal to readers who enjoy a fast-moving fantasy tale in a world with monsters, human villains, and the heroes who fight against them.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Ronald Hore has been involved with writer’s groups for several years. Under the pen name R. J. Hore, he dabbles in writing fantasy and science fiction in Winnipeg, Manitoba.