Samhain Publishing, $2.50, ISBN 1-59998-550-0
Fantasy Romance, 2007

I think I am missing a lot of details when it comes to To Summon a Demon. Is this part of a series? Because while I can understand the main story line here, I am still missing out on many fundamental information about the characters, premise, and such.

This story is pretty much that of a foolish twit named Inaeus who spent two years turning his back on Conde, the woman he loves, because he believes the League Council when they claim that Conde summoned and set loose a Demon (capital D, folks) onto the world. Well, a Demon is on the loose at that moment and Conde is back, so once again Inaeus has to figure out where his loyalty lies even as he tries to stop this particular Demon.

Inaeus is particularly dense here and I don’t think he will last long even in a spelling bee, but at least he is smart enough to accept the truth when it’s beaten into him, I suppose. Like him, I have no idea what Conde sees in him. Maybe she likes them brawny rather than brainy.

The idea in this story isn’t bad at all. There is nobility, love, and some rather effective melodrama. But I have no idea what the League Council is. Or what the Crystal, the source of contention between Conde and the League Council, really does. Or – this one really perplexes me – what happens towards the end when the bad guy turns into peanut butter and jelly. The ending is so anticlimactic, I can hardly believe Ms Knox thinks that it is good idea.

I like the idea, the setting could be interesting, but the end result of To Summon a Demon is too underdeveloped to be of much use. Shouldn’t stories like this one be better off adapted and expanded as a monthly series in a fantasy magazine or something?