The Demon Apostle by R. A. Salvatore is the final book in the First Demonwars Trilogy and the third book in the Demonwars Saga. It continues the story of Elbryan and Jilseponie as they continue fighting against Abbot Dalebert Markwart and the forces of the Abellican Church. The story opens with Jilseponie struggling to accept the events of the previous book that ended with the tragic death of her adoptive parents, more specifically she is struggling to control her overwhelming anger and hatred towards Markwart. Elbryan is struggling in his attempts to help Pony as he is often lost as to what she needs or how to help her. On top of this they are splitting up for the first time since their reunion in the first book as Elbryan leaves Caer Tinella to help resettle the Timberlands and the town of Dundalis while Pony heads south to Palmaris to keep an eye on the Abellican Church. In doing so Pony knowingly refuses to tell Elbryan she is pregnant until they reunite the next spring. Tied in to this we see Roger Lockless and Brother Braumin Herde struggle to get the truth out of the Abellican church about the fate of Master Jojonah and the past history of the church and the magic stones. Eventually this all conspires to bring a confrontation between Elbryan, Pony, Roger, Brother Braumin and others against the forces of the Abellican Church while the King of Honce-The-Bear watches.
Much like with the previous books I was fascinated by the depictions of the various characters as they struggle to determine what is the right thing to do. Pony, in particular, struggles with this as she faces her often overwhelming anger and hatred towards the church. At the same time she is in Palmaris and sees what they are doing firsthand but struggles to understand why the other citizens and common folk don’t wish to fight the church. There are several scenes where she fights with friends of hers over this idea. Many of them are fine with the status quo as long as the church is not targeting them. As some of them explain, they don’t know those people so why should they help them. Only later when it starts to directly affect them do they feel the need to do something and in doing so reveal that they are somewhat shamed for not having done something earlier. I think this is something that many people deal with in some way. The term for it is the bystander effect, where the bystanders don’t feel the need to interfere because it doesn’t directly affect them and they think that someone else will do something about it. Honestly, I think it is a tricky subject but one that was dealt with very well in the book. I say this because there are also several scenes where Pony has to face her anger and hatred toward the church and decide if she is acting against them for the right reasons or if she is letting her anger blind her. There are times where that happens and she ends up having to face the consequences of that happening. Ultimately though Pony ends up growing from those encounters and by the end of the book she is working to control her anger enough to not act irrationally. She stills has problems though and a long way to go before she has healed from what has happened. I would give this book a solid four out of five stars.
Much like with the previous two books in the series I would recommend this book to others. Especially those who are fans of the fantasy or sword and sorcery genres. I will say that this book deals with potentially difficult topics as I’ve already indicated, among which are extreme anger issues and facing combat while pregnant in addition to the general fight scenes present in the entire series so far. Don’t let those issues stop you from reading it though as the book was really good. It is definitely going on my “I will probably reread it in the future” list. Yes, I have such a list, among others. Moving on though I genuinely think that it was a good book and that many people would enjoy it. If you happen to have read this book or the previous ones in the series feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks.