The End of the World

The End of the World by Den Patrick
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

The apocalypse is a serious business - all that death and destruction and, well, contemplating the end times stuff... which is all very well but sometimes what you really want is something a little light hearted and The End of the World by Den Patrick delivers this beautifully.

Spittleshite, a daemon who goes by the name Speight (or sometimes Luke) when he's wandering the earth (because, well, you just would, wouldn't you...) has, in his own words "been tasked with witnessing the destruction of one of the world's greatest cities, just to make sure everything goes to plan."

Unsurprisingly, not everything goes to plan. See, there's a girl. The kind of girl who will quite happily tell off the prince of hell and mace a daemon in the eye. The kind of girl who calls herself Candy and once upon a time used to date our beleaguered daemon protagonist, but then the end of the world got in the way. Well, that and Spittleshite chickening out about the whole love thing.

So, yes, end of the world aside, this is a daemon love story; a very funny daemon love story that sneaks disturbing images into your brain like a bling bedecked Lucifer and daemons in Hawaiian shirts and angels dancing on a pinhead to the tune of 'Can't Get You Outta My Head'. (The horror!) It occasionally dives down to the type of humour that'll make you roll your eyes (Spittleshite is joined by daemonic colleagues Rigorprick and Bumblefuck) but whether or not you like that kind of thing, this still remains a story that'll leave you grinning. Great fun.

The End of the World can be found in Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin. Pandemonium is available in eBook format from here and as a bonus, a portion of the proceeds go to the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

More about Den Patrick can be found on his website here.