The Barnes & Noble Review
English author Simon R. Green's popular Deathstalker saga (Deathstalker Rebellion, Deathstalker War, et al.) -- a deliciously over-the-top space opera that features larger-than-life characters like Owen Deathstalker, Hazel d'Ark, Captain John Silence, and Jenny Psycho -- comes to its climactic conclusion in Deathstalker Coda, in which Owen and his last living descendant must save humankind once and for all.
While young Lewis Deathstalker, a descendant of the legendary "savior of humanity," fights to overthrow a tyrannical emperor who murdered practically the entire Deathstalker clan, Owen Deathstalker travels back in time to try to find out how the love of his life, Hazel d'Ark, was transformed into the Terror, a nightmarish entity that is destroying entire worlds. As Lewis travels throughout the galactic empire gathering an army of unlikely allies -- his visits take him from the crime-ridden streets of Mistworld and the monster-infested jungles of Shandrakor to his devastated home planet of Virimonde -- the godlike Owen, who has survived the Madness Maze and is in the process of coming to grips with his transcendent abilities, goes back to the very birthplace of humanity.
Green's fiction is noteworthy for its plethora of larger-than-life characters, not only in the Deathstalker saga but also his hard-boiled Nightside novels (Something from the Nightside, Agents of Light and Darkness, et al.) that feature the unforgettably wild characters Shotgun Suzie and Razor Eddie. Fans of fantastical fiction who like their characters super-sized and their action fast and furious should definitely check out Green's Deathstalker sequence -- escapist literature at its best! Paul Goat Allen
