Running with the Demon

Twenty years ago, Terry Brooks turned fantasy fiction on its head with The Sword of Shannara, the first fantasy novel to make the mainstream bestseller lists, and the first in an unbroken string of thirteen bestselling books. Now, in Running with the Demon, Brooks does nothing less than revitalize fantasy fiction again, inventing the complex and powerful new mythos of the Word and the Void, good versus evil still, but played out in the theater-in-the-round of the "real world" of our present.

On the hottest Fourth of July weekend in decades, two men have come to Hopewell, Illinois, site of a lengthy, bitter steel strike. One is a demon, a sinister Void servant who plans to take advantage of the community's resentment and angst in order to fulfill a horrible, hidden agenda. The other is John Ross, a Knight of the Word who, in his slumber, exists in the inferno that will be the Earth if he doesn't alter its destiny upon awakening. Ross now has the capacity to look into the future. Does he have the ability to alter it, though?

At stake is the soul of a fourteen-year-old girl mysteriously linked to both men. and the Hopewell residents' lifestyles. And the future of the country. The destiny of humanity will be determined this Fourth of July, when family and friends enjoy a picnic at Sinnissippi Park and watch fireworks burst in celebration of freedom and independence.

A novel that weaves together family drama, fading innocence, cataclysm, and enlightenment, Running with the Demon will forever change the way you think about the fantasy novel. As believable as it is imaginative, as wondrous as it is frightening, it is a rich, exquisitely-written tale to be savored long after the last page is turned.