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It is a bittersweet thing to come to an end of any good saga. When I finished the The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, I was happy to come to the end of an adventure but saddened that I was no longer hanging out with my hobbit friends. When Jim Butcher finished his Codex Alera series, it was cool to see how it all ended but again, sad that I was no longer hanging out with the fury masters. The same goes for The Demon Wars Saga, the story of the land of Corona, where the Demon Dactyl, Bestesbulzibar, awakes -- wrecking havoc in the land. It took seven books to get through this adventure, but was it ever worth it!

I was introduced to this adventure through the excellent audiobook publisher, GraphicAudio. GraphicAudio's slogan is "A Movie In Your Mind" and do they ever deliver. Every audiobook I've heard from them is phenomenal, with excellent voice acting, super realistic sound effects and incidental music that moves you through the story while reflecting the emotion or action of the moment.

The cast of actors not only brings the story to life through their craft of acting, but when an interesting accent is needed, they deliver. For example, what accent would you use for an Alpinadoran mountain man? What about an elf from the Touel'alfar or Doc'alfar, or an Abellican Monk were-tiger? There's not really any manual for this but the GraphicAudio cast may have created one.

The special effects also push this story along with superb fluency. The effects are just as difficult to create here -- after all, what is the sound of an elven arrow piercing the eye of a giant? What does a centaur sound like while running? None of the effects were stock, or at least they were produced to be original to the story. Once again, the "Movie In Your Mind" is a reality through all these production elements. When it comes to audiobooks, GraphicAudio will put you in the story and you'll never want to leave.

One final aspect of this production is that each of the seven books are divided into sections. On average, it takes three sections to complete a book, with each section taking approximately six hours to hear. This made the saga easier to digest, although I'm looking at purchasing the entire series as a gift for a friend.

Here's how the final book plays out:
Self-proclaimed King of Honce-the-Bear, Adryan, son of Elbryan the Ranger and Jilseponie the warrior/ranger/former queen, have been sweeping the land and conquering those that oppose his rule. Adryan's expertise at the magick of the gemstones of the Abellican church also puts him on the path of destroying the church and placing the evil Marcalo De'Unnaro as leader of the church.

To the South of Honce-the-Bear, in the land of Behren, another ranger has just won freedom for her people, the To'gai. As they celebrate their release from years of slavery, Adryan decides to conquer them as well. That's when their ranger, Brin Dahryelle, decides to join the battle to defeat Adryan.

So now, the contingent up against Adryan includes his mother, another expert of the gemstone magicks, Brin and her dragon, all of the elves, the mountain men of Alpinador, along with their ranger, and Prince Midalis, the rightful heir to the throne of Honce-the-Bear.

The final battle and the epilogue to the story bring about a great close to the series with a bit of an opening in which R.A. Salvatore could write some more stories with some of the main characters. A great adventure comes to a close but in such a way that leaves the reader/listener wanting more, yet happy if this is the end.

Gil T. has spent a quarter of a century working in radio and has lots of spare time on his hands and reading or listening to books takes up all that time. Check out his blog to find out what he's up to at any given moment.