Gone are the likes of Dracula and Van Helsing. Today's demon hunters are younger, smarter and more adventurous. And that's pretty cool for juvenile readers.
Gone are the likes of Dracula and Van Helsing. Today's demon hunters are younger, smarter and more adventurous. And that's pretty cool for juvenile readers.
The latest pop culture demon slayer is the teenage Erich Weisz, a fugitive from Demon Watch hiding in the seedy steampunk underbelly of an alternate New York.
Writer Marty Chan has created a dynamic hero-vigilante in his three-part Erich Weisz Chronicles prepared to go to any length to outwit Kifo, the man who stole his brother's mind and locked it inside an ancient medallion.
In Infinity Coil, the follow-up to Demon Watch, Erich hides from the authorities by donning the disguise of Harry Houdini, an aspiring stage magician. His aim is to draw out Kifo's next target – the commissioner of Demon Watch.
Operating on the edges, Kifo is amassing an army of inter-dimensional warriors waiting for the signal to invade New York.
Erich never set out to be a saviour, yet through Chan's clever plot developments, his quest becomes a matter of choices and the lines between good and evil blur.
While the odyssey follows the pattern of revenge and redemption, it has strong personal elements for Chan, the son of Chinese immigrants.
“I use this opportunity to write an allegory about the treatment of immigrants that came to Alberta in the 1890s. Demons are referred to as ‘Dimensionals' and echoes what the Chinese immigrants were called – The Celestials. It meant aliens. For me it was an analogy of the treatment of Asian immigrants,” said Chan.
Infinity Coil, published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside, is Chan's 10th book published and he is hosting a party at the Citadel Theatre on Thursday, June 4 with special guest magician Sheldon Casavant.
To research New York City's steampunk era and the real Harry Houdini, Chan spent a few days at the New York Historical Society sifting through files and old papers.
He studied Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, two prominent figures in the trilogy and even walked through the Bowery.
“I wanted to get the logistics right and did you know it had above ground railroads like Chicago?”
In Infinity Coil, there is also a Devil's Island based on Angel's Island, an immigration station located in San Francisco Bay. Officials detained and interrogated hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from China.
“They would languish in cell-like rooms for long periods at a time. Some even scrawled poetry on the walls.”
Chan's book party starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $24.15. It includes an autographed copy of Infinity Coil. Call 780-425-1820 or go online to citadeltheatre.com.
