'The Max in this story is an ingratiating loser with a taste for other people's fast
cars, who slams a stolen Testarossa through a flaw in space-time and ends up dropping in
on a demon-raising ceremony being held by the great Tudor magician Dr. Dee...'
Locus
'Michael Scott Rohan's entertaining novel... Maxie's Demon just goes to show
exactly what can be done with...an entirely playful story... skilfully laced with genuine
feeling and skin-prickling historical comment. (Note the sticky moment when the legendary
Rabbi Loew, with attendant Golem, asks Maxie to tell him what hope the future holds for
European Jewry). Originality is a wonderful thing in genre fiction, I'm sure - if you can
find it. But it very rarely resides in the broad outlines. Even a Testarossa isn't a
wildly original machine. It has the usual arrangement of wheels and an internal combustion
engine; the difference, like the devil, is in the details. Apparently this is Maxie's...
first outing; I suspect it may not be his last. I hope the sparkle never grows dim.'
Gwyneth Jones, Interzone 5-97
Maxie’s in trouble! Again. Only this time it’s serious. Driving a stolen
Ferrari off a motorway flyover at something approaching Mach 1, with the police in hot
pursuit, is no way to make old bones.
But it’s child’s play to what follows.
For Maxie, small-time thief and general low-life, has crashed into the Spiral, a
strange whirlpool of time and space where the shadows of past and present merge and
mingle, and the only thing to expect is the unexpected.
The two Elizabethan alchemists, for instance, who are convinced that Maxie is essential
to their magickal endeavours - and their mixed-up marriages. A furious crime boss with a
frazzled ear, and the smooth but threatening tycoon Stephen Fisher. And the swashbuckling,
sexy but distinctly spectral band of freebooters who promise Maxie power and riches beyond
his dreams - if only he’ll join them.
From unwilling dope deals on deserted marshes to the magical ghettos of medieval
Prague, from an Emperor’s palace to a Nazi assassination, Maxie is hunted and haunted
on a wild ride through the sewers of history - literally. But in the end, to survive he
must call upon his own highly individual skills, and at last confront his personal,
exclusive demon...
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