The Demon Star by Jesse Argon Book Review

 The Demon Star 

By Jesse Aragon 

Published Year: 2026

Page Count: 400 pages 

Medium Used: Oneplus, Moon Reader 

Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy,  Fake Gods,Magic, Young Adult, LGBTq, 2026-read. 

Rating: 3/5 

This is a debut novel and I think the author made a bold attempt. She definitely has a command over english language but not enough on story telling or world building. The logic that holds together a brilliant plot felt handicapped here. The writing felt boring and confusing at times. The world building could have been better. This is not part of a series(as far as I know) and I am disappointed and dissatisfied with the ending. There are no breath hitching twists except for the one or two which are frankly passable. In some scenes, I didn't grasp what was happening. The author couldn't impress me with a shocker element even when she has had me in a thrill. Pity! 

Coming to the story, there are three main characters. One is Jacen, a priest to the old Gods. He is a tier six telepath and exorcist who is squandering his life through alcohol addiction. Another is Ysira who was once harvested by the old Gods and was left to die because she is not a telepath. She is the mother to the new God, Neri. She hosts a demon that coils around her spine and gives her self healing (no death) property. The third is Seth, lover to both Jacen and Ysira. Yes, I almost gagged that this story involves  threesomes(thankfully, not described) among the leads which felt totally irrelevant to the story at hand(unless there is a sequel to this book). Seth is guardian and uncle to Neri. Neri is eleven years old, a weak telepath, son of Ysira and Ged, that later integrates with a very powerful demon which kills and ends the old Gods regime through him. 

That's it. The story is simple. New God taking over old Gods and its a shocker that he is just the same. Made from the same mold. Cast from the same stone. Lol. 

The old Gods are fake : they are not all powerful and omnipresent, omniscient blah blah but are demons and highly evolved aliens that have spread themselves across the stars and conquered/devoured multiple planets. They have existed in the bodies of their most powerful telepathic subjects, one after the other, through millineums, and have thus gathered enormous experience and power. They have technology to travel between stars at faster than light speed and for this they harvest telepaths. So these Old Gods realize that a very powerful demon which could kill them has appeared on Neri's planet and they demand that it be destroyed. Ged, the prince regent, decides to send his son, Neri to host the demon in his body and take on these Gods. Ysira takes him there. He hosts the demon, kills a couple of weaker old Gods and then with his mother, goes to a hide out. 

 Later, Neri becomes the new God and I have two major concerns here. How is he - a demon too - different from the old Gods? He says he wants to devour the other worlds and yet everyone supports him without doubting? He wants to employ fear and pressure tactics to hold his people together. It is demonstrated by him and it is not speculation. The reason behind the need for a new God is that the old ones were tyrannical but the author hasn't shown how.  (Other than their harvesting experiments which were also referred to but not described). I felt a lot of the human deaths occured for no reason at all .. Jacen killed a church full of refugees, Ged killed many on the spaceship and so on .. i felt the same end would have resulted if the main characters were present in a different location as opposed to where they went,  thereby rendering this whole sequence pretty useless!! 

Still, i didn't Dnf this one. So all is not lost. All is not negative here. If I should commend the author, it is on her idea of humans infused with demons and representing demons/aliens as gods. She atleast made the world unfamiliar and peculiar enough to read through the whole book. I liked how human telepaths can communicate with these powerful beings and gain mystical powers themselves. I was riveted through some parts of the book and couldn't bear to be distracted. Though these are few, they still were there, scattered in the book. I picked this one because it came highly recommended from a source I trust on Instagram but I guess they gave the logical compromises within the story a free pass. Lol. There is also not much horror after the first 20 percent of the story - once we get introduced to all the characters and get a feel around the demons and the whole fake gods narrative!