The Desert Spear

I normally wouldn't review a book I didn't finish, but I am so disappointed with this one I thought it worth commenting. This second book in The Demon Cycle has a confusing structure, accentuates the crass culture of the first book, and does not confront the storytelling problems inherent in the series. I am interested to see what [a:Peter V. Brett 1405152 Peter V. Brett https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1469679887p2/1405152.jpg] does next. He's clearly a good writer, and I think now that he's done with The Demon Cycle he can do something much better.[b:The Warded Man 3428935 The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1) Peter V. Brett https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1354571949s/3428935.jpg 6589794] was a fun book to read: I really couldn't put it down, despite some basic storytelling problems it was still a fun adventure and I recommend it. Book 1 of The Demon Cycle tells the maturation story of three young people who have important skills in humanity's fight against hideous demons that stalk the night and threaten to end the world. They come together at the end for a series of climactic battles that change how they live their lives and their place in the world. The Desert Spear, strangely, begins another coming-of-age story in a completely different culture only peripherally experienced in The Warded Man. The first third of this book is really a different story with its own characters and own moral problems (more on that later) that barely touches the material in the first book. I found this really confusing: I wanted to know what was going on with Leesha, Arlen, and Rojer Halfgrip and I had to get through two hundred pages of story about repugnant people I wasn't really interested in. This section also jumps back and forth in time, and I couldn't tell what I was reading about half the time. Then after we catch up with the timeline we jump right back in and pick up where we left off at the end of The Warded Man. I was shaking my head wondering why we just didn't start there.I couldn't keep reading about these completely crass people and their crass dialogue. It was hard. The characters in both cultures are constantly talking about peoples' bodily functions, especially menstruation, and other private stuff like no one I've ever heard in real life. It was understandable in the first book, but in this one it gets way out of hand. I realized at some point that if people actually talked like this they would be smacking each other for getting into everybody's private business: oh wait, they do, but people keep doing it anyway. I don't know if the author was going for something like Game of Thrones, but it was not just unbelievable. It was unreadable. It was gross. As I said, I want to see what Mr. Brett does next, because I think he's a much better writer than this book (which was written ten years ago).The final problem I have, which doesn't even hint at getting solved is that no one is on the side of the demons. We know nothing about the demons, they have no personality (except the rock demon One Arm), no objective, no organization. There is a “demon prince” but I don't see this as a solution to the larger problem that it's just people fighting demons. Think of every great epic and there's always internal strife to the point that someone is actively helping the other side (e.g. Darkfriends in The Wheel of Time). No one's helping the demons. No one wants the demons to succeed (the tenders say the demons are a plague, but that doesn't mean they want the demons to win). There's internal strife, but it has nothing to do with the demons. As I said about The Warded Man, this means that there's no end point. There's just demons and demons and demons. If I kept reading, perhaps this problem would get resolved, but in my current critical book, it should be stated at the beginning how the characters could solve the general problem. The demons are, as of my reading, just a force of nature and only a war of attrition could get rid of them. I would keep reading if the other problems weren't so glaring: I don't want to wade through hundreds of pages of crass language and people having sex like striking a match just for the hint that the problem might be solvable. It should be there on page 1.

Continues the story of the Painted/Warded man from the interesting perspective of the “villains” in the earlier books. The perspective change gives depth the the characters and their actions allowing them to be more then cookie cutter “baddies” and sometimes throws up the question of how “bad” are they. The focus later switches back to the previous leads an continues the story, several time I found myself wanting it to hurry back to a particulate narrator for more of their arc.

Pros: excellent characterization, immersive writing, fast paced

Cons: some readers may not like the brutal realism of the narrative (lots of rape - though nothing is graphically described)

The Desert Spear is one of those rare books when the sequel is better than the first book. Mr. Brett really comes into his own in this book.

The plot (and if you haven't read The Warded Man/Painted Man this will contain spoilers):

Jardir, now proclaimed Shar'Dama Ka (Deliverer), has left the desert to conquer- ahem - unite the men of the North under his banner in preparation for Sharum Ka, the final battle with the demons.

Through flashbacks we get to learn how Jardir progressed to his current position, creating a sympathetic, though still brutal, antagonist. And if you don't like realism in your fantasy (rape, bullying, etc.) you won't like this.

Meanwhile, Arlen, going solely by the name ‘the Warded Man', tries to ally the northern nations to fight against Jardir's forces. During this mission he encounters many people he hasn't seen since his childhood, meetings that cause him to question the decisions he has made. And though others hail him as their deliverer, he has no desire to take on that role.

Finally, we are reintroduced to Renna Tanner, whose father Harl became too friendly with his daughters after his wife's death. Her story is quite horrific.

Mr. Brett's characters are fascinating, and remain complete people, each with good and bad points. Even Leesha, Deliverer's Hollow's herb gatherer who, under a different author would be insufferably perfect, is written so well you like her despite her many many abilities. Each character's story is interesting and heartbreaking in its own way. In fact, I wanted to skim by the (well-written) fight scenes just to get back to the character based storylines, they were so good.

The demons get nastier, with a new breed introduced who are watching the two potential deliverers.

Final verdict: read these books. Peter Brett's one of the best new epic fantasy writers around.