BOOK REVIEW: Peter Brett's The Desert Spear

I discovered Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man thanks to the Marc Chitty's Walker of Worlds blog. It is one of the best fantasy novels that I have read since the amazing, near-perfect The Name of the Wind (read my A+ review) by Patrick Rothfuss.

The Warded Man (see my A+/A review) creates a fantastic world where the night belongs to demonic creatures who terrorize and kill any humans or animals who are unlucky enough to be outside unprotected by wards. Wards are special symbols which when written on a surface magically can protect it from demons. Humanity is basically trapped behind warded gates and windows in an era which has almost no technology (no electricity, no internal combustion engine, no machinery period). There is some medical knowledge and society has a basic agricultural and feudal nature. Life expectancy is in the fifties.

However, as with most meaningful works of fiction, the emotional impact is centered around the characters. The first book introduces us to Arlen, Leesha and Rojer. Arlen becomes the first person in his village who wants to fight the demons and devotes his life to destroying as many demons as possible, searching for the fabled (and long-lost) "fighting wards" which can not be used defensively to protect the bearer but also offensively to kill demons. Leesha is the brilliant apprentice to Bruja, the town Healer and through her eyes the reader gets to experience the politics of gender in a patriarchal, small-town society. Rojer is an orphan who saw his mother and father killed by demons but was taken in by an itinerant musical entertainer. Rojer becomes a talented musician despite having a mangled hand that he received from the demon who killed his parents.

The Desert Spear is the second book in what is now called The Demon Trilogy. It is primarily set in Krasia. a dry land far in the desert, where through insane bravery and a warrior culture of machismo every night the people of the desert lure demons into a maze and kill them in hand-to-hand combat or trap them in pits where they are destroyed when the sun rises in the morning.

Much of the second book takes place in Krasia, following the main character Ahmann Jardir, who had a minor role in the first book. This time his entire backstory from youth is given (a similar practice is used in the first book for the main characters of Arlen, Leesha and Rojer). Also like in the first book, here, too, we get an interesting look at cultural norms, this time a quasi-Muslim society. I thought some aspects of the society were slightly derivative of Frank Herbert's Dune but overall the Krasia-set chapters were as interesting as the stories following our now-familiar favorites from the first book. We are also introduced to Renna, who is a girl from Arlen's hometown who goes through a horrific ordeal and eventually follows him down the path of being a singular opponent of demons.

One (slight) downside of the books for me as a gay reader is the way that homophobia and sexism of the Krasian society is depicted, especially through the character of Abban, who although it is clear that he is straight, is perceived as a "lesser man" by all other Krasians. At some point the author does make it clear that being gay is not looked down upon in Krasian society. In the North, where Rojer, Leesha and Arlen live much of the plot and dynamics of the characters revolve around the presumed (and confirmed) heterosexuality of everyone. I would have liked to see a more nuanced approach to sexuality in The Desert Spear since Brett does an excellent job of depicting and deconstructing gender hierarchies quite well in both books.

A new feature of the second book is some scenes from the viewpoint of the demon, at least one demon in particular, "mind demons" who happen to be "coreling princes." This forebodes an interesting component of the story, which will be resolved in the third installment, apparently title The Daylight War and scheduled for release in 2012.

Title: The Desert Spear.
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Length: 608 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: April 13, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Peter Brett's The Warded Man

Thanks to the book review blog Walker of Worlds, I have discovered some new fantasy and science-fiction authors from looking at Mark Chitty's This Year's Top Reads: Peter V. Brett, Neal Asher, Eric Brown and Alastair Reynolds.

I have actually read a fair number of books by these authors since I discovered Walker of Worlds in December 2009, but the first book I want to review for "Thursday Reviews" is The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett. As I have mentioned before, it's much easier to read books than it is to write up reviews of them!
I have a backlog of at least a dozen book reviews that are in various stages of preparation at this point, and I just finished another novel (Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself) last night!

Chitty has a similar love that I have for grand-scale, military space opera, so he is also a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton. However, he is an even bigger fan of Neal Asher who I have just begun to get into. We both are not huge fans of fantasy unless it is done really well (like Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind) so when Chitty gave Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man a 10/10 review it caught my attention.

Since Mark Chitty does such a good job of setting the scene of the book, I will quote from his review:

The world that Peter V Brett has created here is wide in scope and full of character. From the vivid descriptions of the small towns on the outskirts of the cities, where night is always a dangerous time, to the cities themselves - huge and strongly warded against the corelings - there is much to admire. These places felt real, the rundown and ruined houses always a constant reminder of what can happen when wards fail. The cities have their big, luxurious houses while the images of despair that are brought to mind when the lowly shared shelters are mentioned add to the clear distinction of class. Despite all of this and how much I enjoyed the world every time I opened the book, the characters steal the show - and quite rightly too.

We follow our three main characters - Arlen, Leesha and Rojer - from a young age. This allows us to grow with them, feel their fear and desires and aspirations. What is good about these characters is their individuality, the way each one feels completely different from the others, yet there is a strong and wilful element that will not just lie down or continue on the road expected of them.

The corelings are demons that emerge once night falls and take different forms: sand demons, wind demons, wood demons and (the most dangerous) flame demons and rock demons. They are a fantastic invention, but I did have a quibble with Brett in that I don't think he did as good a job as he could have to make it clear what the demons were. First, I thought they were intangible spirits but by the end he makes it clear that they are completely physical beings that eat, bleed and defecate but somehow are magically prevented from violating an area with a ward (a special symbol) on it. I suppose this lack of information in the reader's mind about the nature of the corelings is meant to mimic the characters' ignorance about the demons; the fact that most people have no interest in even fighting the demons or finding out anything more than how to avoid them is a key plot point. However, I found it slightly frustrating that the demons could be both described as ghostly figures that materialized from under the ground as soon as the sunlight faded and solid enough creatures that with sharp teeth and talons and ichor for blood.

The book is quite suspenseful. Mark Chitty identified the most with the main character of Arlen (and he is given the most attention by the author) but I like Leesha more and felt that Rojer was given slightly short shrift. It is clear that Arlen is the title character (it should be noted that in the United Kingdom the book was released with the title The Painted Man, which Chitty thinks is a better, less revealing title to an important plot point but I disagree. I think The Warded Man is an improved title, although either way I figured out the plot point well before its reveal in the book). His journey takes up the majority of the book and ends up in a surprising and somewhat sad conclusion.

Excellent features of the book are its very realistic depiction of life in big cities and small towns in a culture which has almost no technology and the ways that class and gender impact the lives of the characters (there is almost no depiction of race, per se although there is some discussion of ethnicity). Also, the fight scenes between characters and the demons are uniformly excellent, with the final battle to close out the book producing a pulse-racing finale.

Overall, the book is a compelling, exciting tale set in a well-depicted, realistic world that I look forward to visiting again in future work by this first-time author.

Title: The Warded Man.
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Length: 432 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: March 10, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A+.