THe Desert Spear by Peter V Brett: Book 2 of the Demon Cycle

I enjoyed the Warded Man so much, that I jumped onto The Desert Spear with no hesitation. The book is longer and adds more characters and more magic to the Demon Cycle. But in the hands of a skilled story teller like Peter V Brett, this is a good thing.

The book breaks us into the world of Jadir, the man who in the previous novel, betrayed Arlen, leading that Messenger to become the Warded Man. He did so with regrets as he considered Arlen his friend, and near equal.

The focus on Jadis feels a little like the retelling of one of the old Eternal Champion stories by Michael Moorcock as events we've already seen happen again from a different viewpoint. Mind you, this only happens in a handful of places and the shift in point of view is welcome.

The bad news, is that even though Jadir himself has trama and a disturbing background, his likeability suffers quite a bit due to his role as semi-antagonist. I say semi because if readers don't see an eventually alliance between those of the Desert and those of the North against the demons, we'll, we've all been lied to in how these sorts of stories work out.

Using Jadir as a view point character provides the reader with a lot of insight into his people's culture. The need and desire to fight against the demons isn't just for survival, but for religious reasons. Those who do fight gain great honor but die young. This tends to make the culture warrior based with the warriors gaining essentially supreme power over all other caste save for the religious and a few specialists, like the woman who becomes Jadir's wife.

By bringing Jadir's life, who is probably the oldest protagonist in the series, we see a little more of the magic of the south. Unlike the Greenlanders, the wise women of the south are not herbalist, but they do have knowledge. That knowledge though, takes the form of carving demon bones with wards and using other parts of demons for different effects including telling the future.

In addition to Jadir, we also get Renna. This young woman, like Jadir, was introduced in the previous novel and her presence here feels a little like Rojer who I feel still has a ways to go before he gets up to the Warded man's importance or enjoyability. Renna, like almost every character here, suffers some horrific setbacks in her life but by allying herself directly with Arlan, the Warded Man, she starts to take after him and begins to ward herself and learn his ways.

The original trio of characters are here and continue their story arcs, continuing to grow in knowledge and experience. It's a great set up and provides a lot of tense moments as the characters learn that many of the demons they've been fighting, and humanity as a collective whole has been losing against, are not the worst that the 'core' has to throw at them.

I'm going to hunt through Half Priced Books for the next volume, but if they don't have it, it'll be a quick trip to the Barnes & Nobles for me as Peter V Brett's writing continues to engage.

On a separate note, just because I found it entertaining, Peter V Brett has a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet on his website. In addition, his bio talks about his enjoyment of the game. His books have also been optioned for movies. Keep an eye on this guy peeps!

Below I'm going to talk a little about role playing game applications and their potential.

1. Rival Cultures: I read Raymond Feist's Magician when I was a young man. It featured a clash of cultures. This is not the only time such has happened but it does set a nice precedent of cultures with different ethos, weapons, styles, and technology levels meeting and battling.

2. Special Abilities with Limits: Initially Arlen's special training and abilities lead him to be a great demon slayer. But when his friend betrayed him, well, he learned that those special abilities had a limit. In role playing games like Hero, abilities can be bought with limitation like Range Killing Attack, Only Works Vs Demons. This allows the characters to shine against demons and other monsters, like arrows of dragon slaying, but still not rise above every fight and every encounter.

3. Power With A Price: Arlen has warded himself so much and absorbed so much energy from demons, that he feels himself slipping away from the world and literally being called to the 'Core' where the demons come from. In exchange for great physical power, Arlen is perhaps going to die a horrific death. In role playing games, this can be difficult to achieve. Not impossible mind you. In some games like Legends of the Five Rings, it would be a high point disadvantage that the GM could call in when he wanted to. In most cases though, it's probably best to have a player who can role playing such a character to fit the mood. If the GM and players both initially talk about a doomed champions ala Elric and the player winds up running around in a completely different fashion, the sheer power of such a character can be unbalancing at best and campaign wrecking at worse.

4. Gifts: One of the problems a lot of gamers have, is when they don't have to fight tooth and nail for their treasures. They feel 'cheated' or that they didn't earn them. Most characters in fiction don't necessarily go through fighting to gain their special weapons. Elric and King Arthur for example, have to be in the right place at the right time. The hero from the Horselords tale, is gifted his sword, the Widowmaker. The same happens here as the Warded Man passes out weapons with purpose to those who can best wield them.

5. Time Flies: One of the things I think Peter V Brett does great here, is keeping things moving. The book starts in 305 and ends in 333. But it doesn't feel like those years have flown by. It feels like things have happened but that the author has keep them moving at a great clip and pace.

6. Character Motivation: What drives a character. Each of the characters here have different things that drive them, that they are part of. For Leesha, she would rather never kill a human being, even if it means that she herself with suffer. For Jadir, it's leading the world down the path of the righteousness in the holy war as its deliverer. For Arlen, it's fighting for people that will fight for themselves. When designing your character, as you write down stats and statistics, think about why he does what he does. Why did she decide to become a mage? Why did you decide on making a half orc?

Peter V Brett's writing provides a lot of potential hooks and plot lines for those delving into fantasy settings.

The Desert Spear is available from Amazon as an e-book for $5.99 or as a mass market paperback for $7.19

The Warded Man by Peter V Brett

I'm one of those people that's got the sale syndrome. You know, if its a good sale and something I might be interested in later, I'll pick it up.

So it was with The Warded Man and the Desert Spear, both by Peter V. Brett, whose website can be visited here. I'd never heard of the author or either book before and was in no hurry to read them, but see, this was during the time period that Borders Bookstores were closing and were essentially throwing stuff at the customers begging them to take it off their hands. Sadly enough, these are only two of the books I bought that in the interval I still haven't read.

At least that's no longer true for the Warded Man! Apparently Peter did this overseas as the Painted Man, with the cover image I've put up top. It's a solid cover and in my opinion far better than the one used in America even though I do prefer the name The Warded Man. Hell, if you have the chance, look at the one in Japan. Hell with it, I'll snag it here.

That's a damn great cover in my opinion and the red cape makes it pop for me.

Anyway...Peter V. Brett does a great job of bringing a 'small' fantasy world to life. It's a heavy character focused setting with enough unique bits and pieces in terms of magic and monsters to keep me interested. The world is plagued by demons that rise up every night from the core to kill, well, everything.

This has a few effects on the people. In the north, a generic 'dark ages' if you will, the people hide behind 'wards' or runes that are inscribed on walls and posts and other surfaces. These wards prevent the demons from attacking. But they don't always work. Time erodes them, the posts break, a demon the ward isn't meant for shows up, natural fires happen, and other things of that nature.

The people in the north believe the best way to deal with the horror is to live their life the best they can and stay behind the wards and hope for a better tomorrow.

The people of the south? They fight. They use the wards to entrap the demons who cannot stand the light of day and die in it. The downside of this is that their population is shrinking.

Peter V Brett's novel The warded Man, brings us three main characters. The first of these I'll mention is Arlen. He admires the Messengers, specially trained individuals who move from city to city and hamlet to village in order to bring news and information. He admires them because they dare to travel, they dare to go into the night even when the demons are out and about.

Arlen's skill set and mentality make him an ideal agent of change. It is his ability to trust his fellow man, even when sometimes they have not earned it, that makes him more than just another Messenger, and eventually turns him into the Warded Man.

The second character is Rojer, an entertainer who finds himself on the road often. His own childhood one of great suffering but one that put him on a path that others have never enjoyed. He finds that his ability with music gives him power over the demons.

The last is Leesha, a healer whose mentor hints at secrets of the old world. This includes the ability to craft a 'demonfire' of sorts that is similar to alchemist fire and capable of killing wood demons. Turns out the 'wise women' were given their own set of secrets and things to carry forward until the time was right to use them in saving mankind.

Peter does a great job of bringing these characters together through the years of each of their individual lives until their lives intersect in a great battle that sets the course of future conflict with the demons.

The writing was a bit more 'on' that I'd consider most books that I'd call 'popcorn'. It was enthralling and made me want to read further. There were some bits that are a bit old hat. After all, three young people each having their coming of age isn't anything new but it's always been about how well told the tale is for me.

I'll be discussing some specifics below so if you don't want any spoilers, read no further.

1. World Building: As I mentioned up thread, the world seems small. There are essentially two cultures and one magic system that has a lot of room to expand as more is discovered about it. This narrow focus though, allows the author to focus on the characters as opposed to dragging analogs of dozens of real world historical archetypes into the setting.  When designing your own setting, put the focus where you want it at the start and build from there. If it's a Viking focused world, throwing too many other elements into the stew may ruin the flavor.

2. Character Abilities: The three main characters of this book all have special knowledge or abilities that set them outside of others. Not only that, but they have different ways of approaching things. For example, Arlen wants to kill demons. He wants to kill them so much, that when he discovers that some of the wards that were common among his town folk aren't known in the city, he decides that in order to increase everyone's knowledge, instead of selling them, they'll only be available for trade. Sounds like a wizard in a D&D campaign to me. Players are notorious for finding the 'weak' points in a game wither that's the knowledge base that they can draw from or stupid assumptions of the setting. Their own goals and ambitions may be so different that they could potentially break the setting. Run with it and see where it goes.

3. Unique words: Demon is a pretty standard word, but because they come from 'the core', the word 'core' gets used for all manner of meanings ranging from hell, to being killed by demons or cored. Having a few unique words to set the stage can be a useful thing. The old TSR/WoTC setting Planescape was notorious for it's 'chant and Thieves Tongue and pirate speak are all 'languages' that have flavor to them that can increase the mood or theme of a campaign.

The Warded Man is a solid book and I've already started The Desert Spear and am enjoying it. There's no doubt I'll be looking for the third book in the series.

The Warded Man is available from Amazon in paperback for $7.19 in mass market paperback, prime eligible, or in kindle format for $5.99.