The Desert Spear

As a woman, I am ANGRY.
This isn't an author who can't write women, but OMG the Rpe in this book!!! I will preface if you like this book, that is absolutely fine, but you have to acknowledge that the Rpe in this book isn't the best, and should ideally be taken out.

Let's talk about this. This book came out years ago, and SA was known to be in a lot of older fantasy books, but never ever have I seen it this bad. I got through 50% of this book before i dnfed, and I was enjoying the story until the SA. Sa can be written into books if taken with enough care, and not just because of a trauma point, but Brett failed.

Brett did this in the first book. R*pe was there for no reason but i let it slide, thinking that as it was a debut he would grow and learn. The fuck was I wrong.

I was listening to this book at work, and for the hour I listened I was almost sick with how many times/long the scene was. It never went into detail, but as someone who isn't squamish, I was sickened. SICKENED. How the hell did the editors let this be published? I have no idea.
I'm not going to go into detail, but the scene in question about SA with the father, and the other sisters were telling the victim to put up with it, because they had to. Um F NO. that does not happen. Not to mention the character shows no abusive attributes. And after, she isn't traumatised but quite happy to sleep with a guy she fancies THE NEXT FING DAY

Sa is flooded through this book, not just from the women's side. A man is SAed as well. But Brett takes no time to process these instances, to give a voice on it and to show the victims feelings. It's just there. For no reason at all, and that is what sickens me.

I hate this book with all my being because of it. The SA could be torn from the book and it would change nothing. The plot is fine, the characters are okay and I was enjoying the series until this point. Demons? Give me.

As a woman I am so fed up of reading books where women are put down, SAed, treated as nothing. This book is like that, and even the other women treat other women like they are nothing. No solidarity, no advice on how to live in a man's world.

I really wish authors would do better. As a woman, I've had enough.

3.5 of 5

This took me a little while to get into but then the pace grew and I really enjoyed it. The culture, magic system, and character building continue and are impressive. Gritty and great.

The Desert Spear was een compleet ander vervolg op De Getekende dan ik had verwacht. In plaats van verder het verhaal van Arlen te krijgen, reizen we terug in de tijd en beginnen we het verhaal van een ander personage Jardir, dat we al even leerden kennen in het vorige boek, te volgen.
Het wisselende perspectief was, naast het switchen van het Nederlands waarin ik boek 1 las naar het Engels van het nog niet vertaalde boek 2, even wennen, vooral ook omdat de wereld van Jardir komt met een geheel eigen taal. Zo werd “De Verlosser” uit boek één nu in de taal van deze wereld “Shar'Dama Ka“. Het vroeg dus toch wat hersencelletjes om hier vertrouwd mee te raken.

Op het eerste moment was ik wel wat ontgoocheld om niet verder over Arlen te lezen, vooral ook omdat ik Jardir totaal niet sympathiek vind en dus ook minder zin had om over hem te lezen. Maar de auteur wist me toch wel te boeien met de opbouw van zijn wereld, die extra diepgang krijgt door de details die nu bij deze woestijnwereld worden gegeven. En wanneer Arlen dan toch opeens opduikt, vanuit het perspectief dan van Jardir, voelt het alsof je een geheimpje deelde met de auteur, want je kent het verhaal al vanuit Arlens perspectief.

Uiteindelijk was dit vervolg wel een boeiend boek, waarin eigenlijk vooral de schaakstukken op hun plaats worden gezet en het speelveld wordt geschetst. Maar toch werden er net genoeg nieuwe elementen voor de plot onthuld dat je niet het gevoel hebt dat het verhaal stilstaat.

Enkele oude personages krijgen extra achtergrond en diepgang, maar sommige – en dan vooral vrouwen – worden eerder een karikatuur of cliché.
Ik was vooral ontgoocheld over Leesha, die opeens de natte droom is van alle mannen die ze ontmoet en zich ook zo koketerig gaat gedragen, terwijl ze in boek één een echte sterke vrouw was. Haar verandering is niet echt in lijn met hoe ze werd geïntroduceerd en al helemaal niet met wat ze in boek 1 had mee gemaakt. De enige andere vrouwen die van enig belang zijn in het boek zijn ofwel serpenten eerste klas ofwel leeghoofdige wichten. Dus ja, niet echt vrouwvriendelijk eigenlijk zo.

Desalniettemin is het verhaal dat in The Desert Spear wordt opgebouwd opnieuw heel uniek en ik was ik toch na het uitlezen heel nieuwsgierig over hoe het af zou lopen, vooral met de onverwachte introductie van nieuwe demonentypes die alles kunnen veranderen! Daarom begon ik eigenlijk bijna direct in deel 3 The Daylight War, maar na een paar honderd pagina's heb ik het opgegeven. Mijn ergernissen over bepaalde personages werden nog groter en eentje kreeg zelfs een steeds grotere rol, waardoor ik eigenlijk constant zat te zuchten en enorm tegen mijn zin zat te lezen. Lezen doe ik nog steeds voor mijn plezier en daarom deed ik iets wat ik eigenlijk niet graag doe, namelijk een boek half gelezen achterlaten. Jammer, want het verhaal op zich boeide me wel en ik wou wel weten hoe de auteur het verder zou spinnen, maar het werd me teveel een karwij. Wetende dat na dit boek 3 nog 2 boeken volgen om het verhaal af te maken, heb ik er dus een streep onder getrokken.

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.

Executive Summary: Another enjoyable entry with some great character development and world building on what was a promising start in [b:The Warded Man 3428935 The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1) Peter V. Brett https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1354571949s/3428935.jpg 6589794].Audiobook: Pete Bradbury does another good job here. I like the way he reads, and so far his volume has been good in these books, which was my main issue with him in the past.Full ReviewAhmann Jardir is an asshole. I mean how can you not think so after his brief, but memorable appearance in [b:The Warded Man 3428935 The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1) Peter V. Brett https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1354571949s/3428935.jpg 6589794]? Of course like most things in life, everything isn't quite as black and white as they first seem.In the book we learn about his past, much like we learned about Arlen, Leesa and Rojer in the first book. It gives us more insight into why exactly he did what he did. I'm not sure I still like him as a person. I guess he's a nicer/more reasonable asshole than most of the people who taught him to be that way? You'll have to judge for yourself.I was happy to see that the entire book wasn't about him. We get a lot of the characters I really liked in the first book, albeit not until later in the book.In addition this book has some really great world building in terms of history, expansion of our knowledge of magic/wards, and the demon threat to humanity.Much like the last book this book had a few elements I really didn't care for. At one point I was screaming at my book. I'm still not entirely certain some events were necessary as written. I feel they could have been less graphic. I think the character/plot development he got out of it calmed me down a lot by the end of the book though. I'm especially curious to see where Renna's character goes in the later books.I'd be rushing right into [b:The Daylight War 9268487 The Daylight War (Demon Cycle, #3) Peter V. Brett https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1360777092s/9268487.jpg 14150105] if not for some other big audiobook releases coming out tomorrow. Once I finish those I'll be right back to this series though.

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.

After reading up on the next two books in the series, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

3.5-3.75

Review to come.

- Oggettivamente un libro da 4 stelle, ben scritto e con ottima caratterizzazione, ma me lo sono goduto come se fosse stato un libro da tre stelle, perchè è stato dato molto spazio ai personaggi che meno mi piacevano o di cui mi importava poco.

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait to read the next book in the series. The story moved quickly with great character development and surprises along the way. I really enjoyed learning more about this world and now looking forward to the Corelings story as well.

Its not very often that the second book in the franchise is better than the first. Brett manages this with some aplomb. More characters are given depth and so is each society. Awesome read. Now for the long wait till the next one.

This book continues the story begun in The Warded Man. But for over two hundred pages we are treated to an origin story of the Krasian chieftain, Ahmann Jardir. With his powerful wife Inevera behind him, he comes to believe that he is the Deliverer and sets himself on a mission to unite the worlds peoples under his rule much like his famous ancestor Kaji did many years previously. Of course, the people of the north and the Warded Man in particular have other ideas. Meanwhile a new breed of dangerous demonkind is coming to the fore.

The story is detailed and the characters are interesting but the plot seems to move fairly slowly. There's not a sense of driving suspense that the first book had. Perhaps it's middle book syndrome. This book is really just setting up the final volume, I think. There are some very interesting developments in the last hundred pages though. I'll definitely be reading the third book when it becomes available.