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Order The Desert Spear HERE
Read FBC Review of The Painted Man(UK) aka The Warded Man(US)
Read FBC Review of The Great Bazaar and Other Stories

INTRODUCTION: In My Anticipated Books of 2010 post, I said the following about "The Desert Spear":

"Demons and glyphs, magic and survival, avoid the night at all cost and darker, grittier writing made The Painted Man (UK) aka The Warded Man (US) the debut of Peter Brett and of the series, a big time favorite last year...", so "The Desert Spear" was a natural book to be included in a high position.

FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: The Desert Spear stands at almost 600 pages divided into four sections and 33 chapters, all named, while there is a prologue featuring some new kinds of demons.

The Desert Spear has about 6-7 POV characters namely Arlen, Leesha & Rojer from the previous book and Jardir, Renna and Inevera [Jardir’s principal wife] who is one that will trigger reader emotions as to the level of her prescience. The readers will also get a clearer look into the life of Abban, the trader who was friendly with Arlen and features so prominently in the novella The Great Bazaar.

The ending is at a good stopping point for a series currently projected at 5 volumes, while The Desert Spear is epic fantasy that combines traditional qualities (heroic heroes and villainous villains so to speak) with the darker, grittier style of the "new epic".

ANALYSIS: Mihir : The Desert Spear was my top 2010 anticipated novel after last year’s The Painted Man took first place in my 2009 reads. So with such high expectations I started The Desert Spear wondering whether Peter Brett would be able to duplicate his success and give us a worthy sequel.

The Desert Spear prominently features Jardir a minor but very important character in the debut novel and it focuses upon his journey from childhood to adulthood in the same way as it was done with Arlen in the previous book. The author also gives us a very detailed look at the Krasian way of life and warrior culture in the process and makes that world much more alive while precluding Jardir from being just an Arabian warrior stereotype. The story then progresses to catch up with what has occurred previously and then expands as Jardir and his Krasian warriors look to emulate the path of the first Deliverer Kaji. However the Krasian way of getting allies is a brutal one and more than often it antagonizes the subjected population.

The story then turns towards the geopolitical spectrum as Arlen and Jardir go about their individual ways and in turn meet other crucial POV characters. We get a story which becomes much more than just a battle of survival. While the basic premise of the series , namely defeating/understanding the Corelings is always present, The Desert Spear features a lot more the mystical aspects of its universe and the powers they can grant to their bearers . The Krasian magic system is very fascinating and the seemingly powerful magic of their women makes us reconsider the Krasian culture to a large extent.

The Desert Spear is darker than "The Painted Man" and it was more fascinating in the sense that the magic system was explored further, we were given a viewpoint into the enemy both human and non-human and lastly the POV character interaction just sets the pace for the next book nicely. On the downside the action levels in this book are bit more muted than before and by this I mean that while The Desert Spear does have lots of action scenes, they are more on a personal level rather than the "men against demons" in "The Painted Man".

The one niggle I had was that of three different characters who recognized Arlen in his painted avatar, two choices seemed logical but the last one however seemed a bit stretched.

Overall The Desert Spear was a worthy sequel to "The Painted Man"; it wasn’t as addictive as the debut but it had its own dark edge to it. Especially since this can be considered as a transitional volume and sets up a lot of events for the third book “The Daylight War” and as the title clues us in we are in for a bumpy ride. The Desert Spear will be a worthy contender for my year end lists.

Liviu: I quite liked The Desert Spear end to end though the first 200 or so pages that focus on the Krasian culture and on Jardir's rise to power have an intensity that is unmatched later. However I thought that pretty much the whole novel was on the quality of the best of The Painted Man as writing goes; The Desert Spear was much more focused on the cultures of Krasia and The Free Cities than on the Demons per se, with Jardir emerging as a great main character in addition to Arles, Leesha, Rojer. We also saw new kinds of demons too and there were some superb action sequences that complemented nicely the political aspects and the intrigue.

The one downside for me is still the lack of subtlety in most characters which in the first volume was more than compensated by the freshness of the setting as it was here in the Krasian part, but later the one dimensionality of most POV's showed a bit. However I have big hopes that we will see "sentient demons" that may have some rationality for their action beyond pure hunger and the series will take the one step higher as nuance goes. A strong A from me and the sequel will be another highly anticipated novel..