BOOK REVIEW: The Fires of Vengeance (Burning, #2) by Evan Winters

The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter is the sequel to the author’s debut novel The Rage of Dragons. These books are firmly in the category of epic fantasy: they are both chockfull of dragons, swords, metaphysical powers, gods and warfare. The books are set in something resembling a Bronze Era civilization, with a strict caste-based society that appears to modeled on an ancient African culture. Winter is one of the very few African-American writers working in this genre and he makes it very clear that the characters in his books are primarily what we could call “people of color” with skin tones of various hues from very light brown (tea with lots and lots of milk) to the darkest black (fire-scorched wood).

The main character in the series is Tau Solarin, who in The Rage of Dragons had a fairly familiar plot of the lowly outsider underdog who eventually becomes a celebrated champion after overcoming multiple trials and tribulations. In The Fires of Vengeance, Tau’s developing relationship with his Queen, Tsiora Omehia, becomes one of the primary threads of the complicated plot. In addition to this romantic intrigue plot line, the story in the second book also includes political intrigue between Tsiora and her sister Esi who has claimed she is the rightful claimant to the throne and the intercultural intrigue of the ongoing disintegration of the Omehi caste system. However, all of these other threads are overshadowed by the imminent battle between the Omehi people and the more populous indigenous inhabitants of the Xidda continent. And in addition to the struggles between different factions of the Omehi and the future struggle between the Omehi and Xiddans , there’s a non-negligible threat from the Cull, the near-omniscient murderous beings who drove the Omehi from their ancestral land of Osonte, decimating them in the process. It was that fabled escape from Osonte, dozens of generations before the events told in The Burning books that caused the Omehi to arrive to Xiddan and displace the indigenous folks on the peninsula, who unsurprisingly view them as colonizing marauders who should be exterminated.The Omehi feel like the Xiddan pensinsula is overrun by godless, murderous heathens who don't deserve to occupy the land their forefathers fought and died for so the stage is set for genocidal war.  Because its been so long, many Omehi don’t even think The Cull are real (which is a dead giveaway that at some point these Big Baddies are gonna show up at some point!)

A key feature of the books is the existence and prominence of Isihogo, the Underworld, where time runs faster than the real world and where the power of gods and demons manifest themselves. Generally, only priestesses with a rare ability and years of training are able to enter Isohogo but Tau has been using it as a means to hone his fighting skills to the point where he is the best fighter the Omehi have seen in generations, perhaps ever. (When you get killed by Demons in the spirit world it doesn’t physically harm you and you wake up back in the real world with the memory of what happened; many people can become susceptible to emotional and mental damage from the experience. Because Tau is fueled by a volcanic level of rage and vengeance he thinks that the costs, such as the hallucinations he regularly suffers, are worth the enhanced fighting prowess and imperviousness to pain he gains.)

As I mentioned, Omehi society is strictly caste-based, with two primary groups, Nobles and Lessers. The author is somewhat vague about whether the castes are actually biologically distinct, or whether, like race, the caste divisions in Omehi society are socially constructed identities reified by cultural norms and historical tradition. Nobles are generally larger, faster and stronger than Lessers, but a key point we learn in the first book is that the two groups can procreate with each other (although of course this is strongly discouraged). There are various strata in both of the two primary castes, with the absolute lowest being “Drudges” who are basically outcasts from Lesser society and the highest are the Royal Nobles, which includes Tsiora. In both books, one of the central fights Tau has to take on is the assumption that as a Lesser he has no chance of besting a Noble (of any level) in combat. This of course turns out to be spectacularly untrue and is the primary plot device of The Rage of Dragons. However, we do learn in The Fires of Vengeance that Nobles have stronger connections Isihogo which may account for their advantages (and also would tend to lend credence to the idea that the caste divisions are “real”). However, like race, just because one group of people who are racialized into a particular group tend to have more or less of a particular trait or tendency does not mean that race is not a fiction. The clever and conspicuous depiction and deployment of race is one of the most attractive features of the series for me, especially since any depiction of difference from a white heteronormative ideal is so rare in most fantasy and science fiction.

Although the two books share numerous similarities (depiction of multiple battles and one-on-one skirmishes, political and romantic intrigues, cultural/ethnic stereotyping and demons, dragons and disasters, oh my!) The Fires of Vengeance improves on The Rage of Dragons by de-centering Tau slightly and making it clear that two of the most important characters from the first book are both gay (and a couple!). Of course, Tau in his single-minded focus on getting revenge for the deprivations he suffered in the first book is one of the last to figure out the situation but he takes it completely in stride. As a gay reader of the books, the complete absence of homosexuality in the all-male military settings of the first book was a curious and problematic defect that I’m very happy was corrected in the second book.

I suppose one of the (slight) quibbles one could have with The Fires of Vengeance is that it doesn’t resolve most of the larger tensions in the plot and ends with the inclusion of a huge, paradigm-shifting twist. That said, there’s a lot that does happen in the second book of The Burning, with multiple significant characters dying and/or having life-altering consequences due to the action. Winter is not one to provide his characters with plot armor, which is a refreshing change.  Apparently the series may become a quartet instead of the expected trilogy, which is fine by me, because The Burning is fast becoming one of my favorite epic fantasy series. For people who like the work of Brent Weeks (Lightbringer series, Night Angel trilogy) and Peter Brett (Demon Cycle) I’m confident you will also enjoy these action-packed, engaging books by Evan Winter!

Title: The Fires of Vengeance (The Burning, #2).
Author: Evan Winter.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 528 pages.
Publisher: Orbit Books.
Date Published: November 10, 2020.
Date Read: May 2, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: The Saints of Salvation (Salvage Sequence, #3) by Peter F. Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton is definitely my favorite science fiction author, and since since science fiction is my favorite genre, he is probably my favorite author overall. He is on my short list of must-buy authors that also includes literary mystery writer Tana French, epic fantasy writer Brent Weeks and British speculative fiction noir aficionado Richard K. Morgan. My must-read list of authors is much longer and includes people like Louise Penny, Peter V. Brett, Alastair Reynolds and many, many mystery-thriller authors whose series I’m making my way through methodically and contentedly. Hamilton has a special place in my heart as the author of the Night’s Dawn trilogy, which is probably my favorite science fiction work. But his duology Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained is not very far behind that classic at the very top of my list of most esteemed reads. Hamilton’s books are huge sprawling works, often thick tomes running into page lengths of 4-digits, peopled with large casts of characters and featuring mind-bending technologies and bizarre physical phenomena. Hamilton’s latest work is another trilogy, intriguingly called The Salvation Sequence. (This is intriguing because maybe this sequence of books won’t end at three? Hamilton has written many books in what is called the Commonwealth Universe but none of his prior book series using a majority of the same characters and/or same timeline has ever had more than three entries.) The third book in The Salvation Sequence is The Saints of Salvation, which follows Salvation and Salvation Lost. As I have mentioned before, there are certain themes that often reappear in Hamilton’s works and many, if not all, of these are also present in the Salvation Sequence. Some of these themes are: a futuristic/utopian society, disruptive technology (often involving novel transportation methods), culturally opaque aliens, incredibly wealthy and powerful tycoons, secret/double agents and extinction-level threats to civilization. In The Saints of Salvation, the two timelines of the plot from the previous books in the sequence (one plot line depicts the invasion of Earth by previously benevolent aliens and the other plot line is 10,000 years in the future where technologically advanced humans are planning to strike back against the aliens after the surviving human refugees escaped into the empty spaces of the galaxy) eventually intersect in a surprising way. Time, especially the manipulation of time as another feature of the physical world like gravity, becomes an increasingly important of the story in The Saints of Salvation. The animating reason behind the alien invasion of Earth is that the aliens claim to have received a message from the future from a being whom they call “The God at the End of Time” telling them to bring as many sentient creatures to him as they can. The aliens’ response to their God’s message is to seek out intelligent civilizations and place individuals in life-preserving cocoons in their ships and take them to their secret enclave until the end of time. The aliens have been doing this for literally millions of years and are often an order of magnitude more advanced than the other civilizations they meet/cull/kidnap and bring back to their enclave, whose location is their greatest secret. We learn that the aliens have the ability to slow and accelerate the passage of time, which they use to maintain the alien civilians they have collected in stasis. Humans eventually also learn how to manipulate time as well, which makes travel at relativistic speeds over vast distances possible within a human lifetime. Hamilton’s books are often peopled with huge casts of characters, many of whom don’t make it to the end. The Salvation sequence is anchored around a group of five main characters, called the Saints. One of the key plot points in the first two books when we’re experiencing the story told in two time lines set thousands of years apart is to try and figure which characters in the earlier time line become beatified as Saints by the surviving humans in the later time line. In The Saints of Salvation, we follow the Saints for a large part of the story. The other main thread in this books follows two advanced humans, named Dellian and Yirella, who lead a cadre of humans in the far future that are trying to finally get revenge on the aliens who forced humanity to abandon Earth and go into hiding millennia before. One way that The Saints of Salvation and the other books in the Salvation sequence is very different from prior Hamilton works is the depiction of gender. As an indicator of technological and sociological advancement, Hamilton has characters who are non-binary and uses specialized pronouns (like sie, hir) to describe them. This occurs in the earlier timeline (which is set in the early 23rd century), where humanity has started forming habitats with their own cultural and social standards. In addition to non-binary characters, there are also characters who cycle between more male and more female presentations. In the beginning these depictions of gender can be somewhat distracting but eventually the reality of non-binary or (literally) gender-fluid characters becomes pretty standard. None of the main characters are non-binary but several of the important/pivotal ones, especially in the last book, are. A definite gap in the diversity of Hamilton’s characters is the lack of any openly LGB characters as we would perceive them, although there is some same-sex attraction (and perhaps bisexual sexual activity?) portrayed. Interestingly, he often does go out of his way to indicate racial and ethnic diversity in his books, and this is true here as well, although white British people are (unsurprisingly) over represented. Overall, The Saints of Salvation is a fantastic final entry in another amazing, mind-bending space opera written by a science fiction grandmaster operating at the peak of his powers. If you have enjoyed his other similar, equally impressive works, such as Pandora’s Star / Judas Unchained, the Night’s Dawn trilogy, Great North Road, and A Night Without Stars / The Abyss Beyond Dreams, I am very confident you will enjoy the Salvation Sequence as well.

Title: The Saints of Salvation.
Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Pages: 528 pages.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Date Published: October 20, 2020.
Date Read: January 17, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).

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

My Favorite Books Read In 2017 (Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller)

In 2017 I read 60 books; as usual almost all of these were novels, primarily in the genres of mystery/thriller and fantasy/science fiction. Interestingly, the books that I read in 2017 were  dominated by the mystery/thriller category (33) with the rest pretty evenly split between the genres of science fiction (15) and fantasy (9) with a few books falling into both categories or neither. 2017 was more like 2014 when mystery/thriller predominated my reading list while in 2015 more than half the books I read that year were science fiction. In 2016, surprisingly no particular genre dominated. This is surprising (to me) because generally if I were to list my favorite genres in decreasing order it would be 1) science fiction 2) thriller 3) fantasy 4) mystery. One issue is that thriller can really be any genre (even though most of the thrillers I read are also mysteries).

I was introduced to several new authors in 2017 (Stuart MacBride,  John Sandford, Blake Crouch, Dennis Taylor, Justin Cronin, Rachel Caine, Val McDermid and Susie Steiner; I definitely look forward to reading more of books from many of these authors in the future. In 2017 I followed up my 2016 read of my first Stephen King novel (11/22/63) with the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch).

Happily in 2017 I also read lots of book by authors whose work has previously been some of my favorite reads (Ian Rankin, Jo Nesbø, Louise Penny, Brian Staveley, Michael Connelly, Patrick Tomlinson, Peter Robinson, Brent Weeks, Adrian McKinty, N.K. Jemisin and Greg Iles). In 2017 I read not one but two books from what is currently my favorite series, i.e. The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. The sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, was released in December 2016 but I didn't read it until my Hawaii vacation in January 2017 and when the seventh book Persepolis Rising was released in December 2017 I gobbled it up soon afterwards. Another favorite author, Peter V. Brett, published the fifth and final book in the Demon Cycle, The Core, nearly 9 years after the first book, The Warded Man, came out in 2009.

I'm always looking for more good books and authors to add to my "To Be Read (TBR)" pile! Feel free to make suggestions of books or authors you think I would like in the comments after seeing what books have resonated with me previously.

Below are my favorite reads for 2017 in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery and Thriller.

Favorite Science Fiction Novel Read In 2017: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey

As I have said before, The Expanse series is my favorite current series. This is not much of a surprise, since space opera is my favorite genre, and The Expanse is an action-packed space opera series about the human colonization of the solar system that is impacted by the discovery of alien technology. For example, in 2014 (Cibola Burn) and 2015 (Nemesis Games) a book from the Expanse series was my favorite for that year. In 2016, there were no Expanse books released and thus in 2017 Book 6 and Book 7 of the series was released: Babylon Ashes and Persepolis Rising. I was sort of disappointed with Babylon's Ashes but was very impressed with Persepolis Rising. It is quite incredible that the two authors who write together as James S.A. Corey have managed to basically stick to the schedule of an average of one book per year for seven books, even as they have been heavily involved in the adaption of their books for television as The Expanse series, the first three seasons of which have been broadcast on SyFy, but which has moved to Amazon Prime for season 4 after the cable channel declined to renew the show. In 2018 we are again not having an Expanse book, with the 8th book in the series Tiamat's Wrath having been delayed until 2019.

Runner-Up in Favorite Science Fiction Novel Read In 2017: Death's End by Liu Cixin.

Death's End is the third book in the space opera trilogy written by Cixin Liu who won the Hugo award for Best Novel for the first book in the series called The Three-Body Problem. The story is about an invasion of Earth by aliens known as Trisolarians (because their home world is surrounded by three stars). All three books are excellent and very different in their own way. The first two books (The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest) also appeared on my end-of-year favorite reads list for 2015 so it shouldn't be surprising that the third book appears on one as well. In Death's End the stakes for humanity grow even higher (and this is after the threat of alien invasion is resolved in quite an unexpected way!) and the time scale of the book grows longer and longer. There's not much more I can say about Death's End without revealing plot details but I can mention that it has a main character that is a female scientist and strongly encourage you to read the book. It is well-written, complicated science fiction at its very best. If it wasn't for N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate I am fairly confident that Death's End would have likely won the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel instead.

Honorable Mention (Science Fiction):  Children of the Divide (Children of a Dead Earth, #3) by Patrick S. Tomlinson.
One of my favorite books from a few years ago was The Ark by Patrick S. Tomlinson, the first book in the Children of a Dead Earth trilogy. As I have said earlier, I like specific genres of fiction (mystery/thriller and science fiction/fantasy) and one of the things that drew me to The Ark is that it is a rare example of a book which combines mystery and science fiction in a clever and engaging way. Children of the Divide is the third book in this series and it does an excellent job of  continuing (and possibly completing) the story that began in The Ark while still maintaining its commitment to blurring genre boundaries of science fiction and mystery. Children of the Divide is about a former detective who is now part of a small human colony on a planet trying to engage with the indigenous alien population and uncover corrupt and criminal conspiracy among the colonial leaders.

Favorite Fantasy Novel Read Novel In 2017: The Core (The Demon Cycle, #5) by Peter V. Brett

Peter Brett's Demon Cycle has been one of my favorite reads in the category of fantasy since the first entry The Warded Man appeared in 2009. Brett is definitely on the short list of my favorite fantasy authors: Brian Staveley, Brent Weeks, Michael J. Sullivan, and Daniel Abraham. The Demon Cycle is set in a world where there are different kinds of monsters (called "demons") who appear every night once the sun goes down. Demons apparently rise up from the "core" of the earth and have claws, teeth and talons and kill humans. Civilization does not have electricity  and so society is based around daytime activity because there is a strong belief that there is no way to fight against the demons. It is known that certain symbols (called "wards") can protect property from demon incursion but deep knowledge or understanding of wards and the ability to create new wards has been lost in the annals of time. When the series starts the main characters are Arlen Bales, Leesha Paper and Rojer Inn who live in an area we would recognize as similar to 18th century North America (without the slavery). One of the highlights of the series is that it proceeds (The Desert Spear) we are introduced to another pocket of humanity that lives in dry, arid area. This society we would recognize as based on 18th century Middle Eastern or Muslim living. Here the main characters are Ahmann Jardir, Inevera and Abban Haman. In The Core, Arlen, Jardir and Arlen's wife Renna take the battle against the demons to The Core in order to settle the question of which creature, corelings or humans will dominate the planet. This plot summary is a bit simplistic, because the war against the demons has many fronts and involves many other "lesser" characters. (One of the other strengths of the Demon Cycle books is the nuanced characterization of the primary and secondary characters in the series.) Brett wraps up the 5-book series expertly and satisfyingly in The Core. I am very interested in seeing what Brett will follow up the Demon Cycle with; he's a great writer.

Runner-Up Favorite Fantasy Novel Read in 2017: Skullsworn by Brian Staveley

The Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne is an epic fantasy trilogy (The Emperor's Blades, The Providence of Fire,,The Last Mortal Bond) featuring a trio of heirs (Adare, Kaden and Valyn) to the Unhewn Throne of the Annurian Empire by Brian Staveley; it was one of my favorite reads in 2015 and 2016. They are great books, built around amazing characters and featuring taut plotting, treacherous betrayals, huge battle scenes and god-like creatures. Although Adare, Kaden and Valyn are the main characters in the book, there are several side characters who make indelible impressions. One of these is Pyrre, a priestess of the God of Death. In Skullsworn, Staveley writes an entire (somewhat short) book entirely focused around Pyrre and gives us insight into how such the smart, accomplished woman we met in the trilogy became a fully-fledged and devoted member of what is essentially a death cult. Pyrre is so fabulous in the original trilogy that it is not surprising that her origin story makes for an exciting read. It is pretty difficult to write a prequel for a character we know survives this story, especially one who literally kills without compunction in service of her religious beliefs but Staveley is so talented he does it very successfully. There are many other characters in the Unhewn Throne trilogy who would also make excellent subjects of their own books (Gwenna, The Flea, to name just a few) so I hope Staveley returns to this setting soon.

Honorable Mention (Fantasy): Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire, #2) by Michael J. Sullivan
One of my happy discoveries in recent year has been the work of Michael J. Sullivan. His Riyria Revelation trilogy (Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, Heir of Novron) was on my list of favorite reads for 2016. Sullivan approaches the book industry a bit differently than most authors, since he started by self-publishing his books (quite successfully) and even though his books are now published by major booksellers one is also able to buy them directly from him. He has a new epic fantasy series based thousands of years before the events of the Riyria Revelations called the Legends of the First Empire. Amazingly, he has completed first drafts of the entire 6-book series, so the books are guaranteed to be released on a pretty regular schedule. Age of Swords is the second book in the series and builds upon the setting and characters introduced in the first book, Age of Myth. Unlike the Riryia trilogies, which feature two male characters and are effectively laced with humor, this new series has a female protagonist and is primarily based on an existential conflict between the powerful Fhrey (near immortal, masters of magic and powerfully violent) and humans, who are portrayed in the Bronze age, but inventive and resource. The humans thought the Fhrey were gods until one of them was killed in Age of Myth, but there is still a sense that if the Fhrey decided to invade lands occupied by humans they could exterminate them without much trouble.

Favorite Mystery Novel Read In 2017: Flesh House (DS Logan McRae, #4) by Stuart MacBride

Comedy is so difficult to do that when I find someone who does it well I am always impressed. That Stuart MacBride is able to do this in the context of police procedural mystery thrillers is amazing. I only started reading MacBride's books about Detective Sergeant Logan McRae's adventures as part of the Aberdeen Constabulary in 2017 but already they are very near the top of my all-time list in the mystery category. It was somewhat difficult to decide which of the seven McRae books I read last year should be at the top of this list, but I think it makes sense to pick Flesh House since it is simultaneously the most thrilling and the most darkly comic of these books that I have read so far. As a DS, Logan is basically in middle management, with uniformed police and Detective Constables (DCs) beneath him, and Detective Inspectors (DIs) and Detective Chief Inspectors (DCIs) above him. Unfortunately, in both directions he is surrounded by incompetence and indolence, which MacBride exploits for its maximum comedic effect. The key character here is his immediate boss, DI Roberta Steel (who is such a great character that MacBride has written an entire stand-alone book featuring her in And Now We Are Dead). In Flesh House, Logan (as usual) is juggling multiple criminal investigations, although they are overshadowed by what appears to be the re-emergence after 3 decades  of a cannibalistic serial killer called the Flesher. Len Wiseman was the person who was arrested, tried and convicted as the Flesher but he has been free for years because his conviction was overturned on appeal. Recently a container car full of human meat that was en route to a local butcher has been found and the Granite City is gripped with panic about their local food supply and the police are in such a frenzy to put Wiseman behind bars again that they are willing to bend the rules to get the result that they want. Logan eventually solves the case but only after he puts himself in mortal danger (again) and undergoes excruciating situations which have lasting consequences on his political and personal future.

Runner-Up Favorite Mystery Novel Read in 2016: Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly (Sean Duffy, #6) by Adrian McKinty

One of the key discoveries I made in 2016 was the Inspector Sean Duffy  books by Adrian McKinty. These are a series of police procedurals set in the suburbs of Belfast, Northern Ireland at the height of the "Troubles" in the mid-1980s. I'm already a sucker for police procedurals, having consumed several books of this type written by Duncan MacBride (DS Logan McRae), Ian Rankin (DI John Rebus in Edinburgh), Elizabeth George (Inspector Lynley series in England), Peter Robinson (DCI Alan Banks in Yorkshire), Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch in Los Angeles), Jo Nesbø (Harry Hole in Oslo, Norway), Jussi Adler-Olsen (Department Q series in Copenhagen, Denmark), Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad) and Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander in Ystad, Sweden). McKinty's Sean Duffy is a nice Catholic boy who is a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer in Carrickfergus, a predominantly Protestant section of Northern Ireland (which also just happens to be the name of the real town that McKinty grew up in.). The Duffy books are bit more than your everyday police-procedural murder-mystery; they have significant elements of spy thriller components, all embedded in oft-amusing cultural commentary on the 1980s and 1990s. The latest (and possibly last) book in the series is the unforgettably titled Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly begins with a bang in Chapter 1 with Duffy abducted and basically left for dead as the result of a contract killing and gets even more suspenseful from there. The book then jumps to a time line BEFORE the abduction to tell the story about how Sean got into this predicament and the reader is left with the very real possibility that Detective Duffy may not survive this tale. (I don't want to give away anything but McKinty has revealed that there will be 3 more Duffy books coming out starting with The Detective Up Late in 2019).

Honorable Mention (Mystery):  Well-Schooled in Murder (Inspector Lynley, #3) by Elizabeth George.
I finally started reading the British police procedurals written by American Elizabeth George in 2017. George is widely known for her Inspector Lynley series (which at one point was a popular BBC television series that also aired on PBS). The Lynley series is now 20 episodes strong and features upper-class DI Tommy Lynley (the 8th Earl of Asherton) and working-class DS Barbara Havers solving crimes with the supporting characters being Lynley's girlfriend  Lady Helen Clyde and his best friend Simon St. James. I read the first four novels in the series in 2017 but I think that the strongest of these is the third book, Well-Schooled in Murder. The plot is about a murder that has occurred at a boarding school which is something of a locked room mystery. I definitely intend to read more of these books in the future, even though the romantic tension between Tommy and Helen is a bit off-putting, the class tension between Havers and Lynley is intriguing.

Favorite Thriller Novel Read In 2017: Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges, #1) by Stephen King.

Stephen King is a colossus in the publishing world, primarily known for his numerous best-sellers, his prodigious, decades-long written output and the number of film adaptations which have become classic movies (Carrie, It, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, et cetera). Since I am not a fan of horror I had mostly ignored his work  but I did read 11/22/63 (since as an alternative history about the President Kennedy assassination that involves time travel it is effectively science fiction) and very much enjoyed it. So, when I discovered that King had written a mystery thriller series (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch) I decided to check it out and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I read all three books in a row; they are very suspenseful, funny and interesting. I don't think King is a great writer, but I do think that he is a fantastic storyteller. I selected Mr. Mercedes as my favorite thriller read in 2017 because the last third of the book is almost impossible to put down. The book begins with the horrible hit-and-run which results in the death of 8 people and the wounding of several more. King tells the story from the perspective of the person who commits the crime, Brady Hartsfield, as well as  the police officer who unsuccessfully investigated the crime and who is now near retirement, Bill Hodges. Hodges teams up with two unlikely sidekicks, a gangly  teenaged African-American named Jerome Robinson and an obsessive-compulsive recluse named Holly Gibney. Together Holly, Jerome and Bill make an engaging team that are a highlight of the entire series. Although they have a limited role in the sequel Finders Keepers they return in the final entry in the trilogy, End of Watch. The series has been adapted for television but is airing on something called the Audience Network which I don't have access to.

Runner-Up Favorite Thriller Read in 2017: Criminal (Will Trent, #6)  by Karin Slaughter

I discovered Karin Slaughter in 2015 when I read the the first book Blindsighted in her Grant County series. The book made an immediate impression on me, grabbing an Honorable Mention for Favorite Thriller Read in 2015. I basically devoured the rest of the six books in the Grant County series in 2016 and have been rapidly making my way through her 9-book Will Trent series ever since. Slaughter is a crime thriller writer who also combines romantic tension between her main characters. The Grant County series was built around a trio of characters: Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver and Lena Adams. (Tolliver and Linton were married and Adams is the only female detective in the same police station where Tolliver was chief of police.) The Will Trent series is based around another female-male-female triangle, Sara Linton, Will Trent and Angie Polaski. (Trent and Polaski were orphans who lived in group homes together, both became Atlanta police officers and eventually married while Sara moves to Atlanta from Grant County and becomes romantically involved with Will.)  In both series Slaughter provides point-of-view perspectives from each of the main characters and shows how the very same events and actions by the principals can be interpreted very differently, usually due to the past experiences and traumas each character carries with them. Slaughter does an excellent job of characterizing female characters and her books are full of extremely strong and independent woman while simultaneously depicting society's (and violent men's) horrific domination and  oppression of women. I chose Criminal as the runner-up thriller of the year from the six Will Trent books I read in 2017 because it revolves around unearthing secrets about Will's parentage and we learn more about why his boss, Amanda Wagner, is so closely tied to him.

Honorable Mention (Thriller): Mississippi Blood (Penn Cage, #6) by Greg Iles.
The Penn Cage books by Greg Iles have been some of my favorite thriller reads in the last few years. Overall, I think the first trilogy (The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, The Devil's Punchbowl) is even more gripping than the second (Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree, Mississippi Blood) although the stakes and acclaim for the second one are greater in every aspect. Reading the series in order raises the stakes for the reader in how invested we are in the ultimate disposition of the characters. Not all of our favorites survive the end of the series, and it is heartbreaking. There's a real sense of suspense and danger that tragedy could strike anyone, even the eponymous Penn Cage. For me, the imbrication of race, crime, Southern history and journalism in the series is a potent mix and convinced me to keep Mississippi Blood on my list of favorite reads in 2017.

BOOK REVIEW: The Core by Peter V. Brett

The Core is the fifth and final book in The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett.

It's been a thrilling, enjoyable ride reading this series; I still remember the excitement as the plot of the very first book (The Warded Man) enfolded and we were introduced to (what we thought at the time were all the main characters), Arlen Bales (the sheltered country boy who dreamed of leaving his small village of Tibbet's Brook and becomes humanity's greatest champion), Leesha Paper (the young apprentice to the village's ancient medicine woman) and Rojer Inn (a talented and creative musician and entertainer).

However in the second book The Desert Spear we were introduced to a completely different culture in Krasia which is clearly based on (or strongly influenced by) Arabic traditions. In this book we were given stories about the lives of Ahmann Jardir and Inevera, Ahmann's first wife (of many) and the love of his life. I can't overestimate how different Krasian society is from the Thesan society we were first introduced to in Book 1. Basically, it's like going from a story set in Iowa to one set in Saudi Arabia. This was a very unusual way to expand the original story but I believe it was an excellent choice. Books 4 (The Skull Throne) and 3 (The Daylight War) involve a clash of civilizations as Arlen, Leesha and Rojer interact with Ahmann, Inevera and Abban (among others).

By the time we get to the fifth book The Core the cast of characters has literally grown to hundreds and the story has branched out in multiple directions and several locations.

The central plot point of The Demon Cycle is the existence of violent and deadly "demons" which occur in different forms (stone demon, wind demon, fire demon, water demon, field demon, etc) that appear every night once the sun goes down and the moon rises. This means that humanity is basically prevented from leaving their houses at night and are only protected via "wards" which when written correctly on a surface can prevent the passage of the specific Demon it is designed for. Before Arlen, only wards that could be used to protect humans from specific demons were known and the knowledge of the existence of offensive wards (that could harm demons, not just block them) was lost until he rediscovered it.

The plot of The Core is too intricate to summarize here but suffice it to say that there are several developments in the final book that are both surprising and heartbreaking. As with all good epic tales of quests, journeys and battles not all our heroes survive to the end but they (mostly) acquit themselves with glory and honor. Since we know that not everyone may survive all their encounters with peril the reader is really focused on how the story develops and the dangerous situations the characters are in.

I must applaud Mr. Brett for finishing his Demon Cycle series in such a satisfying manner while also providing hope to the reader for the ways the story could continue in the future. In my opinion, the Demon Cycle is one of the best additions to the epic fantasy genre and Brett is a major talent whose work I will be looking forward to for a long time.

Title: The Core.
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Paperback: 800 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date Published: October 3, 2017.
Date Read: November 1, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

2016 HUGO AWARDS: My Selections For Best Novel

The 2016 Hugo award nominations close on March 31st. Since I was a member of the 2015 Worldcon and helped to select last year's winners, I have the right to submit a nomination ballot for the 2016 Hugos. The main category I am interested in is Best Novel. My nominations for the Hugo Award for Best Novel are:

• The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
• Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
• Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Rebirths of Tao by Wesley Chu
• The Providence of Fire by Brian Staveley

This was a hard list to compile. There are several other books which could easily be on this list, which basically represents what I think are the best works of speculative fiction released in 2015 that I read. For example:

•  Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
• The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett
• The Ark by Patrick S. Tomlinson
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

It will be exciting to see the final nomination list in early April. Last year they were revealed on 12noon on April 5th.

BOOK REVIEW: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

I have been hearing about the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne series by Brian Staveley for quite awhile. Amazon.com has been suggesting Staveley's books to me because I have either bought books by Brent Weeks (The Lightbringer Series) and Daniel Abraham (The Dagger and the Coin series). I read some reviews on Goodreads and requested the first two books from the Glendale-Pasadena library system. I'm very glad that I did! These books excellent works of fantasy, in the classic tradition of my favorite authors like George R.R. Martin, Peter Brett and Scott Lynch.

A new name can be added to this list: Brian Staveley. His debut novel is The Emperor's Blades, which won the 2014 Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut Fantasy Novel. Happily this award-winning 2014 release is the first book in a trilogy with the second book, The Providence of Fire published in 2015 and the third and final book, The Last Mortal Bond, set to appear in March 2016. Together these three titles form what is known as The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne.

The Unhewn Throne is the symbol of the Emperor's power in Annur.At the beginning of the first book, Emperor Sanlitun is dead, murdered by forces unknown. His three children are Adare, the eldest child, a daughter; Kaden, the Emperor's heir; and Valyn, the youngest son. Adare is in the capitol city, surrounded by both enemies and allies, where one of her father's posthumous acts has been to appoint her to be Minster of Finance. She has not seen her two younger brothers for years. At a tender age, Kaden was sent far, far away to train with the monks of the Blank God in the distant Bone Mountains at the very edge of the Annurian empire. Valyn has gone to the Qirin Islands to try out to survive the deadly training regime to become a Kettral, one of the elite forces who ride giant birds in service of the Emperor.                    

The Emperor's Blades is primarily a story about what happens to Kaden and Valyn as the ramifications of the assassination of their father the Emperor are revealed it becomes clearer that he was probably not the only member of  the royal family targeted for death. But even more intriguing is that who ultimately sits on the Unhewn Throne controlling Annur may not be the most important fact that needs to be determined.

Staveley does an excellent job of making the reader want to care about all of Sanlitun's children. (One of the main criticisms of The Emperor's Blades that one often sees is that Adare's story is not as interesting or important to the plot in the first book. This is true, but this is a somewhat minor quibble and is more than balanced by how compelling both Valyn's and Kaden's stories are. I do like Adare's character and wish there was more of her in the first book. Happily, she plays a much larger role in the sequel, The Providence of Fire. In addition to Kaden, Valyn and Adare, the other characters are also well-drawn and I was genuinely moved when really bad things happened to some of these characters who I had started to care about. The stakes are high, people! This is epic fantasy at its best.

Title: The Emperor's Blades.
Author: Brian Staveley.
Paperback: 480 pages.
Publisher: Tor.
Date Published: January 14, 2014.
Date Read: July 21, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Skull Throne (The Demon Cycle, #4) by Peter Brett

The Skull Throne is the fourth book in Peter V. Brett's best-selling Demon Cycle. The Skull Throne starts just seconds after the events in Book 3 (The Daylight War). That book literally ends with a cliffhanger, as the two main characters Arlen Bales (the eponymous Warded Man of Book 1's The Warded Man) and Ahmann Jardir (the Shar'Dama Ka or head of the Krasian forces) fall over the edge of a cliff.

Book 4 is primarily about the impact on the rest of the characters on the disappearance of Arlen and Ahmann from the ongoing events that had been set in motion during Book 3. (We find out pretty early in Book 4 that Arlen and Ahmann are fine, and their joint fall over the cliff's edge was part of Arlen's plan to try to force Ahmann to combine forces with him to take humanity's fight to the demons as well as provide an opportunity for the remaining humans to practice self-sufficiency without the presence of their two most powerful warriors (Arlen and Ahmann).

The Demon Cycle is set in a world with minimal technology (no electricity or real technology) where  for as long as anyone can remember (hundreds of years) every night vicious creatures emerge from the dark who kill and eat any human or animal they meet. The humans call them "demons" and have discovered that they can be repelled by certain symbols, called "wards."

The overall story is set in both Thesa, which resembles a North American climate and possesses a European culture, and Krasia, which is a desert land and has an apparent Muslim-influenced culture. In the first two books of the Demon Cycle (The Warded Man and The Desert Spear) events were almost entirely set in Thesa, then Krasia, respectively.

The primary characters of the Demon Cycle are Arlen Bales, Leesha Paper and Rojer Halfgrip in Thesa and Ahmann Jardir, Inevera and Abban in Krasia. It's possible (but not preferable) to read each of the books separately without having read the others, but I think that (as expected) one gets a better sense of the books overall if you read them in the order of release.

Book 4 (like Book 3) before it, splits its time between Krasia and Thesa, providing for an interesting contrast between the patriarchal, faith-based caste system of Krasia and the more liberally familiar but still complicated interpersonal relationships found in Thesa. In Krasia the relationships are based around family ties, since polygamy is a central feature of the culture, so Inevera is Ahmann's First Wife, but he also has a wife from each of the dozen or so important tribes. Inevera also has her own power base, because she is the Damajah, the head of the class of Krasian women (called damaji'ting) who are able to use the Demon bones to make dice that allow them to foretell the future.

It took awhile to get back into the flow of The Skull Throne for me, but once I did, it was very difficult to put down and I enjoyed it very much. Leesha and Inevera are some of my favorite characters and both women are central to much of the action that happens in this book (although they do not interact with each other they are enemies due to romantic entanglements of the plot). Inevera's story was a bit stronger than Leesha's in this book, in my opinion, although since my sentiments are more aligned with the Thesans I was frustrated by some of the poor decisions Leesha made.

Although some readers may take umbrage or even be offended by the faux Muslim nature of the Krasian society, especially with its virulently homophobic and chauvinistic nature but as a gay man I was not offended at all. I was completely unsurprised by the chauvinism, sexism and homophobia in Krasian culture and Brett does an amazing job by having an incredibly diverse cast of characters (Abban is bisexual, and there are two clearly gay characters in the book, although both are ultimately villains in the story.)

I'm sure some of the fans of the earlier books will be disappointed that Arlen and his wife Renna, along with Ahmann have such limited roles in The Skull Throne but I liked that Leesha, Rojer, Inevera and Abban and many more were given a higher profile in the story.

I don't want to give any spoilers in this review but I do want to say that some of the characters that we have grown to love and cherish have their lives changed forever in this book. I suspect that the same will be true of Book 5, but there the stakes will be even higher because I'm pretty sure that Arlen, Renna and Ahmann's fates will be decided in that final installment.

Title: The Skull Throne.
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Paperback: 681 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date Published: March 31, 2015.
Date Read: May 18, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

Book 3 in author Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle, The Daylight War, was one of my most anticipated books of 2013. His first two books in the series, The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, were both excellent examples of suspenseful, well-written fantasy novels.

I learned about Peter Brett's work from the Walker of World's blog several years ago and I am very appreciative of that fact. I loved The Warded Man (gave it an A/A+ review) and The Desert Spear (gave it an A/A+ review).

The Daylight War is another excellent addition to the series. The books are set in a world called Thesa where every night "corelings" (also called demons) rise from the core of the planet and solidify into deadly creatures to attack and slaughter humans. The only thing that protects humans is the use of wards (intricate symbols) on surfaces that repel corelings. Thesa was once a technologically advanced society but since the emergence of the corelings hundreds of years before the time the books are set in humanity has reverted to a feudal level of civilization.

 In the first book  The Warded Man, the main character Arlen Bales discovers that he can tattoo wards on his body and gained unique power and strength as a result, at a terrible personal cost. The other central characters introduced are Leesha Paper and Rojer Halfgrip who both live in the greenlands near to Arlen. Leesha is apprenticed to her village's healer (called a Herb Gatherer) and Rojer is an orphan who was raised by an itinerant entertainer called a Jongleur. The central tension in the first book is the complicated relationships between Arlen, Leesha and Rojer.

In the second book The Desert Spear, we are introduced to a new central character Ahmann Jardir who lives far away in the desert in a place called Krasia. Krasia is clearly influenced by Arabic/Muslim culture in a manner that I at first felt was not as done as deftly as Frank Herbert did in the classic Dune series. However, in the third book we learn more about Krasian culture from the female perspective through the author's focus on Inevera, Jardir's wife. I believe that Brett has successfully created his own faux Arabic culture that is as well-developed and compelling as Herbert's and that is saying something because Herbert's Dune is one of the masterworks of the science fiction genre. The second book also introduces us to Renna Tanner, who through a complicated set of events becomes Arlen's "promised" (i.e. fiancee). One of the features of the series I have always found the most interesting has been the nuanced ways in which the author has dealt with gender and the different expectations of the roles and responsibilities of men and women, told from the perspective(s) of both men and women, and depicting different levels of gender-based restrictions and beliefs in different cultures.

In the third book the conflict between Ahmann Jardir and Arlen Bales as the two most powerful men in the world becomes more and more inevitable. Both of them are thought by the people who know them best as likely to be a messianic figure called the Deliverer who is supposed to save humanity from the scourge of the corelings. Arlen, despite the amazing things he can do thanks to the special wards he has on his skin, rejects the mantle of Deliverer. Ahmann, actively seeks to foster and maintain a belief by his followers that he is the Deliverer. Ahmann uses this belief to finally united his tribal peoples under one common leader, himself.

While in the first book the demons appeared to be mindless creatures who almost seemed like a natural affliction of humanity, in the later books we start to get a more well-rounded impression of the most advanced demons, called Core Princelings. These princelings have awesome mental (telepathic) abilities and are called "Mind Demons" by Arlen.

I don't want to discuss details of the particular plot points in The Desert Spear except to say that the action is non-stop and we learn a lot more about our (five central characters) by the time we're dine.

It is clear that Brett's Demon Cycle has the potential to be as significant to the dark fantasy-action genre as Dune is to science fiction. I am anxiously awaiting the fourth book in the series!

Title: The Daylight War (Book 3 of the Demon Cycle).
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Paperback: 656 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: February 12, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

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+.