The Desert Spear (Demon Cycle #2)

After reading the first book, “The Warded Man”, I was really excited to start the next book in the series. Instead of moving on with the story we get a back story of Jadir and Abban and how their relationship developed. I understand that this helps us understand why Jadir has a kind of soft spot for the man…but I don’t think it was worth dedicating most of the book to it.
Then we finally get to the Warded Man and how things are developing…or aren’t developing…there. There were a few side stories that were pretty neat but all in all I was a little disappointed with how much of the book was actually dedicated to moving the story along rather than more in-depth glimpses into another character’s history.
The ending was supposed to be some sort of *gasp* twist but I was more confused than ever. Without giving the ending away it left me rather concerned for the welfare of other characters involved and wondered how the author could pull the ending out of thin air. It simply didn’t make sense.
By all means, read the book, but don’t believe for a moment that this “Daylight War” will have taken any steps further than when you first start off. After reading the review for the next book, it seems like the third book is just a repeat of this one. Another dip into the past of character and then a snails pace move forward at the end of the book. Will I still read it? Sure…after I read a different book. Maybe some time away will bring back the feelings I once had for the characters in the first book.

I’m an avid reader and listener to of Audiobooks, but I’ve never felt the desire to review a book I’ve read until now. The reason is, I almost passed this up based on a number of negative reviews, specifically that most of the book did not focus on Arlen, but instead Jardir. I loved the first book, but really didn’t have any desire to spend time with Jardir and get sidetracked from the story. After passing up on the book and jumping into something else which wasn’t pulling me in at all like The Warded Man did, it ocurred to me that Brett had done something similar in his first book with how he had developed Rojer and Leesha. At the time I remember thinking to myself, I have to leave Arlen now? I think the sign of a great author is one who can develop multiple characaters and story lines, doing so in a way that when you have to leave one you are frustrated, but then get wholly pulled into the next one and don’t miss the prior. Since Brett did this over and over again in his first book of the series, I figured maybe he could do it again in this one, and boy did he deliver. Within the first few pages of the book, I forgot that I didn’t care for Jardir, and all of a sudden started to. When sometime later Brett started to develop another new/old character (no spoilers) I just went along with it and figured it would all work out, and it did. This is just as a good a book as the first if not better. Yes you are going to spend some time with new/old characters maybe you were not expecting or hoping to, but just go with it, and by the end you’ll have really enjoyed yoursef. I’m now just starting the 3rd book, and once again it’s beginning not where I hoped it would, but I’m OK with that. I’m just along for the ride 🙂

The Warded Man, the first in this series, is quite a good book.

This one is not. 2 stars is a bit generous.

The first part of the book is a flashback of a “bad guy” from the first: Jardir, how he developed. He grew up in a pseudo-Arab world, where there is no imagination or grace, only a competitive, unfriendly, warrior-ethos (though warriors so rough on each other could hardly be a military team!) Neil Gaiman writes somewhere that fantasy books let down their readers by not providing what “fantasy” should — and this book is a perfect example of that short-coming. You want Arabian fantasy? Try the Arabian Nights. You want military scifi? There’s lots of good stuff out there. But this… amazingly dull world-building.

Yes, what other reviewers have complained about — the reliance of rape to forward character development, the insertion of bizarre country accents, the newly toothless demons, and the characterization of the women (Leesha especially) etc — is all so true and so annoying. Character development is a mess, too. But I have some fondness for the (spoiler alert!) rescue of Renna, as inevitable as it was (and as cheap a plot device as it was.) It flowed well, and I did root for her.

But enough. I won’t read any more in the series.

First book was good but ended pretty bad.
This book is terrible.
It goes on over half the book, about a villain you just cannot care about. With a culture you cannot care about. And the plot just gets… “shounen?”
Really no other way to describe it, the enemies lose their mystique.
The author dropped the ball here, very hard.
Do not read this.

This book made me sad coming off the hype of the first book. He spends 200+ pages on the backstory of a character that I just don’t care about. One of my biggest pet peeves in writing is needlessly long names just because. You never need to name something the Shar’dama’ka’dala’tin’da’sha’mah’gah’bah’fugglywah. This book is FULL of stupidly long names, to the point that I actually, for the first time in my life, had to reference the glossary in the back of the book.

I’m sorry, but no. Just no. You shouldn’t need to reference a glossary to read a novel. The parts where it goes back to talk about the original characters are awesome, but the heavy focus on the boring desert people just makes this book a “meh”. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s nowhere near the awesome of the first book.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member