The Desert Spear, Peter V. Brett

Publishers: Del Rey

Pages: 579

Main Characters:

Ahmann Jardir, Arlen, Leesha, Rojer

The Desert Spear is the second book in Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle series. The novel can be basically split into three parts. The first is the tale of Ahmann Jardir- the Sha’Dama Ka (roughly meaning The Deliverer). Ahmann’s story tells of his rise from a dirty street urchin to the best fighter in the desert kingdom of Krasia. During his short and violent days ‘running the maze’ and battling the daemons of the night, Ahmann meets his wife-to-be Inevera. Inevera is a Dama’ting and is blessed with magical dice that can tell the future. The dice tell Inevera that she can mould Ahmann into the Deliverer and that he could unite Krasia into one kingdom, leading his people in a great war against the Daemons. Inevera uses all of her power to direct, manipulate and help him achieve this goal.

The second part of the book focuses on Arlen, Leesha and Rojer, picking up after the first novel The Painted Man. After returning the battle wards to humanity and being betrayed by his closest friend Jardir, Arlen focuses solely on sharing his new wards with the world. Along with Leesha and Rojer, Arlen helps form the Cutters of Cutter’s Hollow into and elite daemon killing army.

With the Hollow defended against daemons, Arlen sets out on a solitary life, as he comes to terms with what daemon magic has done to his body and soul. On his wanderings Arlen returns to his home village of Tibbet’s Brook. There he is reunited with his childhood sweetheart Renna Tanner, who convinces Arlen to let her accompany him on his travels.

Like The Painted Man I listened to this book as an audiobook. I have to say that I thought the quality of the audio was much better in The Desert Spear than it was with The Painted Man. Plus, I really enjoyed listening to the voices of the characters I hadn’t heard from in over two years (since I last listened to The Painted Man).

Fan art of Ahmann Jardir

I know some people weren’t a massive fan of it, but I really enjoyed reading about Jardir’s upbringing and learning more about the customs of Krasia. Some people complained that it took too long to get back to Arlen’s story; however I actually like the bravado and intensity of Jardir. Much like other great characters from literature (such as Boromir), Jardir’s flawed personality and his dilemma of choosing his people or his friend appealed to me, and I found him the most interesting character in the novel.

However, one character I couldn’t stand was Reena Tanner. The farm girl-turn-daemon hunter continually got on my nerves throughout the book and whenever she got in trouble, she would pretty much just sleep with someone to try and get away with it. This keeps leading me to think; how can this idiotic, annoying farmer’s daughter really manage to keep up with Arlen Bails? I hope her development over the next few novels makes her a bit more grown up and likeable because in this book I just mostly wanted to skip her parts!

This was a really enjoyable read and is a bit different to the standard fantasy novels out there at the minute. I think the series has a lot of potential and I’m very excited to start the next book; The Daylight War.

For author’s official website click here.