The Desert Spear (Book 2 of The Demon Cycle) by Peter V. Brett (3 stars)

This series continues to be very entertaining and highly cringeworthy for all of its female characters. Some mild spoilers ahead.

I accepted the annoyance of being thrown into a lengthy character development, this time for Jardir, rather than getting back to the well-known ones and the cliffhanger from book one. But by the time he has brought Jardir back to the present day, I actually appreciated the additional insight into the story. It was quite well done. It gets a little formulaic as he does the same for every novel: i.e. picking a single character for a lengthy retrospective character development. But the extra detailed POVs reveal nuances of the story you were unaware of before.

While I liked the additional deep perspective, the substance of Jardir's background story wasn't appealing. It read like an overdone parody of the Spartan warrior training montage. Starvation, fighting, and beatings. Krasia has an obvious Islamic culture (minarets, call to prayer, clothing) that is taken to extremism that Muslims will likely find offensive.

Brett adds mimics and mind demons to the mix which add some more dimensions to the evil opponents, but at the same time he incongruously weakens the regular demons (now "drones") to the point where Arlen is telling senior citizens in a village to drop their canes, pick up spears, and kill some wood demons. The wood demons of book one would have destroyed anyone so foolish.

This weakening paves the way for everyone to be a Mary Sue. Arlen essentially now has super powers including teleportation, he gets a new girlfriend who instantly becomes a super-powerful warrior:

Renna charged at one, grabbing its wrist and setting her feet, twisting her hips to turn the force of the demon’s attack against it. It was almost effortless...

and Leesha becomes queen of everything. She's the best warder, the best healer, the best new-language learner, the best lover, the best leader, the prettiest of the pretty....ugh. And she falls in love with the guy who's been raping and pillaging his way across her country.

The Hollow was in good hands with Leesha, at least until the Krasians advanced. She was brilliant and a natural leader, respected by all and governed by a pure heart and good common sense.

Oh and when I say healer, she's not just grinding up a few herbs anymore, she's also doing blood transfusions and surgery now:

“I need a blood donor!” Leesha cried as Gared kicked in the hospit door. They laid Kendall on a bed, and apprentices ran for Leesha’s instruments.

A number of characters all of a sudden get an accent. And it's maddening.

3 stars.