The Skull Throne (Book 4 of the Demon Cycle) by Peter V. Brett (3 stars)

This book is actually about the daylight war, i.e. the war between humans, whereas The Daylight War was mostly about the war with the demons, go figure. Minor spoilers ahead.

Brett obviously wanted to explore the political implications of Arlen and Jardir being out of picture while working on their pet project. He intends for any travel to the core to be the subject of the final book, and I assume the climax. But taking two of the most important characters essentially completely out of the story made it sag.

Having said that, full credit to Brett for killing off a major character and some secondary but still important characters. Some people are speculating that the major character isn't really dead. I really hope that isn't true since the story would lose any credibility it currently has.

While the addition of Inerva's POV in the third book was powerful for the story, Ashia's POV that we get in this one was....meh. It felt very formulaic, and it seems unlikely to be important. But hey, what do I know, maybe it will be. In fact, while some interesting things happened, it was mostly setting the scene and putting the pieces in place for the final book. Necessary perhaps but it won't be the book that people rave about from the series.

3 stars.

The Daylight War (Book 3 of the Demon Cycle) by Peter V. Brett (3.5 stars)

Brett continues with his formula, adding another deep POV via a long series of flashbacks, this time for Inerva. Some people resented this and just wanted the story to move forward more. I think it was actually quite well done, bringing a lot of depth and another interesting perspective on the events we are now familiar with. It's very rare to have a three-dimensional picture of a story through such carefully constructed backstory.

Some minor spoilers ahead.

At some point Inerva is forced to draw on the power of her dice, destroying them in the process. Because of the backstory we know just how desperate this act is, and what it costs her. Inerva's political success looks effortless from Jardir's perspective, but Inerva's own perspective shows us just how tenuous her hold on authority is, and the risks of each of her daring power plays.

Inerva's story starts out as the female equivalent of Jardir's: plenty of physical and emotional violence, and a streak of ruthlessness needed to survive and lead the others. It gets more interesting as it moves from physical violence into political machinations and magic.

There's still plenty of cringeworthy portrayal-of-women moments that range from the amount of pages devoted to "pillow dancing" (i.e. the masters course in porn-star techniques that is mandatory for Dama'ting), and just the term "pillow dancing" in general, to silly impracticalities like having to walk down into the basement and unwind 10 feet of silk to go to the bathroom. Between Inerva displaying her pillow dancing skills for Jardir, and Renna and Arlen going at it:

He had thought their consumation would be gentle, but his bride had pounced like an animal the moment the flap fell, her aura lit up with lust.

it felt a little too much like a romance novel for my liking.

By this stage Leesha, Arlen and many others have gained lots of knowledge about how to create powerful warded weapons, many defensive techniques, and even use demon bone to power things. But they haven't released this knowledge at any sort of scale, it's one special shield here, a bit of bone there, mostly to give advantages to their friends. If they really cared about the populace why isn't every warder in the country supervising the creation of hundreds of cloaks of unsight? Sure some of this ward-tech is too dangerous for wide availability, but there are some wards every man, woman, and child should be wearing every day.

In this novel we get some insight into the mind demons, and a few POV sections which is good, although they remain fairly mysterious for now. Arlen goes around introducing himself to everyone and playing up his hick accent like some sort of reluctant politician who has been told they need to be more approachable.

The epic battles with the demons were great, LOTR-scale fights. But there was lots of bizarre decisions and inconsistencies. Like Rojer deciding the most dangerous part of a risky recon mission was a good time to take a piss. And Arlen sending his friends out to their probable deaths, on said recon mission, then, when they get back, just deciding to just teleport up in the air and take a look for himself. Either he's dumb or he's trying to get his friends killed? And why isn't every single person who is fighting wearing wards? At least the archers should have the damn wardsight wards, surely?

“Shoot the windies!” she cried. The Haveners lifted their bows to comply, but their fear was palpable, shaking hands that needed to be steady. Even with the light of the greatward, the night sky was dark, and they could not see the demons glowing as Renna did.

I really wish Brett would kill off a main character. None of the main cast dies and it's improbable given the constant life-threatening danger they face. There's this point where Jardir is dodging boulders thrown by demons that crossed the line into improbability:

Every demon on the field was focused on him now...Jardir leapt aside, but was struck even as he landed by another stone dropped from above...He was given no respite, as rocks the size of melons began to fall like rain around him. But as fast as the stones fell, Jardir was faster, dodging them like lazily drifting bubbles of soap. Even as he dodged the barrage from above, the rock and wood demons on the ground continued to hurl whatever they could grasp in their talons at him: rocks, trees, even a few of his own men.

No matter how awesome an athletic ninja you are, when enough demons throw rocks at you, you will die. Which is what should have happened in that scene. There's also a fair bit of "deus ex Crown-of-Kaji" going on, like when he needs to bust through some wards himself.

Still providing lots of entertainment.

3.5 stars.

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.

The Warded Man (Book 1 of The Demon Cycle) by Peter V. Brett (4 stars)

I'm giving this 4 stars because it was highly entertaining and kept me wanting more. It's pretty trashy though. Some spoilers ahead.

Brett brings us to a post-apocalyptic Earth where demons (corelings) rise up from the earth every night and kill any humans that aren't shielded by magic runes (wards). Here begins my first beef. The demons are smart enough to systematically test a ward net for weaknesses, but not smart enough to kick some dust or mud onto the wards, rendering them useless? This would surely happen accidentally, and they display capability to learn - one coreling tracks Arlen across vast distances and maintains a vigil outside the city walls. So how have they not crushed this flimsy defensive system? Also, how have people been using wards for generations but never thought to put them on clothes or weapons?

But, suspending my disbelief about the wards, the world is very interesting, and I wanted to find out more about the demons. They remain one-dimensional purely evil beings through the whole book, which is kind of a shame, but this is addressed in the later books.

The characters are good, and the development is significant, in fact most of this first book is character development. The exception is Leesha, and the treatment of women in general.

I get that this is essentially the dark ages, which wasn't exactly a great time for women's rights, but Leesha's POV is 80% about who is trying to rape her today. And when something serious does actually happen, she brushes it off and has sex with a stranger a couple of days later in the least plausible sequence of the entire novel. I don't think there's a single female character that escapes the clumsy sexual descriptions.

4 stars.

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (3 stars)

This Booker prize winner attempts to give us a satire on American life using a teenage narrator whose language is full of four letter words and malapropisms, "skate goat" being one of the most well-used. Vernon is a naive Texas teenager caught up in a mass murder-suicide by his best friend Jesus.

The satire is dark and grating, but never actually got me laughing. Vernon's character is well constructed and full of age-appropriate naive fantasies about escaping to Mexico with the hot girl from school, and a ridiculous (but completely in-character) willingness to ruin his life rather than own up to bowel problems. I felt sorry for him, and frustrated by him, but I never enjoyed reading through his eyes. The refrigerator obsessed mother, Bar-B-Chew-Barn-addicted mothers-friend, and TV-repairman/reporter/super-villain were exaggerated caricatures that should have been funny, but just weren't.

Many people have compared this novel to a Confederacy of Dunces, but it isn't remotely in the same league. Ignatius was a spectacular character, made me laugh out loud a number of times, and is so memorable I find myself recalling him completely out of context. Vernon is completely forgettable, but certainly realistic. Honestly though I think an overly-educated character acting in a ridiculous way has more appeal to me than an idiot being an idiot, so perhaps Pierre just picked a tougher assignment.

The biggest contradiction in Vernon's character is the occasional poetic phrase that will slip out. DBC Pierre is obviously an impressive writer and manages to maintain the dumb teenager voice but apparently couldn't resist pulling back the veil occasionally:

A strip of buffalo leather scrapes into the room, tacked around the soul of Sheriff Porkorney.

A receptionist with spiky teeth, and a voicebox made from bees trapped in tracing paper, sits behind a desk in the waiting room.

I remember once calling my daddy to collect me from a place, but was sad when he came because I’d since grown to love the place. Death takes me like that.

3 stars.

Bossypants by Tina Fey (3.5 stars)

It's funny, but I wish I'd gone for the audio book instead, apparently it's really good. So much of comedy is in the delivery and body language that even the best stuff can usually only get me to 'heh' whereas seeing the same thing in a sketch could have been a belly laugh. Some of my favourite quotes:

Luxury cruises were designed to make something unbearable—a two-week transatlantic crossing—seem bearable. There’s no need to do it now. There are planes. You wouldn’t take a vacation where you ride on a stagecoach for two months but there’s all-you-can-eat shrimp. You wouldn’t take a vacation where you have an old-timey appendectomy without anesthesia while steel drums play. You might take a vacation where you ride on a camel for two days if they gave you those animal towels wearing your sunglasses.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me.

3.5 stars.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss (3 stars)

This is a side story to the Kingkiller chronicles, that Rothfuss actually says you may not want to read. Talk about an intriguing hook to get people to read it :)

It is in fact, one of the most unusual books I've ever read. It's pure character development for Auri, and it's amazing that it got published at all. Not because it's bad, but because most people picking it up probably won't like it. In fact, Rothfuss' account of how it came to be published is quite an interesting insight into the publishing process itself.

If you don't read it, you're not really missing out in terms of the broader series. But if you were always curious about Auri and are prepared for a down-the-rabbit-hole kind of story with lyrical 3rd-person prose, then go for it, but don't expect it to be an easy read.

Better still, the slow regard of silent things had wafted off the moisture in the air.

Auri is an obsessive compulsive vigilante repair-girl, sewer beachcomber, and monk rolled into one:

And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride.

3 stars