The Warded Man

I’ve been wanting to read The Warded Man for quite a while. Not only because Peter V. Brett is quite a well-known name in the fantasy genre, but also because one of the books in this series was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Fantasy Award.I bought a Kindle copy of this book a few weeks ago because it was quite cheap. Ever since, the cover has just been staring at me. Yelling at me to pick it up. So I finally did. I really, really enjoyed this book. It surprised me, to be honest. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did for some reason.WORLDWith fantasy books, the world is so incredibly important to me. I need to be able to imagine where a character is, otherwise it tends to be very confusing. I really quite enjoyed the world of The Warded Man. At first, I was wondering about the ruling of the cities. Usually there is a king or queen, ruling the lands. Yet aside from the mentioning of certain Dukes, there wasn’t any mention of that here. As you’re reading though, you’ll see the intention behind this.The book has a fun little map in the beginning, so it’s easy to see in which city or village the characters are at any given time. In this world, demons rise from the ground once the dark settles and kill anyone who isn’t within a warded area. This means that people flock together in villages and cities, which makes it easier to survive. There are little villages like Cutter’s Hollow (where Leesha’s from) and Tibbet’s Brook (where Arlen’s from). And then there are a few big cities such as Fort Miln and Fort Angiers. Each of these forts/big cities is ruled by a duke.Because of the dangers during the night, no one really travels unless they have to. Yet not every city can provide for themselves, especially the small villages. Certain produce needs to travel, in order for people to survive. That’s where the Messengers come in. They are trained, and part of the Messenger’s Guild, and travel from the big cities through the small ones, trading for necessary goods.I found this world so intriguing. Especially the magic (in a way) system. I loved the idea of the Wards. So, each Ward serves a specific purpose. You have some that keep out demons, some that can make demon-fire into harmless air or water, and so on. These wards are painted on walls, on floors, and pretty much everywhere else. I do wish that they have drawings of the wards in the book? In the Kindle version at least, there weren’t any which I though was quite a shame..The last things I want to say about the world are that I thought the religion was intriguing too, and the different cultures within this country. The religion was intriguing because a sort of holy book does exist, and they have Tenders in small villages to preach and keep a Holy House. I also loved how Arlen challenged it. And the different cultures were intriguing too, especially in Krasia, a desert city.PLOTThis felt like a fast-paced read to me. I felt like this book gave me both an action-packed experience, and the time to get the know the characters. I think that’s because this book spans over several years, and it’s told through multiple POVs.So we follow each character for several years. This really lets you live their life alongside them? You get to experience every hardship and triumph as it happens. I really love when novels are written this way. It’s no longer the man with the mysterious past. No, you get to see what happens to them immediately, and watch them grow into themselves.I was just captivated by this book. I don’t have much time to read lately, but every spare moment I picked this one back up.CHARACTERSAs I’ve mentioned, we follow 3 perspectives in this book. Thus, there are 3 main characters: Arlen, Leesha and Rojer.I don’t really want to say a lot about each character because the synopsis doesn’t either. If the synopsis doesn’t say anything, neither will I. I do want to say that I admire each character for different reasons. I love Arlen because he’s so eager to learn, and doesn’t just accept something because everyone tells him that’s the way it is. He’s so brave. I love Leesha because she’s smart. Because she’s learned to stand up for herself. Because she doesn’t give up hope or trust, even when humanity has shown her its worst side. I love Rojer because of his eternal optimism. He’s always trying to make the best of a situation. There are many more characters I love though.I also really appreciated the focus on women in these books. Often when fantasy books have a medieval kind of setting, they see the women as less than men. As they did in reality during those times. But not The Warded Man. Here are some of the quotes I loved:“…Apart from Miln, none of the others give their women much voice at all.” “That sounds just as dumb,” Arlen muttered.“Spare me the recitation from the Canon,” Bruna cut her off. “It’s a book written by men, without a thought given towards the plight of women.”“Men are good for breaking and building, but politics and papers are best left to women who’ve been to the Mother’s School. Why, it’s Mothers that vote to choose a new duke when the old one passes!”All in all, it’s safe to say that I loved this book. I’m curious to read the next books and see what happens, but I’m apprehensive at the same time. I’ve already heard that the sequels have many mixed reviews while the first one is more “universally loved”. So I’m a bit afraid. But I still want to see what happens to these characters!

I'm a little late to the Peter Brett party. I remember when The Warded Man first hit the shelves a few years ago. I had just finished Brent Weeks's Night Angel Trilogy and I was hunting for something new. I wasn't a savvy blogger type then or even someone who read reviews on-line -- just a guy who liked to read. I'm sad to say, I made a conscious decision not to start it. I wanted to make sure it had legs before I invested my time and money. It turns out my $7.99 investment is going to cost me five times that by the time Brett's Demon Cycle is done. In fact, I should probably just send Del Rey the check right now. I wonder if they take trade-ins (Omen Machine? Anyone?).Warded Man can come off a bit like paint-by-number-epic-fantasy at first. The narrative voice is third person limited, using three distinct points of view. It begins in a small community on the outskirts of a society built on fear of demons, who come to feed when the sun sets. Arlen is the stereotypical farm boy who dreams of life beyond the agrarian lifestyle chosen for him. With a natural talent for painting wards, the only barrier between humanity and the insatiable demons, Arlen isn't satisfied with the status quo. When his mother is attacked one night, he leaves home, determined to find freedom from fear.The other two points of view are Rojer, an orphaned jongleur (think gleeman or bard), and Leesha, a stunningly beautiful herb gatherer (think wisdom or hedge witch). For much of the novel the three story lines are independent from one another, brought together only when each has reached a conclusion that the world they inhabit cannot continue. While Arlen is the novel's center, all three of them are given about equal time.Some of the other paint-by-number devices include a combat dedicated desert people who wield spears, battles for survival against impossible odds, villains who engender no sympathy, and coming of age plots. There's even a prophesy. All that might be read as a criticism of the novel and Brett as an author. It's not. Warded Man may be wrapped in familiar paper, but under the hood is a unique smorgasbord of fantasy delights that becomes more apparent with each page (mixed metaphor, much?).Of course, there are certain tropes that by their very definition designate something as epic fantasy (prophesy, end of the world stakes, good vs. evil, etc.). There are also certain tropes that come up again, and again, for a very good reason. The best example being the small town, farm boy starting point. When building a second world from the ground up, including a magic system, political structures, and establishing character baselines, there's almost no better way to ease a reader in that the aforementioned trope. Authors who eschew it are often criticized for throwing too much at their readers, Steven Erikson being perhaps the best example. Are there other ways to go about it? Sure, but it's overused for a reason and Brett executes it flawlessly.And execution is mostly what makes Warded Man such a rousing success. Brett's prose flows naturally and his action scenes seem effortless. His world and magic system are cleverly crafted, playing off each other in perfect harmony. Characters are well drawn, making the reader want to strangle them one moment and cheer for them the next. To condense things down to a sentence, Brett is beginning something that will be a tighter, and more grim, Wheel of Time.My one complaint about the novel is that it ends up reading something like a long form prologue. Brett divides everything up into four parts, starting his characters as children, then young adults, then adults, before bringing the novel to its for-now conclusion. Covering fifteen years of time, with each section covering a year at most, a great deal of time passes that's a mystery to the reader. Additionally, until those final pages, Brett's three characters are searching for direction, as opposed to driving towards a goal. Some might find that a bit off-putting; it just made me angry I didn't have a copy of the sequel, Desert Spear, sitting on my nightstand. And that's about the best endorsement I can give an author.By the time Brett pens the final volume, the Demon Cycle is going to be one of the best selling series in recent years. I know I have readers of this blog who will find aspects of Warded Man irredeemable. It could be the familiar trappings, or a particular set of scenes near the end that may not sit well with some female (mostly) readers. But, even critics will recognize that Peter Brett has a tremendous talent for story telling. It's been a long time since I stayed up to 2 AM to finish a novel (on a work night, no less!), and even longer since I had no idea how much time had passed.For fans of epic fantasy, with Wheel of Time ending, and A Song of Ice and Fire taking a circuitous route to completion, this is the series to get on board. Of course, everyone knew that already, right?

I was recommended this by a friend as a top fantasy novel. If this is considered one of the best, as the many 5-star reviews suggest, then what happened to the Fantasy genre?It started off good with demons of all elemental varieties rising in the night. The author is a self-proclaimed D&D fan, so yeah, the action is a bit game-y, but that's not necessarily bad. Conan proves you can have silly fun. But then chapter 2 hits and all of a sudden we're dealing with incest and child marriage. Like wtf man? By chapter 4 we're dealing with the mum looking to have an affair with a hot stud after marrying a boring bloke for his money. And in 5 I'm now deeply in the mind of a 13 year old girl who's procrastinating over wanting to make babies and having not yet 'flowered', aka, had her period. Is this really the priorities of a population who live on a day in day out basis trapped behind wards and at risk of being brutally murdered by a seemingly limitless horde of demons? I think not.I thought using taboo subjects as cheap plot shocks was GRR Martin's niche, but it appears this is just modern fantasy as a whole. That said, Painted Man makes Game of Thrones look like a literary masterpiece in comparison, because at least there was a somewhat deep and interesting world between Martin's ugliness and ludicrous portrayal of nigh-on daily torture, rape, and sexual affairs.Sure, I can buy that girls are naturally interested in sex at a young age, but why do so many fantasy authors think they want to be popping out babies? Has anybody reading this ever known a teenage girl who wants to get pregnant? Has a female in the existence of all humanity ever said the phrase 'Now put a baby in my belly.'? Does anybody here know a male of any year who wants to get their girlfriend pregnant within the first few times they have sex? Who is this story for exactly? Even if it's aimed primarily at young males, do teenage boys really get their rocks off reading dialogue between girls about them 'bloodying the sheets at 13 summers'?I'm only 25% through, and I'll persevere to see if something so wtf amazing happens at the end that I can bump my review up to 2-stars, but I very much doubt that's going to happen. All in all I'm not impressed. But if somebody who legitimately loves this story as a 5-star classic wants to explain to me why in a way I can understand then I'm more than willing to change my opinion.***Update***So now I've finished the book, and yeah, the fantasy elements were entertaining. I see the issues others state with the system being intriguing but not fleshed out. The way the wards work seem designed to either be impervious or ineffective depending on what the drama needs. It makes no sense to me that the demons haven't trigged on that they just drop a twig over a rune and they can break through. Likewise, this same issue doesn't seem to matter when then likes of Arlen is burying his runes in the sand to hide them, or getting his skin cut up and smeared with blood when he's running around as 'the Painted Man'. The portable circles seem to effect an area large enough for a person to stand in, or an entire arena a hundred metres in diameter depending on what's needed. And I still don't understand why demons don't just rise up inside the circles or towns, or the wind demons flying in from the top.The climax of a big battle for the village was a decent ending. But a lot was taken away on how ridiculous the defenses were--they can spend a day warding multiple weapons but can't put up an effective shield on their buildings? At the same time, the story spent pages pointing out that these monsters are innumerable, don't die, heal quickly, and rise up anew every night. Yet they don't. And in one battle they kill hundreds of them and the beasts never return again.But I digress. It's no masterpiece, and there's some strange word choices for sure, but it's a fun enough 3-star romp... when it stays on point.But my 1-star remains simply because the Leesha story arc is so incredibly gross. Brett was sorely lacking a good editor, because anyone worth a lick would have told him to scrap every scene she's in. Her chapters are eye-rolling throughout, often climax into a discussion that's uncomfortable and weird, and at worse are downright offensive. Seeing her final line stating how she always felt she was made for more than healing and delivering babies is cringeworthy considering she spent the entire story lamenting how she's not found 'the man' to start popping out children. Every non-main character male she's around tries to rape her and she often just loughs this off as 'them guys'. On no less than three occasions she's about to begrudgingly do the deed to fulfill her needs at the time only to pull away at the last second. And then she gets gangraped off page, immediately gets over it, starts throwing tantrums at the leads who go off on their own behalf to kill the men who assaulted her, and within a few chapters is voluntarily shagging the main character who himself didn't want to be involved in relationships throughout. That pretty much ruined the story for me, and makes me uninterested to continue with the series.

This is a fantastic read the first I've read from this author and I can assure you it won't be the last I have already downloaded the next book in the series.It is a big book I think over 5 hundred pages but I flew through it totally captivated in the world building and the development of the three main characters who started off with there own separate story arcs which all came together towards the end which I thought was brilliantly done. Also the ideas and concepts and description of this fantasy world was brilliantly well written. I was looking for a new fantasy series i could get stuck into and with the help of Peter V Brett I think I've found one .This is a fantastic read and I can't recommend it highly enough.

This is a well written fantasy novel (albeit not on the level of heavyweights of the genre like George R. R. Martin or Brandon Sanderson) that has an intriguing premise: A world where elemental demons rise when the sun goes down and only magical wards can prevent them from reaching the humans of the world. When the wards fail, a massacre ensues.Unfortunately I found the book took a very long time to get going, with a lot of back story told for the main protagonist and 2 other characters. This back story literally comprises half the novel. While I appreciate the importance of character development, I found this a little long winded and could have easily been trimmed down somewhat. I also found the final few chapters to feel somewhat anticlimactic and certainly didn't match the brilliance of the previous 10 chapters or so.It captured my attention enough to have invested me in the world and I will certainly read the next novel in the series, however I would be hoping for it to be an improvement over this novel.Don't bother with the audiobook. I found it to be of a poor quality.

The story is 5 star as it's been since it was released. The quality of the binding in hardback is very good. HOWEVER,the illustrations are a complete let down. I brought this book to match the rest of the books in hardback on the belief that the illustrations would add to my wonderful experience of this series. They are not what I would class illustrations, I would call them pencil drawings. The picture with this post is ment to be the rock demon whose arm Arlen removed. It looks like every generic picture of a demon or Diablo! I was looking forward to seeing illustrations that match the cover work on all the books, how I was let down. Having spent fifteen pounds on this book, in hindsight wish I had only spent five on a replacement paperback!

The Painted Man is the introductory installment in the 5-book saga of the Demon Cycle. The story centers around the three main characters, Arlen, Leesha and Rojer, starting with their childhood and ending into their adulthood. While the stories develop indepedently at the beginning they tie up together in the end. The author chooses a simple and clear writing style without excessive exposition and complicated sentences.But the book is not without problems. The two story lines for Leesha and Rojer read like filler until the very last chapters of the book and are generally uninteresting. Additionally, some will find the author's writing style more suitable for children or teenagers. Finally, while the set-up and the world is generally interesting, the book's plot itself is rather generic and there are a few plot holes. The book ends in a minor tease/cliff hanger and I intend on reading the next installment.In short, the book is a decent introduction to the Demon Cycle saga for people who want a light reading with a fantasy setting.