The Desert Spear by Peter V Brett (3.6 Stars)

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power. 

Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. But is the return of the Deliverer just another myth? Perhaps not. 

Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the desert tribes into a demon-killing army. He has proclaimed himself Shar'Dama Ka, the Deliverer, and he carries ancient weapons--a spear and a crown--that give credence to his claim. 

But the Northerners claim their own Deliverer: the Warded Man, a dark, forbidding figure. 

Once, the Shar'Dama Ka and the Warded Man were friends. Now they are fierce adversaries. Yet as old allegiances are tested and fresh alliances forged, all are unaware of the appearance of a new breed of demon, more intelligent—and deadly—than any that have come before.

Premise: How compelling or unique is the overview of the story?

----- 7/10: The Warded Man introduced an interesting and unique world. But The Desert Spears doesn't move the premise forward at all. Instead it focuses on yet another trope desert culture and doesn't develop the story book 1 introduced. Interesting direction that doesn't play very well in my opinion.

Plot: How well does the action of the story fulfill or even expand the potential of the premise?

----- 5/10: The Desert Spear begins with 200 pages straight of backstory for Jardir. He's an interesting character and the time spent on his story pays off later, but it's a long slog to start the book. The plot in the middle section picks up as we get back to the characters we know from The Warded Man, but quickly drops off again because once again, like in book 1, there is really no major climactic scene to wrap up the book nicely. If you think about what action actually happened in this book, there's not much to talk about.

Characters: Overall feelings towards the characters. Are they memorable? Exciting? Human? Do we even like them?

----- 9/10: With all the time spent building up these characters, they better be good. And for the most part they really are. I felt like I knew all of them and that they were real people. This is one of the strongest aspects of the book.

Pacing: How strong is the momentum of the story? Is it hard to put the book down?

----- 8/10: The pacing is decent. I wasn't a fan of the slow start to the book, but after that part concludes the story picks up a lot of steam in the middle portion. Even the ending, though not very exciting has a nice pace to it until the very end.

Prose: Does the author have strong writing skills? Is the text easy and enjoyable to read and not jarring or distracting?

----- 9/10: Peter Brett's writing abilities are really quite impressive. The more I read the more I realize there really aren't the lot of super well-written fantasy books out there. This is one of the better written books and series from a technical perspective.

Depth: Do elements of the story combine to form an immersive setting? Is it easy to visualize and well thought out?

----- 9/10: After reading two books from the series I feel like I have a great mental picture of the world. Although it can be a little drab and boring there is quite a lot of depth here and that's a credit to the author.

Epic-ness: Are cool things happening? Are story elements used to creating plot action that is exciting and satisfying?

----- 4/10: Here's my main criticism of the book. Nothing really cool or epic ever happens. Sure, there are a lot of fights against demons. But honestly after a while they blend into the same fight over and over and are not interesting even though there's a lot of action going on. Nothing really surprising ever happens, and there's no intrigue or big reveals that excite the reader. You could just take the story at complete face value and never really have your socks knocked off.

Total: 51/70: This series really does have a lot of potential. It's a cool idea and there are some great characters. However in order for a series to really catch my interest, it needs to have its great characters doing exciting things. We just don't have enough of that here for the book to warrant a strong rating. After seeing some reviews that book 3 doubles down on this pattern and doesn't progress the plot hardly at all, I think I'm done with the demon cycle series.

Content warning: Brief language and sexual content throughout, although not described too explicitly.