/lit/ - Literature

So I recently finished the Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett and these are a summary of my thoughts on the entire 5 book series.

The setting is fantasy but with ample hints that it's earth, or close enough, in the future after demons destroy modern civilization. While traces of the old civilization exist it doesn't really loom over the story, it only comes up infrequently, since characters are more immediately concerned with fighting demons. Or at least, the best characters are. The worst characters are obsessed with interpersonal drama (more on this in a bit).

I think Brett did a good job with how he handled magic in this series. He gave it pretty clear limitations and rules without over-explaining it or even revealing all of its mysteries. We don't know why there's magic, or where it really comes from, but we learn through the characters' experiments with it how it works and what is possible with it. Seeing the evolution of magical weaponry throughout the series was pretty great. I also think the Warded Man, as a concept, is just really awesome. Arlen punches demons to death. Rad.

Now for the bad news. There's a LOT of cuckolding in this series. There's no way to sugarcoat it or even talk around it because it's literally a major plotline of the series' worst character: Leesha. Up side: if this is your fetish, I doubt you'll find a fantasy series that caters to you harder than this. Aside from the infidelity, this series is pretty smutty overall. No tasteful "fade to black" sex scenes, very GRRM-esque, tersely worded descriptions of (mostly awkward) sexual encounters. This takes a lot of the "epic" feeling out of the series, imo. It does humanize the characters a lot, which is a big theme in the story, but I kind of want my heroes to be larger than life. I don't need graphic descriptions of their premature ejaculations.

Also, I think Brett is just obsessed with Arabs. The Krasians are very obviously modeled on Arabs, and their religion on Islam. They are the only humans who still fight demons at the start of the series, and are portrayed as fearless, skilled warriors. But they're also brutal to the point of savagery. The amount of rape, sodomy, incest, and cuckolding in the series goes up exponentially as the Krasians become a bigger part of the narrative, and half the books are devoted to Krasians, so that's a lot of depravity.

The ending was fairly predictable, not the least because he'd so heavily foreshadowed it, but also felt incomplete. I knew he had a sequel series set after the Cycle, but I guess he'd already had that planned when he wrapped up book 5 because it didn't properly send off any of the characters besides Arlen. The Demon Cycle could be seen as Arlen's story, I suppose. It started with him and followed his life, but he barely felt like a character in it, at times.

So yeah. TL;DR - demon fighting is cool. Lots of rape, lots of cuckolding. Cool magic system. Weak ending.