The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett is a 5 star fantasy novel about people who live during the day and hide by night when demons rise from the core of the Earth.  The back story as to how such a world came to be is barely relevant, so rarely discussed.  The world building is exquisite primarily because the entire “Demon Cycle” series of novels is character based.  This means the world is built by character actions and reactions to the world rather than any imaginative narrative.

The Daylight War is the third book in the “Demon Cycle” series.  So the least and most I can say that isn’t instantly “spoiler” material is that all the primary characters continue to grow into more fantastic characters.

When I first read the book, there was no 4th book in the series.

No one who was following the series back when it was first published will ever forget the conclusion of The Daylight War.

The wait for the next book was barely less painful than standing at the end of a very long line knowing your bladder has already exceeded its capacity.

2019 Conclusion

I failed to write several reviews towards the end of 2019.  I get that way sometimes.

If I did not publish them here I may have published something on View all my Goodread's reviews, or The Library Thing. Sometimes I do that. There is another "sagelyfox" on Wordpress, although less well maintained.

Here are the books I believe I failed to review here:

• Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga, #4) by Brown, Pierce * 
• Code Breakers: Prequel by Barnes, Colin F. *
• Code Breakers: Delta (Code Breakers #4) by Barnes, Colin F. *
• Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3) by Brown, Pierce *
• Gamma (Code Breakers #3) by Barnes, Colin F. *
• Beta (Code Breakers #2) by Barnes, Colin F. *
• Alpha (Code Breakers #1) by Barnes, Colin F. *
• The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #4) by King, Emily R *
• The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #3) by King, Emily R *
• The Fire Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #2) by King, Emily R *

The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett

Penguin Random House:

For hundreds of years the demons have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human herd that shelters behind magical wards—symbols of power whose origins are lost in myth and whose protection is terrifyingly fragile.

The Painted Man (Demon Cycle 1) by Peter V. Brett

Narrator(s):
👍🏻The Warded Man by Pete Bradbury,
👏🏻 The Painted Man Colin Mace

My Rating:

Easily a 5-star book. It’s a character driven fantasy. It’s a story of a boy (Arlen) growing up hard in a world where demons rule the night while humans huddle in fear behind magic barriers called wards that they barely understand.

Events mold young Arlen into the man he becomes. It’s much like a coming of age story as well as a hero’s journey.

Book has everything a fiction lover could want. Mystery, the fantastic, love, unrequited love, suspense, thrills, and of course tragedy that we’d much rather endure in fiction than in real life.

There are multiple protagonists (Leesha, Rojer), and the book follows each of them. At first the demons of the night are clearly the antagonists but where there are humans with different beliefs and values conflict hangs in the air like a thick fog.

From a very young Arlen who acquires a 15 foot tall rock demon “one arm” nemesis, who appears to hate Arlen in particular, we are propelled through the drama of human affairs to heroic events causing a dying town to change their name in honor of the scared and sick humans standing in the night against the onslaught of armies of demons.

Dark Age (Red Rising 5) by Pierce Brown

(Red Rising 5) Dark Age by Pierce Brown

My Rating:

Highly recommended 5 star novel. This is book 5 in the Red Rising Saga, a science fiction saga of social class casts of many colors..., and war. The wars of piddling slaves rebelling against the titan giant leaders, or so it was in the first trilogy.

In my mind, Dark Age is book #2 of the second trilogy of the Red Rising series. Officially Red Rising #5. If you're a fan of Red Rising, you don't need my review. I strongly recommend it to any Science Fiction fans, particularly if you love epic space opera/sagas. In this second trilogy it seems to me that Pierce Brown has abandoned the black and white of the fight between good and evil and has ventured in to the muddy marbled gray and white of reality.

Generally: Since this is the second book into the second trilogy of a complex epic space saga series there is no simple or generally.