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.

If you haven’t read it, as I failed to do for far too long, you’re in luck. The series is finished. Yes, there are rumors of a Demon Cycle, The Next Generation, which would certainly make publishers happy. And it Mr. Brett has already published “Barren”. A book I hear is among that next generation in the Demon Cycle world.

Generally: Most my reading is via Audiobook with long stretches of reading while listening to the audiobook – an old college study techniques hack. My first reading was The Warded Man, my second read was The Painted Man. Literally someone took the entire manuscript and did a search/replaced “Painted” with “Warded”. That’s the only difference. The narrators, however, are significantly different.

Listening the first time to Pete Bradbury, “Ragen”, a mentor to our protagonist Arlen is pronounced “Ray gun”. Listing to Colin Mace “Ragen” was pronounced “Raw gun”. It’s times like this when you’re forced to admit you don’t like “change”. Until you get used to it.

I think the public and critical embrace of this novel was massively underrated. Particularly by those who create buzz about books when it first came out. Today there’s an entire Demon Cycle cult complete with ward tattoos and galleries of fan art. This is a book, and series you will love regardless of your preferred genre. Okay, it’s PG13-R for sex and violence, but not exactly Harlequin fare.

My Notable Notes: I’ve lost or deleted most my notes less the “Ray gun” vs “Raw gun” auditory. There is one “spoiler note” at the end. I hope you skip it if you haven’t read the book.

I did skim through the book again on 11/06/2020 to see if I could make sense of my “out of context” notes. I’d forgotten about “one arm”, the post climax events, and the foretelling of coming events in The Desert Spear. More would be too “spoiler” for my tastes.

Likes and Dislikes: The things that routinely get under my skin didn’t appear in this novel. I’m happy to report all my dislikes are directly related to the author’s intentions. I disliked those he expected me to dislike and on the second time around even teared up on the scenes that were exceptionally tragic..

The Technical: If I simply enjoy a book like this one, the author was technically sound. I studied writing and wrote for at least two decades. Technically unsound writing rarely misses my attention. You’ll love it because it is character driven. While I love my adrenaline filled plot driven cut out heroic novels for justice and all, this isn’t that. Peter earned reader’s trust, then delivered on his promise that if we would suspend our disbelief for just a little bit, he would make us all believers, living in his imagination.

READING PROGRESS:

1. Warded Man: April 19, 2016, May 21, 2016, July 3, 2016
2. Painted Man: December 22, 2019, January 9, 2020

Spoiler

Spoiler Note: Having run away from his coward father, come night he found a patch of ground fire demons had scorched and some grass was starting to come back. He scraped and found hard dirt. He made a ward circle with confidence, then stood in the middle of his six foot diameter circle of magic. After the demons saw him, they were anxious with delight. First to attack was a wind demon swooping down to tear out his throat. The shield held. The demon bounced off the magic landing several feet away. Next was a fire demon no bigger than a dog. Every time one touched the ward shield it would spark causing Arlen to flinch. After several hours he was standing confident again, cursing the demons who couldn’t get through.

The rock demon was fifteen feet tall. It’s claws the size of butcher knives.

After his confidence recovered in his wards he started jumping up and down, waving his arms and howling at the rock demon. Then, he scuffed a ward. He had his stick out in a second but the rock demon realized his chance. Arlen finished the damage to the one line he’d scuffed just as he felt the claws on his back. The demon howled.

Arlen created “one arm” on his first night under the stars.

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