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The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)
by Peter V. Brett (Goodreads Author)
by Peter V. Brett (Goodreads Author)
A fantasy (secondary-world or post-apocalyptic Earth isn’t clear, or at least not in the part of the book I read) in which humankind is subject to attack every night by demons that materialize from the ground. At the opening of the book, the only defense people have is to huddle behind magical wards which the demons cannot breach (unless the chalk or whatever is scuffed or something, I don’t know.) Humans cower in their cities or individual farmhouses, and it would be really great if someone learned to, I don’t know, cover their own body with wards, becoming some sort of WARDED MAN, hmm?
No one, I should mention, seems to have thought of having failsafe or layered wards, or maintaining warded roads or safehouses for travellers, or whatever else. Also the demons supposedly rampage about every night and shoot fire everywhere and have done so for 300 years but the opening village, at any rate, is in the middle of an idyllic forest with wildlife and trees and what have you. Again, these failures of logic might be addressed later, I don’t know.
Said village is where we meet our first character, an unsophisticated farm boy (novel!) who is constantly having conversations with everyone around him about how it’s the job of women to bear children and of men to protect the women and children. This was such an over-the-top Eagle Forum-esque understanding of gender politics that I thought for sure that the protagonist would Learn His Lesson once he met some more forward-thinking people (this particularly because the back of the book makes the point that men and women used to fight the demons together).* Then the extraneous and “gritty” sexual violence started and I checked the negative reviews on here and amazon and realized that not only are there are no twists or surprises or intelligent anythings in store for me here but that it gets WORSE than that and so I bid you fair ‘morrow, Mr. Brett.
* Even with all the gender things that he gets wrong, I’m so glad that Steven Erikson at least gets this right, because it’s depressingly rare in the world of fantasy.
No one, I should mention, seems to have thought of having failsafe or layered wards, or maintaining warded roads or safehouses for travellers, or whatever else. Also the demons supposedly rampage about every night and shoot fire everywhere and have done so for 300 years but the opening village, at any rate, is in the middle of an idyllic forest with wildlife and trees and what have you. Again, these failures of logic might be addressed later, I don’t know.
Said village is where we meet our first character, an unsophisticated farm boy (novel!) who is constantly having conversations with everyone around him about how it’s the job of women to bear children and of men to protect the women and children. This was such an over-the-top Eagle Forum-esque understanding of gender politics that I thought for sure that the protagonist would Learn His Lesson once he met some more forward-thinking people (this particularly because the back of the book makes the point that men and women used to fight the demons together).* Then the extraneous and “gritty” sexual violence started and I checked the negative reviews on here and amazon and realized that not only are there are no twists or surprises or intelligent anythings in store for me here but that it gets WORSE than that and so I bid you fair ‘morrow, Mr. Brett.
* Even with all the gender things that he gets wrong, I’m so glad that Steven Erikson at least gets this right, because it’s depressingly rare in the world of fantasy.
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Comments (showing 1-50 of 60) (60 new)
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Brad
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Jan 07, 2012 07:55am
I am suddenly curious to see how bad this is all by myself. Sounds awful.
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Warding is probably an expensive enterprise, man. Only for those privelged few who can afford it. I mean, warding up the roads and buildings - imagine the taxes!
That is an explanation I would absolutely love but something tells me that this book was not headed for an in-depth analysis of the exploitative nature of magic economy
you know, this was actually commented on in the book (the warding of roads).Your other point, the fire demons not setting things on fire is valid but the way the demons appear is very dependent on the area they are in. Even though there are fire demons, you would have noticed that they only burned the things they spat on so unless they spat on a particularily dry patch of forest in the attempts to kill a human (seeing as they were never protrayed as walking around, spitting fire at random locations).
One last thing. You would have said "novel" had the character been a prince/bastard/orphan/baker's son. There REALLY isn't many unique character origins left out there.
Fair enough. Those things on their own wouldn't have made me put down the book - but those things combined with the reactionary gender politics killed it for me.
why would you "review" a book without reading the whole thing? either finish it and speak your mind or keep your pretension to yourself...
You don't need to eat the whole turd sandwich to know that it tastes like shit. You don't need to finish it.
reviews should only be done on books you have finished. How can you judge something properly without seeing the whole picture? its like throwing someone in jail that was found on the scene of a murder and not investigating any further. Can't judge what you do not know.
Course I don't care if you rate it but you shouldn't trash something you haven't read completely
Zach wrote: "Did you... forget that we already had this conversation?"Not sure who you're talking to but just in case - I was talking to Black. My bad for not hitting reply.
Well I don't know about you, but I know I don't like a book before I finish it. I can identify what I haven't liked about it up till that point too. Sure, it's nice to be generous and finish a book just for the shake of giving the author a chance. But sometimes it's not worth the time or effort. GR is a community of readers who can post their opinions on the things they read, anyhow. It's not a publication of professional reviewers who might or might not have an obligation to finish a book before they write their reviews.
There's a difference between deciding you didn't like a book and putting it away, and reading the first three chapters of a book and condemning it for not explaining everything about the world. By the end of chapter 3, a character uses layered wards, as you suggest. The author discusses that forests don't have fire demons in them, because the wood demons kill them specifically to protect the forests, as is explained in chapter 4. Most of the things you complain about are indeed made clear fairly early in the book.When at least half of your negative review is based on the phrase "I don't know", maybe it might behoove you to actually read the book you're reviewing. Or, alternatively, you could start reviewing movies based upon the opening credits.
"Most of the things you complain about are indeed made clear fairly early in the book."Correct - especially the fact that Brett appears to have borrowed his view of women from Rick Santorum.
One does not need to finish something before reviewing it. That is simply nonsense. The worst kind of thing is the kind of thing that is so bad that it is not even worth your time.
D_Davis wrote: "One does not need to finish something before reviewing it."That may be true but don't you think a disclaimer at the beginning of your post would be useful **Did Not Finish this Book**? someone reads this and thinks that all of his points are valid and never explained by the author in these books (when they are if you had kept reading). Its a misrepresentation of the book and your review to not say it. Honesty, If I see a "I did not finish this book" I don't read the review. If i see a lot of these kind of reviews I might not buy the book but one or two? most likely the writing style just doesnt match with what the reviewer likes.
D_Davis wrote: "One does not need to finish something before reviewing it. That is simply nonsense. The worst kind of thing is the kind of thing that is so bad that it is not even worth your time."Exactly.
Kp wrote: "D_Davis wrote: "One does not need to finish something before reviewing it."
That may be true but don't you think a disclaimer at the beginning of your post would be useful **Did Not Finish this Boo..."
Maybe you should go back and read the first sentence of the review, and also the last sentence of the second paragraph, and also the last sentence of the third paragraph.
Zach wrote: "D_Davis wrote: "One does not need to finish something before reviewing it. That is simply nonsense. The worst kind of thing is the kind of thing that is so bad that it is not even worth your time."..."LoL, I know it was there. I think you could have stated it more clearly but I did know it was there. One shouldn't have to search a review to find out if one finished the book or not. Personally I think it should be an option like placing no stars=did not finish. Personal opinion.
fyi I am no longer following this thread. Enjoy your reads!
Ha, you hid it from him - behind all that other text and information! Get your act together, Zach, for the next time you begin to even think about writing another review.
I am actually so very devious that I hid it from him in FRONT of all that other text and information!
There is another person on my friend's list who has read this, and he didn't think it was so bad. He has good taste in books, from what I have seen. It might not be a bad book. The whole "you better not write a review unless you finish the book" argument against negative ratings and reviews makes me grind my teeth in agitation, though.
For clarity, I have no problem with reviewing a book you didn't finish. I agree with you, the writing was sloppy in some places, and the societal sexism was jarring and appalling at times - there were a couple points where I had to set the book aside and walk away from it for a few days. If this killed the book for you, that's just fine and you are entirely in the right to say so.My problem is simply that a full paragraph and a half of the three paragraph review was factually inaccurate. If I were to review Charlotte's Web, and say it was awful and I didn't bother to read it because it's so obvious that in the end Charlotte and Wilbur run off together and live happily ever after, I'd expect to have half of all the registered users here tell me to actually read the book before making judgments.
There's a difference between sharing your opinions and making demonstrably false statements about the content of a book. When half of the reasons that you site for disliking a book are incorrect, it bears discussion.
Ironically enough, I'm not so sure that you actually read this review that you're complaining about.
The one where one sentence of the first paragraph and the entirety of the second paragraph are all inaccurate statements about the content of the book? I read it, yeah. If you care I can go into detail about how exactly they're wrong, but it doesn't particularly matter and would likely be a bit spoiler-ish for anybody reading this thread who is still interested in reading the book.
I am five hours in to it and want to stop. not being able to finish a book is a very valid reason to review a book I am trying to keep going but it is crap so far crap.
the one thing I love about goodreads is that it has saved me from buying crap books that I can't finish. it has saved be lots of money and helped me find so many great books a study steams of great crack for my mind. till now. yuck
I don't have very many shelves just read and to read but I might have to make a "COULD NOT FINISH " shelf
You do realise that when an author writes about women (or anyone else for that matter) in a certain way, that doesn't actually mean that's the way the author thinks about them, right? I can easily write a piece where all men are brainless idiots that women have decided to enslave because it's dangerous to let them think for themselves...but that doesn't mean I actually think that way.Would you complain about the sexual politics in the Song of Ice and Fire books, too? Just because some of Pete's characters state that women are only good for bearing children, doesn't mean that's what he thinks of women. It's called fiction, you know.
Zach wrote: ""Would you complain about the sexual politics in the Song of Ice and Fire books, too?"Yes?"
Why? If those politics or viewpoints or whatever you want to call them fit into the word that the story is set in, then why is it a problem?
Because it's almost always written about by men in this creepy, salacious way that is entirely uncritical and problematic.
So if it was written by a woman then that would be ok? That's a bit unfair. You can't assume that because a man writes about women in a book a certain way that he thinks that way in real life.
I couldn't care less what the author thinks "in real life," if that's how the book reads to me then that's something I'm going to critique.
and sometimes that's a critique of a work that I enjoy nonetheless (as in Gene Wolfe, say), and sometimes it's a critique of a work that I found no redeeming value in whatsoever (like this one).
You might not care, but you did mention in a previous comment that Pete must get his views on women from Rick Santorum, which suggests that you think he thinks that way in real life. Hence the point I was making.As for the rest of the review...well, people have mentioned its inaccuracies. You say that nobody seems to have thought of warded roads or safe houses etc. if you'd read to the end, you would have found out that you're wrong, that these problems have been addressed and people are continuing to address them throughout the series.
I understand that you didn't like the book and I respect that, and not finishing it doesn't mean you shouldn't write a review. But you shouldn't assume that just because a problem (in your opinion) hasn't been addressed in the short part that you rea, that it isn't addressed at all.
Oh, and later, men and women do fight the demons together, just so you know.
Why is it always the negative reviews that generate the most discussion? I've written dozens and dozens of positive reviews, and yet the one review I've written here that is really negative generated the most discussion. Weird.
I made the mistake of giving one-star to a beloved book, which also happens to be a book that was so bad I couldn't finish:
Swan Song
Swan Song
Zach wrote: "Particularly negative reviews of new and hyped-up books, I would add."It's not that new, and I wouldn't say it was hyped-up, either. I'd never heard of it until I saw it n my Amazon recommendations page.
I think negative reviews prompt more comments because they provide more scope for conversation.
Heh I laughed at the "Warded Man" snipe in the first paragraph, I felt kinda the same way, it was a little contrived and inevitable but I still think Brett handled the journey to that goal in a splendid fashion."No one, I should mention, seems to have thought of having failsafe or layered wards, or maintaining warded roads or safehouses for travelers,".
It is mentioned by Ragen and briefly (I believe) by Cob that attempts had been made to ward roads, but one simple screw up and the whole thing falls apart, it isn't an issue of maintenance. Fort Miln is a perfect example, it was warded and maintained everyday, but was still attacked by One-Arm because holes in Wards can be extremely subtle and unnoticeable.
Also about being covered in Wards, Wards are extremely intricate. Arlen was extremely gifted, it's doubtful many could even perform warding to the level he was able to, flesh isn't the easiest topology to carve wards onto. This is later noticeable at "The Battle Of Cutter's Hollow" where Arlen is clearly injured, his wards aren't perfect. It was explained towards the closing of the book Wards absorb Corelings attacks, therefore Arlen also suffers from being slightly demonic himself, the issues of this are further compounded and explained in "The Desert Spear", in otherwords being a painted man isn't a maintainable option
I also wrote in my review that the characters like Arlen were a tad on the simple side, though Brett does build them up in an effective way.As with the Gender roles, Arlen is young at the time and it's clear he didn't mean what he said in a sexist way, this is a post-apocalyptic world, at the start no one even assumes there's a means to attack the 'Corelings' therefore Arlen's statement is merely meant for survival, it's perfectly reasonable. Procreation is necessary to sustain what little is left of humanity.
I disagree that you had to read the whole book because you clearly didn't like it, but towards the end Arlen gives everyone including the Women and children weapons to fight with, this is also while he contemplates his anguish towards the Krasian peoples treatment of women as nothing more then objects. So clearly Arlen doesn't consider these gender stereotypes true.
