The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (review by Darren)

Today, we're going to be talking about The Warded Man, by Peter V. Brett. (Caveat: This book contains adult language and adult situations, and does it oh so well.) To give you a preface, it came out a couple years back, and caught everyone's attention because it was written in a very unorthodox fashion: on his Blackberry, while taking public transit to work. Odd, yes. But apparently effective, because his book is quite simply one of the best pieces of fantasy I have read in quite a while. My brother gave it to me to read, and lo and behold, as is always the case, Bryce was right again. It's a fine piece of literature, and I'll tell you why: because it seems real. Does it seem strange to you that I say a fantasy book seems real? Well, then you misunderstand me: magic isn't real, neither are demons, or many other fantasy tropes. But this book makes them seem alive, and if life isn't real, then what are we?

    The characters, mainly Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer, all start this book out very young: we meet Arlen when he's 11, Leesha when she's 13, and Rojer when he's 3. By the end of the book, Rojer is 17, which makes Leesha 27 and Arlen 25. Now that we've done our math, we begin to see a bit of interesting thought: how does he cram 14 years into one book and not make it seem like a history book? It's only barely more than 500 pages, and yet... I don't think there was ever a slow moment. I began reading this last night: I read for about 10 hours total, and am now done, and it's almost one in the morning. I couldn't put it down, and as soon as I finish writing this review, I will begin counting the seconds until I can read the second book, The Desert Spear, which Amazon says will be out on the 13th of April.
   
    The plot, a mixture of twisted fantasy tropes and ingenious new ideas, is basically this: every night, demons come out of the ground, and if you aren't behind some kind of warded shelter, you are dead, because the wards for fighting demons have been lost for... well, for a long time (it doesn't give you exact time frames, which makes sense with the amount of knowledge lost when the demons started destroying things). Seems basic, right? Well, only if you look at it from that perspective. The world is immersive, and the characters are literally alive, making you feel their emotions and see from their eyes, almost like you were playing a virtual reality game, rather than reading a book. I've spent 10 hours with them, and I'm pretty sure I could make full 3d models of them (and I'm no good with 3d modeling).

    It speaks as a testament to the writing prowess of Mr. Brett, that I can say things like that with a straight face, and completely mean them. I am looking forward to, well, anything that he writes from here on out. Please, if you read this, I'd love to be an ARC reader of yours in the future, and best wishes on your career. I give this book a 9.5 out of 10, only docking half a point for a slight plot hangup that I had (why didn't Arlen immediately go back to Cob with the new wards? I think he would have done that, but that's my opinion.) If you can ignore that plot point (and please don't kill me if that spoiled anything for you, I don't think it will) then it gets a 10/10. READ THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY. I command it. That is all.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

I must confess that this isn't my first time through this book, it's more like my third. I can't seem to avoid reading this book every year or so, just for the sheer pleasure I get from it. It really is a wonderful book. All right, enough fan boyism, time to get to the actual meat of the review.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fantasy book by Scott Lynch. It's part of a series of a planned 7 books called The Gentleman Bastard Sequence. The novel tells the story of Locke Lamora, moving back and forth between his childhood upbringing and his current situation, namely that of a Garrista, a boss of a gang in the city of Camorr. Locke and his group of thieves are planning a massive heist of cash from a rich Don and Dona of Camorr. Robbing nobles is strictly prohibited by the Secret Peace, a sort of don't ask don't tell agreement between the nobility and the Mob boss of Camorr. They devise a clever plan to rid the Don of his wealth while at the same time keeping it secret from the Duke's police as well as the Mob boss. Things take a turn for the worst when Locke and his crew get wrapped up in the revenge of The Grey King, a clever man planning the overthrow of the underworld of Camorr.



The book is a wonderful lesson in giving just enough information that you can have a fully realized world, without spending chapter after chapter describing everything in sight. The city lives and breathes around you as you read. Lynch does get a bit verbose at times, and there were some parts that could have been removed altogether, but overall he does a wonderful job of giving just enough to keep you in the scene while at the same time making the world around you come alive.


If you're a fan of capers (Think Oceans 11) then I highly recommend this book to you. It's got a plot that I love, and shows how clever the writer and the characters are throughout. I also love the dialogue in this book. WARNING: This book does present a somewhat frequent use of the F Word, so if you absolutely can't overlook that, it might spoil the whole thing for you.


The Lies of Locke Lamora (9/10) is one of my favorite fantasy books of all time. The world is great, the characters are wonderful, and you're left heartbroken where you should be and rooting for the protagonist all the time. For a first book, this is very polished. In terms of the overall novel, I would rank this book above The Name of the Wind. Rothfuss manages to be a little bit better storyteller than Lynch, but you honestly couldn't have gone wrong with either in the year they came out, and you still can't go wrong with them now.