The Painted Man: Book One of the Sunday Times bestselling Demon Cycle epic fantasy series (The Demon Cycle, Book 1)

As a Neil Gaiman & Tolkien fan, I was really looking forward to immersing myself into the world of The Painted Man. This book didn’t disappoint & I purchased the second book in this series when I was half way through this book.Would recommend if you like epic fantasy reading!

It has been a while since I read this one, so the review will not go to great depths. My regrets.On the front cover is written: "Enter a world where darkness belongs to demons."This is not an ideal world. When the sun sets the demons rise from the ground to wreak havoc upon the human world. This is a world where power lies in symbols and wards are all that stand between humanity and demonkind. A world where the human race is ever dwindling, ever more crippled by fear as the years go by.This is the broken world from which the Painted Man rises.The book is beautifully written. Peter V. Brett has an extraordinary sense for creating an atmosphere that draws in the poor unsuspecting reader, scaring you to the bone.He lays a big emphasis on how crippling fear can be to mankind. The humans we are met with from the first pages of this book have all become burdened by their fear. When the demons attack they can do nothing but prey that their wards will hold, because if they don't ... they won't know how to fight or even how to flee. Should they by some miracle survive the encounter they lose their will to live, eventually destroying themselves.Arlen is one boy who begins to realise the problem with this. He starts to grow defiant in the face of the weakness he sees in his elders. He grows restless to the point where he ends up leaving his home to face the oncoming night alone in the wild.This is not a cheerful kind of novel. It is a story ripe with darkness and despair. Each night carries a new nightmare and each day a new trial for the village people who struggle to rebuild what was ruined during the night. There does not seem to be much hope of things ever getting better for these disheartened folks.The demons in this book have various shapes and sizes and are all tied to certain parts of nature (wind, sand, wood, water, earth). The one thing they have in common is that they are all savage beasts that will attack anything they see with a devastating hunger.The humans cannot fight back properly because they do not have the fighting wards. They know of them from the last time the earth was infested by the demons, but they are as sunken in the desert sand.It is a very well developed world that Peter V. Brett has created. It is not as mindblowingly big as many other fantasy universes, which makes it a little easier to keep track of who are where and why.There are a couple of different POV-characters, which provides a variety in the style and manner of the chapters. The most prominent of them is Arlen, who is a strikingly sympathetic character. I fell in love with him from the very beginning and only grew to love him more as the pages flew by.Leesha and Rojer, the two other main characters are great too, but they never quite managed to reach the same level of enthusiasm from me as Arlen did. I often found myself waiting for Arlen's chapters to come around again. Still, this is only the first instalment of the series and I dare say all three characters may develop much yet.The aspect that I loved the most about this book was the general atmosphere. I loved all of its inherent darkness, all its underlying tragedy: the world which was once so grand has become divided and broken, the knowledge which was once held sacred is lost and buried.I also love the message that I got out of it: Humanity's greatest weakness is its fear. Once it learns to overcome that and stands up to defy that which threatens it, it will be capable of mustering a greater force than it might have thought possible.I have to say that I am impressed. I expected much from this book and still ended up pleasantly surprised. The only thing I think it could have had more of is emotional depth. The story did not move me entirely as much as it had the potential to - not to say that it did not move me, it really did! But I did not shed a lot of tears over it.More High Fantasy reviews by Hypervorean at Numinous Publications: [...]

The Painted Man tells the tale of Arlen whom we meet as a 11 year old boy in the aftermath of a demon attack on the village of Tibbet's Brook. Arlen lives in a world where the coming of night brings the rise of the coreling , demons of various flavours ( wood near forests , stone in the highlands / mountain ranges and sand in the desert , you get the picture ) Humanity has chosen to hide behind magical wards that these coreling cannot cross , living sheltered lives only during daylight hours.Without spoiling the story tragedy strikes and Arlen leaves home, determined to not be cowed by the coreling , angry at humanity's inability or lack of willingness to take back the night .The story is also told through 2 other POV's , Leesha is a 13 year old girl at the start of the book and lives in the woodcutting town of Cutters Hollow . Her fairytale existence is shattered with public humiliation and she ends up apprenticed to the hamlets healer, a crone almost as fearsome as the demons themselves.The third and final POV is that of young Rojan , when his parent wards are breached his family is slaughtered and he is taken in by the a wandering jongleur ( master performer be it in music / magic or song ) He is taken to the city of Fort Angiers and becomes apprentice to Dukes own minstrel.Now so far it all seems so far so farmboy/girl saves the world , and i guess in part it is, but the books strength lies in the characterisation, we see Arlen , Leesha and Rojen grow up in little vignettes , skipping forward a few years each time, we get to see Leesha become a woman and an accomplished healer ( and carrier of knowledge protected by the women of her trade) we see Rojen's struggle to support himself and his alcoholic mentor and we get to see Arlen grow to become a skilled ward maker who struggles to fight his inner demons (his desire to fight the coreling ) and eventually embarks on a career as a messenger , hunting for ways to fight the demons when he has the chance.All in all the books has all the usual fantasy tropes , its largely predictable and it does absolutely nothing new...... However the strength lies in the way Brett has painted these characters and the absolute perfect pacing of the book . It rarely lets go from the first page , Arlen and co are very likeable , the character motivations are plausible and the corelings are suitably frightening . The Painted Man is very much a book in the mould of David Gemmell , anyone who loves a book that is simply a good fast paced story with likeable character need to read this

I found the book to be very interesting and it's plot , character development,all seemed extremely natural and not forced.Although I won't recommend it to anyone.It's reading worthy but not recommend worthy.The way women were portrayed in this book was a let down

I hardly ever write book reviews, normally I just give it a rating on my kindel and go to the next. If you have ever played D&D, I think you would like the book/s even more, though you don't see nods to it much in the first book. But Book 3 Chapter 7 you will particularly like. (I've gotten to B4 as I write this). Its a human/demon world no elves, dwarves etc. Has a bit of a Wheel of Time feel in some ways. (I see this as a good thing). The magic system is very interesting. I found the magic system a bit dull in the first book, but it gets much more interesting in the following books. The world building is great. The characters are compelling and interesting. For those who tire of identity politics in everything, there are not any in this that I can see. The female characters are strong and unique, and get more interesting as the series goes on. There are no Mary Sue's (male or female). Power is earned.The magic system is great, original and makes sense, exploring it is fun. The martial arts system is also interesting. There is a underlying history behind the story that gives it a feel of authenticity.If you are a person easily offended my sexuality, book 1 is pretty tame (the main characters are young in this one, and its NOT like GoT where the ages of some of the characters and the sex scenes make you go ew). One of the top 2 star reviews on the book/series seems offended by the sex and labels all the m/f characters as sluts.... I disagree. People act like people. Normally I greatly prefer closed door scenes, as a male reading another male writing sex scenes usually leaves me feeling creeped out. However many female readers prefer reading sex scenes (any author AMA revels this). Can't say how a woman would like the sex scenes in the series as I'm a dude. Some are closed door, some and often for plot points are more descriptive. If you refuse to let your 17 year old kid see Rated R movies, you will not like the book. If you are more open minded, its NOT a big deal. It is NOT that graphic. The complaining review seems like a very prude reviewer, who would NOT let a 17 year old kid see a rated R movie. So yeah there is sex in the book. People have it. Some is very necessary for the plot. It could have been all closed door and I generally prefer that, but this just isn't that racy.Its a page turner. I never heard of the author before, but saw a review on a YouTube channel and liked the premise. I read the free preview and liked it enough to buy it. I gladly bought the rest of the series. As a D&D player for most of my life there are a few really fun nods to D&D in the book. If you never played D&D you would miss them, its not important to the story as such. but if you do makes it extra fun. I don't want to spoil anything.If you like Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, The movie Patriot, The Witcher Netflix series, Brandon Sanderson, you will probably like this. I found I really liked the female characters in the book, much more so than the WoT. More along the line to the female characters of GoT (books). I'd often get bored of the nagging and 1 dimensional female characters many in the WoT seem to be. IMHO the females are written MUCH better in this series, (I think many male authors struggle writing interesting female characters in general). In WoT, I go sick of them tugging on their braid and complaining about something. In the Demon Cycle they are much more interesting and compelling, seem more human and I enjoyed their POV chapters immensely. The male characters are also done very well.Its not classic fantasy, its human centric, engaging, paced well, world building and info dumps are very well done, you don't notice them happening. World gets more interesting as it goes by. Thankfully few real world politics. Compelling and interesting characters, original magic system and a reason to fear the dark, and learn to over come that fear. Pick up a warded spear and fight the demons of the night.

4,5⭐️ PeterVBrett ci trascina in un mondo in cui la notte diventa il peggior incubo dell’essere umano.Arlen, Leesha e Rojen sono tre bambini appartenenti a diversi paesi, ma con una cosa in comune: i Coreling. Questi sono demoni spietati che all’arrivo delle tenebre appaiono distruggendo e massacrando ogni forma di vita.L’unico modo per proteggersi da loro sono le Rune.Ognuno di questi tre ragazzi verrà segnato da una tragedia e sarà costretto ad intraprendere una nuova strada. Li vediamo crescere, maturare e affrontare man mano varie difficoltà e nuove scoperte riguardo ai demoni.Tre personaggi ben caratterizzati, un fantasy crudo e cupo. Non ho mai trovato parti lente durante la lettura.Spero di poter leggere al più presto i volumi seguenti perché, per me, è una serie originale e validissima.

Muito bem escrito e a narrativa é muito envolvente. Estou adorando. Os personagens são bem elaborados. A história conta com aventura e romance na medida certa.

This book was a very pleasant surprise.I read a lot of fantasy books, and it is sometimes hard to weed out the good from the bad based on sites like this or GoodReads reviews. I didn't actually check the reviews for this book, as the last time I did that the reviews were raging and the book was totally not my style.What style of book do I like? One that is well written and pulls me in. That means great characters and a story line that doesn't drag on and on for 500 pages of nothing much happening.This was the first book in my last 10 or so purchases that so pulled me in that there were moments that I felt within the story and ignored everything around me. Usually I am not that pulled into the story. The characters are just so real and the writing is at a level that the author blends what they are doing and saying and how they are characterized so that you want to continue reading to see how their stories go. While the "Warded Man" is the main character of the story, there are also other characters that are richly developed and really bring you in.I was a bit on the fence trying this out due to the demons and how I've seen that written in the past. Don't let that fool you. This author is extremely talented, especially in this the first book of the series, I couldn't put the book down. I can't the same for the last couple fantasy books I've read.I highly recommend this book. He really should be on a top 10 list.