Synopsis:
In the barren wastelands of Krasia
stands a proud and mighty city, The Desert Spear. For centuries,
night after night, the Krasian warriors fought and bled in
Alagai'sharak - a holy war against the demons, and they dedicate the
battle glory to the creator, Everham.
The Krasian faith in Everham may be
unwavering, but centuries of warfare is slowly killing the desert
kingdom, not only are the Krasian tribes divided, but the populace in
The Desert Spear has also plummeted to an all time low.
The tide of war, however, is about to
reach a turning point.
Out from the stone gate of The Desert
Spear rides a general most formidable. His name, is Ahmad Jadir; his
entire outfit is black, with the exception of a white turban covering
his head and face, and his hand grasps the warded Spear of Kaji, a
sign, for the approaching Sharak Ka and the return of the Deliverer.
Indeed, Jadir has proclaimed himself
Shar'Dama Ka, the Deliverer. The Krasian tribes, united under Jadir,
are riding north to conquer the lands of the chins, so all mankind
can combine their forces to fight in Sharak Ka, and finally rid the
world of the demonic hordes and restore it to Ala.
But the nothern people already have
their own Deliverer, The Painted Man, who led farmers and townspeople
at Cutters Hollow to a decisive victory against the demons.
How can there be two Deliverers while
the ancient prophecy foretold only one? Was the prophecy wrong?
From the north to the south, people are
whispering the rumors about the Deliverer, but little do they know
that The Painted Man and Jadir were once Ajin'pal, blood brothers,
bonded from their fight in the maze. But now they are adversaries
after each other's blood. Under the circumstances, old alliances will
be renewed while new ones forged, but unknown to all, a new type of
demon, lethal, sinister, and intelligent, is about to reveal itself
to the world of men...
My thoughts on this book:
The Desert Spear is a worthy
sequel to The Painted Man, as
it continues to excel in characterizations, storytelling, and
worldbuilding. In this book Peter V. Brett made some interesting
choices about the narratives, where, instead of continuing with the
stories of Arlen, Leesha, and Rojen, the first third of the book went
back in time to explore Jadir and his background story. This is not
to say that our beloved characters from the first book did not appear
in this installment at all, it is just that they only appeared some
250 pages into the book. Some readers expressed their dislike at Mr.
Brett's choice of narrating style, because they found the affair of
jumping back and forth on the timeline to be confusing. While some
readers said they dislike the book's opening section because they
never liked Jadir's character to begin with.
The Desert Spear, meanwhile,
received a very high rating of 4.22 out of 5 on Goddreads
nevertheless.
Personally, I loved The Desert Spear
as much as I loved The Painted Man. In some ways, The
Desert Spear is mainly about the story of Jadir. I despised Jadir
for what he did to Arlen in the first book. Although my opinion of
him changed, after reading The Desert Spear. The first 250
pages of the book told the story of Jadir's journey, from his
childhood, to his adulthood and his ascension to power in a harsh and
brutal Krasian society. Furthermore, Jadir's backstory is also an
excellent exploration of the Krasian society. The Krasian culture has
practices and traditions that offends our modern sensibilities, but
the worldbuilding in this book helped readers to understand why it is
so. To simply put it, the Krasian culture is what it is, because they
needed to overcome the adaptive challenges posed by the external
environments. After all, they needed to survive in the harsh desert as
well as defending themselves from the centuries of attacks from the demonic hordes. Jadir and Arlen are both protagonists in the story, bu while Arlen
rejects the prophecy about the Deliver and believes that it is the
everyday citizens who must unite and deliver themselves from the
demonic hordes, in contrast Jadir believes sincerely in the prophecy about the
Deliverer and that it is the Deliverer who must unite all men to fight in the Sharak Ka. In other words, Arlen and Jadir are in open conflicts against each other
due to their ideological differences in philosophy and religion. To
my 21th century mind, Arlen's way is much better than
Jadir's own, but after I read Jadir's backstory I came to see things
from his perspective, and I found Jadir a fascinating character
even though I still disagree with some of his views.
With the book placing its highlight on
Jadir, it also introduced a few secondary characters who are
associated with him. The most notable characters being Inevera and
Abban, and they are memorable and fascinating. Inevera is Jadir's
wife, where Abban is a second class citizen because he is crippled
and cannot fight. The Krasians lived in the warrior culture, but it
was also a patriarch and theocratic society. Throughout the book, the
story shows us that Jadir's rise to power is in fact, the result of
his wife, Inevera's schemes. To the outside world, Jadir is the
powerful Shar'Dama Ka, but behind the closed curtains Jadir found
himself controlled by his wife, and he could not do without her. This
throws a spin to Krasia's patriarchal society; is Jadir the master? Or
is he a puppet, with his wife the puppet master? I found Inevera's
character intriguing. This book did not explore Inevera's backstory,
and I hope Peter V. Brett will explore this area in the next book.
When this book reached the halfway
mark, the story reunite the readers with Arlen, Leesha, and Rojen.
Arlent's story remains a gripping one, as he gradually discovered
more and more about himself and his abilities. But Leesha irks me,
while she is a kind and decent person but I disliked her "holier
than thou" attitude towards those around her. Rojen, on the
other hand, continues to be the character who surprised me.
While The Desert Spear re-unites us
with our favorite characters and introduced new ones, but the new
characters who made the deepest impression on my mind is Renna, who
appeared briefly in The Painted Man as Arlen's romantic interest.
Renna has a large role in this book, and I found her story to be the
most thought-provoking and heart wrenching of all. I will try my best
not to spoil the story here, yet I would like to discuss the theme
for Renna's story. Which theme?
The nature of evil.
In this sweeping saga, the apparent
antagonists are the "demons" who appear in the nights to
attack cities and killing people. Naturally, readers would associate
these "demons" with evil. But when I am reading these
books, these "demons" reminded me of the xenomorphs from
the movie franchise, Alien, who are metaphors to the forces
and calamities from our natural environment which threaten our
survivals, and so they are not necessarily evil. What do I mean?
Well, wasps sting people, and lions can prey on us when they are
hungry, so are wasps and lions "evil"? Furthermore, natural
disasters, such as earthquakes and tornadoes also kill people, so are
natural disasters evil? In my opinion, these things are not "evil",
instead, we just associate them with a human meaning such as "evil"
because they threaten our survival. So where is evil? In Renna's
story, which is gut-wrenching, we see the village people behaved and
treated her in ways that are equally (if not more) appalling than the
way the monsters were preying on people at night. For the monsters, at
least, were preying on a different species to satisfy their hungers.
As for the village people in Renna's story, why did they treat her
so cruelly? *minor spoiler* It turned out the village people treated Renna cruelly because they thought they were exacting justice against evil. So perhaps the reality is not made up of evil and good, but there exists only the human conditions, as well as the consequences of our actions.
I love The Desert Spear, but
there is one small thing that I believe this book could be improved
on. This book is about its characters, but it is also about the clash
between two very different cultures; the Northern culture and the
Krasian culture. Both cultures adapted their societies to survive the
attacks of the demons, but while the Northern culture evolved into
one that values the community and caring for each other, in contrast
the Krasian culture evolved into a harsh and brutal warrior culture
that values the strong over the weak. I believe that dwarinianly
speaking, if societies are subjected to the extreme conditions
described in this story, then societies could possibly develop along
either of the two directions described in this book. I can see how
the communal value, of helping each other, can develop in the
Northern culture, but I don't think the book did very well to
explain, how, the Krasian society evolved into such a harsh and
brutal one that is polar opposite to the Northern culture. While
Abban, a character in this book, reminded Leesha not to judge the
Krasians too harshly because they were a people living in the desert,
but the book did not explain exactly how, living in a geographical
condition such as a desert can result to the harsh society of
Krasia. However, this is a tiny problem, and to dwell on it would be
similar to trying to find chicken bones in an egg. Everything
in this book, from the characters, the story, to the worldbuilding,
is intricate and beautiful, and The Desert Spear propelled this series
up to my list, of all time favorite fantasy books.
The sequel, The Daylight War,
awaits, and I am off to reading it.
Until the next time, happy reading!
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