The Demon Cycle Series

[Izawwlgood]

I just finished the fifth book in this set, and I have to say it's fun as hell. The pacing is a bit off, and the writing needs a bit of polish, but this world and story and world is a blast.

I'd say it's well worth the money and a good bit of fun popcorn fiction.

[PeteP]

I looked at the beginning of the first book and have a question. Does the MC get significantly older during the books? Because fantasy with teenage main characters bores me more often than not nowadays.

[Izawwlgood]

IIRC, the first book introduces 3-4 of the main protagonists, and by the end of the first book or at least the second book, they're all in their mid to late 20's. Each book after is roughly a year or two later. I think Rojer is introduced as a toddler actually.

[PeteP]

Read the first book and the beginning of the second. The first book is basically just backstory/setup. But not bad. Though I should add: Content warning rape. Not graphic or detailed but the author likes bringing it up.

Spoiler:

From memory: The one girl in the beginning and her father. An messenger attempting to rape one of the MCs while traveling with her, than her later getting raped by bandits. At the beginning of the second book when the fantasy Muslims attack the other cities they rape the woman on a large scale with the intention that the next Generation should be the childs of warriors. And then in the backstory of Jardir the mention of the teenagers attacking other teenager groups and that they would sometimes fuck the losers in the ass.

Other topic:

Spoiler:

The training system in Jardirs backstory is stupid. I mean the food distribution part. I get the idea behind it that they have to fight to get more food and that making them stronger but it's just stupid. Someone has to be at the end of the line. And giving kids you want to turn into warriors too little food will just hamper their muscle growth. (And their growth in general if they get too little.)

Also it's good that they introduced the mimic and the brain demons, now the corelings might be more of a threat. Seriously they have wards the normal corelings can't pass and now they have weapons against them. And as evidenced by warded guy shooting arrows at the corelings outside his circle you can attack out of a circle without breaking it…

[Izawwlgood]

Yeah, there were some pretty triggering elements with respect to violence and sexual violence. I should have mentioned that.

On the Krasians - They're obviously a shitty stereotyped mix of Muslim/Spartan/KungFuMonks, and all in all their society bugged the shit out of me. No reasonable understanding of the realities of logistics or a ton of obnoxious lip service paid to ignoring everything that keeps a functional society moving.

You get hints of some more realistic elements to the society later on, buuuuuuut it's pretty lacking, and overall the amount of pages dedicated to them got tiresome. THOUGH, I will say that there's a fairly valid reason for it later.

[maybeagnostic]

The first book was entertaining if rather simple and cookie cutter. It worked because it was the story of a child that transforms into an inhuman badass/monster/Other so the lack of realism and simplistic view on society could be excused as events being twisted through his viewpoint. The second one was very problematic, both in that it repeated so many things from the first book and that the dessert society was comically cruel and unrealistic. I think the third one I only read the sample for but I really didn't care about any of the characters by that point. The writing was also pretty weak all around.

So, yeah, personal impression but it started out as unremarkable yet entertaining and went downhill from there. The third book is what really made me give up on the series.

[Izawwlgood]

The mystery of 'whats the demons deal?' has kept me reading on, but the last book was entirely human politics and 'yes we get it the Krasians are suuuuuper cruel and headstrong', which was pretty disappointing.
Fifth book spoiler

Spoiler:

Given that Arlen and Jardir have captured a mind demon, I was suuuuuuuuuper excited to see something more interesting than the typical demon pounding and euphoria happening. But no. The mind demon is in a prison cell the entire book, and the Arlen and Jardir PoV chapters are basically just them bickering over whether the Krasians should be pillaging and raping the world.

[maybeagnostic]

Spoiler:

So I read the spoiler because I doubt I'll ever read the remaining books. I am not particularly surprised that the demons' world never amounted to much. For all the dropped hints, I was never left with the impression that they had an interesting society whose inner workings will become important to the resolution. If you can't write a convincing human society, what chance do you have of presenting something as foreign as the demons well?

The only place that ever felt real to me in the series was... oh, that lumberjack village, forget what it is called.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

Oh, I think what's going on with the demon society is tantalizing, but we haven't really seen anything of it. The books seem to be placed far in the future, and alludes to the fall of man, so my guesses are the demons are inter dimensional aliens that came over when man did something wrong with CERN, or, the demons were here all along ignoring us until we started meddling with magic-technology.

What about the town Arlen went to learn to be a messenger, or the little town he came from? I felt Krasia was more or less fine, just obnoxiously oversold as being too warrior-centric.

Oh! Also, there was a short story written that got me interested in the series, that tells the story of a kid named Briar. Briar pops up in book 5, which I felt was a cool throw back.

[PeteP]

So I read a bit further in book 2 but honestly it is more of a chore at the moment so I think I will drop it. Though reading a bit further combined with my earlier one makes me morbidly curious how many mentions of rape the author will manage to pack into it, since there were another two and I'm still in the first 15%.^^

Spoiler:

Hasik rapes Jardir and then a few year later after defeating Hasik in a fight Jardir rapes him publically with a spear.

[Izawwlgood]

Spoiler:

Yup, rape and violence are pretty prevalent themes in the book. If it's a deal breaker for you, I think you should definitely stop reading now.

[PeteP]

Spoiler:

Not particularly though it seems so pointlessly thrown in, like the author just thought "need to make my world more gritty, I know some rape will help" without the rape even being particularly relevant. I mean a few pages later Hasik is one of his most trusted lieutenants and married to his sister. Anyway I was more amused that after my mention about rape in the post before I read maybe 5% farther and find another two for the list.

I consider dropping it because it's boring and hasn't managed to make me interested enough in something to read further in the hope that it gets better.

[Izawwlgood]

Finally finished the series. The last book, The Core. The conclusion felt acceptable, not great, but a kind of forced happy ending that we're probably expecting at this point, minus any real explanation about where the Demons came from. And the babies. Everyone has babies, and these kids are all somehow entirely irrelevant despite the constant description of breast feeding and nappy changes.

There were a few story wrap ups that felt pretty well executed, particularly Abban and Hasik, who featured heavily in the first and last fifths of the book, and Briar. But ultimately the pacing felt a little off and the conclusion a little forced. Given Jardir and Arlens back and forth, I thought there was going to be more play of the 'writing of a holy text of the events', but alas.

Ah well. Entertaining enough series finally concluded, and there are side stories that may provide additional answers. Next round is probably going to be 'Children of the Core' or something silly, though frankly, I found most of the politics to be filler.