The world is a dark place. Mankind has been fractured into tiny societies, each society a small bastion fighting to survive each night. Because at night, demons come out to play — fierce magical creatures that suddenly appear and slaughter anything and everything. Welcome to a world where night is truly a nightmare.

This is the premise of Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man (published as The Painted Man in the UK, as in the cover art displayed). Humanity has been broken, once great civilizations nothing but a memory, reduced to tiny cities, towns and hamlets. Travel between villages and towns is all but non-existent – with people only willing to travel short distances from their homes. To get caught outside a warded building overnight is a certain death sentence. To travel, you must face the night.

Only a few dare to travel — Messengers, brave men who risk their life each night on the road.

The only thing that stands between certain death at night when the demons come out are wards — strange magical symbols and patterns engraved in surfaces that prevent the demons from entering any space enclosed by wards. These ancient symbols have been mankind’s only defense against the demons, faint memories from an ancient time when men once fought against demons and prevailed. But mankind has forgotten most of the wards – gone are the wards of attack — now, men cannot fight against demon, only survive.

Men fear to challenge the night. But there is one who will fight.

I was really blown away by this book. I heard about it in passing last year, but I never actually got around to reading it until a few months ago. I’m glad I did. The Warded Man (also called The Painted Man in the UK) was my favorite book of 2008. This is the first book in a series, but oh what a delicious book it was.

What stands out about this book is the interesting world portrayed, vicious action, and strong characterization. The world portrayed is a world without hope. Men are reduced to a food source for demons and the will to fight has been lost. It’s a world that’s ripe for a hero.

The novel is not a perfect one. I will say the novel does falter with the way it handles some of the characterization — the way some of the characters act can seem a bit unrealistic at times.

But don’t let this dissuade you from reading the book! To be sure, this book is very action orientated. But the book combines a hell of a lot of action, very good characterization, and interesting world building.  There is also a keen sense of anticipation and adventure throughout the novel. If you like books like Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind and Feist’s Magician, you should find yourself at home in this book. This book is NOT a complex epic fantasy saga in the vein of Song of Ice and Fire, nor is it a high, nor is it a turn-fantasy-tropes-on-their-heads like The Blade Itself. This is a more classic fantasy tale, but the world building, magic, and characterization are all top notch.

If you are looking for a book that will keep you up all night, I highly suggest Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man.

Review written for Best Fantasy Books by Enchanté (a.k.a) Jon Snow from Sleeping With Books.

I’ve gotten a whole lot of books from Egmont publishers recently.

One of the books I received from the publishers was a children’s picture book. I am a primary school teacher and just love picture books. They bring together many elements of writing and enjoyment that novels just cannot reproduce. They are very eye catching because they usually have great art, the story draws you in and the rhyming enraptures you. This one even has a fantasy feel to it!

Sir Charlie Stinky Socks goes on an adventure with his faithful cat and good grey mare where he meets creepy monsters, fire breathing dragons and a not so wicked witch. Each encounter he faces he is left abandoned by his companions but brave and clever Sir Charlie will know what to do.

Just when I started to wonder where the story was leading, a clever ploy was there to distract me. This book has fold out pages that flow with the story line! “As Charlie pushed open the big wooden door. Up the windy windy staircase marched Sir Charlie Stinky Socks.”

Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Big Adventure by Kristina Stephenson does not disappoint at all, in fact, it probably goes a step beyond. It had great narrative, the art was fantastic and the pop out pages were very well thought out. Young kids should be drawn to this book like moths to a flame.

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. Monza Murcatto a once loved and trusted general was betrayed, stabbed and thrown off a mountain. However one thing the betrayer did not plan was for her to survive. Now Monza is planning her revenge on the seven men that had a hand in the betrayal.

Joe Abercrombie first made fame with the book The Blade Itself, book 1 of The First Law Trilogy. From this series Abercrombie has gained world wide fans for his witty humour, in depth characters with their monologues, and brutal piece by piece violence.

Best Served Cold unlike the previous series is a Stand Alone book.

For those that have never read Abercrombie, you will not lose any sleep over not having read the previous series because this book is completely self enclosed and requires no prior knowledge to be enjoyed. Best Served Cold employs humour, gore, torture and *cough* romance *cough* all to the extremes. Abercrombie will wow you with great in depth characters that you will fall in love with, wince at the toture scenes when bits of flesh are seared away and be absolutely shocked as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The other great thing about this book (if you buy the UK version) is the beautiful cover (First Law covers are also beautiful).

For those of you that have read the First Law Trilogy, I think you should take this book with tredipidation. The good things about this book is that Abercrombie has worked on everything he was criticized on for the First Law. Maps have been inserted into the book. Instead of the usual ‘place at the front’ map, it is on the cover of the UK version of the book. The book is also divided into parts, each part is set in a different area. These areas are enlarged and placed before the start of each part (genius!). The creativeness of Abercrombie is also evident in how he rearranges old minor characters into this book. He almost secretly inserts these old characters into completely new characters with new roles, with new importances and that was a nice surprise. The other thing I also liked about this book was that it is a stand-alone novel. Too many books out there now are a part of a trilogy or 12 book series and it is refreshing to read a relatively new author produce a stand-alone novel.

The other good or bad thing about this book is besides the main story of vengeance, is that this book is just the First Law squished into 500 pages. The world is the same, the monologues are there, the rough sex even the types of characters are the same; a barbarian from the north, a poisoner (torturer), a mass murderer, an inquisitor and people you just can’t rely on. The fact that they are all the same (practically) draws attention away from the fact that Abercrombie’s strength is character writing.

Best Served Cold is by no means a great read, just more of the same much like a Gemmell novel. And like any Gemmell novel, it is worth reading.

Review written for Best Fantasy Books by Enchanté (a.k.a) Jon Snow from Sleeping With Books