Peter V. Brett took to reddit fantasy to talk about the Demon Cycle, and answer questions about what fans can expect from the upcoming installment in the series.
He ended the previous book The Daylight War on a cliffhanger, which he worried might be a “dick move.” After some discussions with his editor he decided to release an excerpt from The Skull Throne to “ease (or at least redirect) tension for my readers.” He’s hard at work on The Skull Throne, saying “I am going as fast as I can while still making sure it doesn’t suck.” He even provided a progress report for his readers!
The AMA was funny and informative, and we’ve rounded up some of our favorite moments!
Author Shawn Speakman asked whether he jumped around a lot through his point-of-view characters, as George R.R. Martin does, or if he was more linear:
“Both, I guess. I jump around in the plotting stage, where I basically just make a bulleted list of EVERY DAMN THING that happens in the entire book. At this stage, I am cutting and pasting shit all over the place. Once that list solidifies into a solid stepsheet, however, I write the prose in a very linear fashion.”
Author Brian McClellan asked about Brett’s biggest struggle as a writer, to which Brett replied: “The writing part.”
Elquesogrande asked, “How did you come up with the design behind your ward symbols? I see a lot of your fans posting tattoos based on them—what has your reaction been to that process so far?” To which Brett responded:
“The ward designs were co-created by myself and Lauren K. Cannon. She read how they were described in The Warded Man, and we had long discussions about what sources to draw from for the symbols, drawing inspiration from Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Sanskrit. Lauren drew pages of wards, and we drilled down to the ones I felt represented the various demons and effects.
It’s an ongoing process. I commission a few new ones every year. Part of the agreement is that I own the copyrights personally, so I can give them free to all my international publishers. This has allowed me to control the key part of the series brand and create a unified warding system regardless of what country the readers are in.
Perhaps this is why they resonate, and why the tattoos have been so popular. Or maybe people just want to be ready to kick a demon’s ass. Either way, it’s an amazing feeling (and a great honor) to see people permanently marking themselves with something that originated in my imagination.”
Pyroteknik (perhaps suspecting foul play) demanded: “What happened to Peter I Brett through Peter IV Brett?” and Brett (perhaps confirming foul play) replied, “They were imperfect and needed replacement.”
When asked about his gaming preference, Brett said he’ll “play Carcassonne if peer pressured, but it will never be as fun as Munchkin or Cards Against Humanity.”
Author Michael Underwood asked, “In The Warded/Painted Man, I took Fear and how people react to it to be a major theme. How do you work with theme in The Demon Cycle, and do you think your thematic focus has changed/evolved over the course of the series?”
Brett’s reply was thoughtful, without betraying any of the thematic elements we might see in the future:
“I think each book sort of finds its own theme as it goes on. Warded Man was fear. Desert Spear was exploration of the other. Daylight War was relationships. Some of this is intentional, and some of it evolves naturally. The series as a whole is obviously something I have given a lot of thought to, but each book is its own animal as well.”
Several people had questions about the dialect that some of the characters use, and Brett discussed how it added to his worldbuilding plan:
“The people of Tibbet’s Brook aren’t dumb. Dumb people can’t ward, and the Brook has survived for centuries when other communities have fallen to the night. They just don’t waste a lot of time jawin’ when there’s work to be done, cutting out unnecessary pronouns and trimming sentences down to the bare minimum. Ent has one less syllable than “isn’t”, and that second is another second before sundown. It’s precious and not to be wasted.”
Asked about his influences, he said:
“I was heavily influenced by JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin, CS Friedman, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, RA Salvatore, and James Clavell, to name a few, but of course every book I’ve ever read, whether I liked it or not, has had an influence… I think I am constantly evolving as a writer, but not to mimic anyone else, or mainstream trends. I want to be the Peter V. Brettest writer I can be.”
Finally, Zdus asked: “Where did you get the idea for the series?” Brett’s enigmatic response:
“From a secret well of ideas only I know the location of. I sneak out there once or twice a year in the dead of night to draw a bucketful. Once someone followed me and I had to eliminate them, lest they too have ideas. Don’t tell anyone.”
Don’t worry, Brettest of writers! Your secret is safe with us. Check out the whole AMA here!
Awful writer. Hackneyed, sexist, racist, trite and altogether unpleasant. Amazes me he is so popular in the mainstream.
The Demon Cycle is a major seller in UK and Germany. Relatively speaking, it does better there than in the US.
I know some people have problems with his female characters, or the Muslim-like Krasians. But the things that bug me most about his series is his geography. Look at the maps. Yes, the arrival of demons has created some isolation, but the Krasians aren’t THAT far away from everyone else. It is only a few days journey. Certainly not far enough away to have evolved the type of cultural divisions that they have from everyone else. The history of the Krasians (going back to previous Demon Wars) is as if they were on a completely different continent.
When it was just the relatively short and simple Warded Man, I was okay with this. But as the series goes more Epic(tm), the world-building becomes harder and harder to swallow.
I always assumed that because travelling anywhere overnight is so dangerous that going anywhere, even a couple of days away, is that much more difficult. This would lead to a very insular community regardless of how close it is to others.
So close yet so far, no?
@3
But Messengers travel all the time. Enough that you are not going to have completely different histories of the Demon Wars. Commerce may be limited, but culture is not cut off.
@2 The Middle East comparison is the shallow/lazy answer. The culture of krasia has just as much, if not more in common with the ancient Japenese/Greece cultures than with Islamic. The hereditary warrior caste and their views of those beneath them along with the view of death corrolates more with the Spartans and Samurai line of beliefs than anything else. Even the treatment of women and strict adherence to dogmatic religon is not solely taken from Islam. Plenty of past cultures behaved this way, but since krasia is based in the desert everyone points to Islam.
PVB said he deliberately made each of the cultures to conflict with one another. Thesians live a life that is generally lapse religious-wise and reside in a lush and prosperous land able to sustain many with relative ease. Krasians meanwhile survive in a harsh and desolate climate where their religious beliefs are what help sustain them through difficult times, while their religious driven war against the demons helps to check the population from growing beyond what the land can provide for.
One people are soft while the other are hard. One is tolerant where the other is strict. They are deliberately polar opposites.
I’m not saying the similarities in the krasians to Islam isn’t there, but there is a hell of a lot more to this soup than just one ingredient.
To call PVB racist is being lazy and overly sensitive. There are so many cultures in history that raped and pillaged, subjugated women and other horrible things. That’s like calling Edgar Rice Burroughs racist for his Tarzan creation.
The demon cycle is one of my favorite running series; it is well written and well-constructed.
The comment about the spacing of the cultures is also lacking. You’re looking at the map with the mind of a fantasy reader, and PVB may not be trying to appease your fantasy mind. Take the cultures of the world as we live in it. Take North and South Korea and how different their cultures are. Take some states with the US now and definitely back during the Jim Crow days and see how different their cultures are.
Am not here to convince any of you to like PVB or the Demon Cycle, but calling someone racist, or criticizing their work without a fair consideration of facts is, with all due respect dumb.
Thought the painted man was great; the desert spear was good; half way through the day light war and it’s disappointing. The first two books were ‘can’t put downs’, this one is a bit of a drag.
And for those that are of the opinion that the Krasian society isn’t heavily influenced by Islam, they need to look into it further. I could write a whole thesis on not only the similarities but the outright lazy ‘copy’ from Islam, for example:
Inevera – Krasian word meaning Everam’s will or Everam willing. Broken down this is basically In-evera, with Evera(m) being the Creator I.e God. God in Islam is Allah, and a common phrase used by Muslims is InshAllah, which of course means God willing or if Allah Wills. The Evejah is obviously a depiction of the Quran, and Evejan Law being a cheap spin off of Shariah Law…which is known for stoning adulterers, cutting off thieve’s hands etc.
The fanatical military training that Krasians go through in preparation of the ‘holy war’ is clearly linked to Islam’s version of Holy War being jihad.
One passage reads as follows: “…women toiling in the fields did so in dresses of dark, sombre colour that coveted them from ankle to neck, hair wrapped carefully in scarves. When the Dama sang the call to prayer…they were quick to prostrate themselves.”
An incredibly lazy passage stereotyping Muslim women in dark dresses covering their bodies (niqabs) and head scarves (hijab) heeding the call to prayer (azaan) and prostrating themselves (sajda).
I could go on and on highlighting such similarities. No doubt the author has taken from other cultures but the things taken from Islam and simply re-worded is poor on his behalf.
Aside from all that, the story so far simply most gripping as the first book. Not sure ill continue with this series, unless the second half significantly picks up.
with this series, unless the second half significantly picks up.
I simply don’t see the offensiveness. I write, and I have a really hard time writing female characters so I kind of cut him some slack there. Generally speaking, I feel it’s only natural if females write female characters better and same for males.
However, this racist stuff is utter nonsense. He depicts a very honorable and strong people with powerful and binding beliefs that help to unify them through the hardest times. Having said that, he also depicts WHAT WE IN WESTERN CULTURE consider wrong in a lot of ways. How is it racist to unbiasely present something?
I think you are misconstruing his depiction as racist with your own lack of ability to distinguish between beliefs you find offensive and the writer, trying to depict a real world, where things aren’t perfect.
To quote Stephen King, Females in this series are simply : ” A life supporting system to a c@nt”
Arabs are there to be the bad guys.
Rape is there because why not.
Brutal atrocities fill the book, with no context or repercussion.
And then the author got the nerves to come here and talk about all the cultural references he was “inspired by”.
Mr Brett , you say that ending your last book on a cliffhanger was a dick move?
You’re wrong , this whole series is a dick move.