The Desert Prince, by Peter V. Brett (Del Rey)
The Desert Prince was
my introduction to the world of Peter V. Brett’s “Demon Cycle.” I’d read The Warded Man years ago, enjoyed it,
but didn’t make the connection until sitting down to write this review. It’s a
tremendous challenge for multi-volume series to make each book satisfying to
the new reader without overwhelming with the backstory and boring continuing
readers. Brett has accomplished this so deftly that I never missed what had
come before, although now I want to go back and gobble up all the previous
books. So if this is your entry point (aka “gateway drug”), dive right in!
In Brett’s world, demons arise from the core of the Earth,
wreaking havoc and violence on human settlements. Fifteen years before the
present, a small band of women and men created magical wards to beat back the
hordes of demons and keep their lands and people safe. Now the teenaged
children of those heroes have come of age, burdened by the weight of their
legacies. Olive, the daughter of a duchess, has lived a life of luxury and
confinement in a city, while Darrin, her childhood friend, who has a variety of
magical talents, including the ability to change the density of his body, but
who prefers to remain in obscurity while he creates musical magic with his
pipes. Their parents tend to be both bossy and overprotective, which makes
sense in light of their previous saving-the-world adventures. Naturally,
neither teen is excited about living a safe, boring life of parental
expectations, especially Olive.
Olive has a secret. When pregnant with Olive and her twin
brother, her duchess mother engaged in a ferocious magical battle, resulting in
the fusion of the two into a single, intersex person. “Which do you want to be?
A boy or a girl,” the Duchess asks. Olive picks being a girl, although sooner
or later, she knows, the game will be up, certainly on her wedding night. When
she’s captured by a rival nation, who think to use her in a marriage alliance,
her secret comes out. Princess Olive must then learn to survive as Prince Olive
before the demons mass for another, devastating war. Olive is a wonderfully
complex character, a joy to watch as they struggle against almost
insurmountable odds, gains fighting skills, experiences love and loss, and
brings their own perspective to the escalating conflicts, both between humans
and between humans and the monstrous demon king, capable of controlling minds. A
heroic, sympathetic intersex protagonist forced by circumstance to embrace both
masculine and feminine aspects arises naturally from the world-building. The
Desert Prince is written and marketed for a general fantasy audience, but readers
with particular interest in LGBTQI characters will find the careful examination
of gender issues especially rewarding.
Although The Desert
Prince is clearly only the beginning of Olive’s and Darrin’s stories, it
works well as a stand-alone. As I mentioned above, the backstory is woven into
the action so skillfully that I never had the sense of not knowing what was
going on or why. Instead, the story swept me up with a generosity that made
every plot turn or character nuance a delight. The prose is smooth, the pacing
brilliant, and the fight scenes some of the best I’ve ever read.
As I was writing this review, I came across an interview
with Peter V. Brett. Check it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment