Demons never lie. They just don’t tell the entire truth,
especially when it involves a plot running for thousands of years to ultimately
seduce humankind so that Evil can reign on Earth.
The unnamed narrator is an Ecclesiastical Adept, rather full
of himself and his abilities (including the knack for sliding through exams
with the least possible amount of effort other than raw talent). He’s supposed
to be carefully guarding the world against the forces of Evil in the form of
demons, but actually he has—somehow, he’s not sure exactly how—formed a
friendship with one of the Enemy’s minions. The demon is no match for the Adept’s
powers and all too ready to exchange a few favors here and there for the right
to continued residence in the mortal realms. So when a young, beautiful, mysterious
woman from a land formerly thought to be mythical murders a local prior, it’s
up to the Adept and his ever-helpful demon to solve the case. But nothing is as
it seems when it comes to demons. They are notorious for playing the Long Game,
in this case, The Very, Very, Very Long Game. They do this by telling the
truth. Just not all of it.
The best thing about this short novel is the wonderful voice
of the narrator, snappy and sarcastic and oh-so-unreliable when it comes to his
own nature and motives. And the plot twists. And the mystery. It’s just
delicious!
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!
Creatures of Charm and Hunger, by Molly Tanzer (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt)
This third volume in
the “Diabolist” series focuses on a family of diabolists – magic workers who
draw their power from pact-bound demons. There is, of course, always a catch
and always a price. To minimize the danger, diabloists through the centuries
have kept meticulous notes on the names, temperaments, and histories of the
known demons. Nancy Blackwood is one of a lineage of librarians guarding these
and other critical documents. While her sister, Edith, engages in the larger
world (in this case, the end of World War II), Nancy lives in a remote British
village, along with her Hollywood-obsessed daughter, Jane, and her ward, Jewish
refugee Miriam, both student diabolists about to embark upon the “Test” that
will lead to full privileges and their own demons. After passing their Tests,
each embarks upon perilous paths in violation of the rules: Jane, eager to hide
that she has in reality failed her Test, creates a familiar by placing a
demonic spirit into her pet cat, but lacks the experience to truly bind it to
obedience; and Miriam goes searching for her parents, captives of the Nazis, by
taking over the bodies of animals and then people, at a terrible cost to her
own spiritual self. What could possibly go wrong?
Tanzer perfectly
captures life in a secluded, rambling house in a small British village toward
the end of the Second World War, weaving in a story of brash youth, tested
friendships, treacherous demons, and consequences. If this is truly the last of
the series, I will be sad to see it end.
Creatures of Will and Temper, by Molly Tanzer, (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt), 2017.
Part Victorian Gothic, part sword-swashing adventure, part
witchcraft and part romance, this is a thoroughly delightful tale. With a nod
here and there to Oscar Wilde’s The
Picture of Dorian Gray, the story concerns two sisters on a visit with
their uncle in London. The older sister, Evadne Gray, loves fencing and the
neighbor youth, but the latter has left her heart-broken by announcing his
engagement to another. She’s in London as a diversion from her sorrow and also
as chaperone for her vivacious, rebellious, artistic younger sister, Dorina
Gray. Soon they’ve gone their own ways,Dorina to the salon of Lady Henrietta Wotton and Evadne to study at a
fencing academy. But matters are not all they seem, for in this world of
Victorian high society, demons bargain with their human hosts in pacts ranging
from benign to bloody.
This was my introduction to the work of Molly Tanzer but it
won’t be my last. Besides the supernatural and mysterious, the depiction of a
world of privilege and heartache, the story delves with sensitivity and insight
into human relationships, thus setting it apart.
