The End of a Series | The Core by Peter V. Brett

THE CORE
by Peter V. Brett

Del Ray
Publication Date: October 3, 2017

From Goodreads:

For time out of mind, bloodthirsty demons have stalked the night, culling the human race to scattered remnants dependent on half-forgotten magics to protect them. Then two heroes arose—men as close as brothers, yet divided by bitter betrayal. Arlen Bales became known as the Warded Man, tattooed head to toe with powerful magic symbols that enable him to fight demons in hand-to-hand combat—and emerge victorious. Jardir, armed with magically warded weapons, called himself the Deliverer, a figure prophesied to unite humanity and lead them to triumph in Sharak Ka—the final war against demonkind.

But in their efforts to bring the war to the demons, Arlen and Jardir have set something in motion that may prove the end of everything they hold dear—a Swarm. Now the war is at hand and humanity cannot hope to win it unless Arlen and Jardir, with the help of Arlen’s wife, Renna, can bend a captured demon prince to their will and force the devious creature to lead them to the Core, where the Mother of Demons breeds an inexhaustible army.

Trusting their closest confidantes, Leesha, Inevera, Ragen and Elissa, to rally the fractious people of the Free Cities and lead them against the Swarm, Arlen, Renna, and Jardir set out on a desperate quest into the darkest depths of evil—from which none of them expects to return alive.

CAUTION: This review won’t spoil anything from The Core, but if you haven’t read the previous books in the series, there may be a spoiler or two.

For people like me, who’ve been along for the entire ride of this series, this book was very highly anticipated. We’ve been waiting for years for the Demon War. It’s coming was foretold. We’ve been watching people prepare, settlements enforcing defences, warding everything from fence posts to foreheads. Let’s GET IT ON!

If you haven’t read this series, but you’re still reading this post, The Demon Cycle is basically this:

Arlen Bales, as a young boy, decides he’s going to fight against the nocturnal demons that plague the world. The human race has all kinds of defensive wards, but no way of fighting back. Arlen’s had enough of that.

Jardir feels the same way, but battle wards have been lost for as long as anyone can remember. But when Arlen finds those battle wards, it changes the corse of history.

Then a bunch of stuff happens for another 3 books. We meet a lot of other characters. They love, they fight, they drink. And now we’re back to the final book.

The chapters that follow Arlen and Jardir as they attempt to get to the Core (where the demons live) are fascinating. It’s the really good stuff that I’ve been waiting for. It feels as fresh and as wondrous as the original first few books (before it started to feel too stretched out.)

Then, there was the fighting in the towns. While Arlen and Jardir are trying to find the Core, the rest of the Demon population is trying to eat the human race. Sounds exciting, right? Except the best fighters are trying to get to the Core (by now you can see why the book is titled The Core.) There were some other really kick ass fighters, but a lot of them died in previous books.

Peter V. Brett tried to combat this by bringing back characters that we haven’t seen since the first few books. While I think that was better than introducing brand new characters, it still felt kind of cheap. We haven’t seen these people for quite some time and to try and fall right back in line with them felt forced. Like if you haven’t seen a friend for 10 years, haven’t even seen a Facebook post from them, and suddenly they’re at your doorstep because they’re going to crash with you for a few days. You’re what now?

The other detail I wasn’t a fan of had to do with the demons’ arsenal of attacks. We’ve known for a while that a certain demon can take over a human’s mind. They have wards to protect against that. But it reaches a point where it seems to be the demon’s only mode of attack. Body snatchers all over the place. Seems like it should have been used a little more sparingly.

Overall, it wasn’t a unsatisfying end to a series. There were a lot of other things I wanted to see happen that didn’t. The ending was okay, but not the one I was hoping for. I think too much time was spent on elements that I didn’t care about, and not enough time spent on the stuff I was dying for.

I guess the word would be: Satisfactory.

Fun fact about this post: POPSUGAR Reading Challenge – The next book in a series you started. CHECK!