The Painted Man Review

Also called The Painted Man

Also called The Warded Man

Also called The Warded Man, due to some copyright $hit. The man behind the endeavor is Peter V. Brett, a good man.

Now this would be the point where I CCP carefully googled info about Brett, his living habits, his dog’s name et al. Due to a paucity of time & patience, I’ll pretend that I actually do not know the author or what he does. All i/we care about is that he has a new book out that people should be reading.

Now, about the story environment…If this was sci-fi, I’d have called it post-apocalyptic. The situation before our tale begins is such; the world starts off just as described in a million other fantasy works; a village with what is now quaintly referred to as cottage industry environment. There’re farmers, healers, the horse stable guy, travelling entertainers & the works. Only, during the night, things aren’t so normal. Humanity is under siege by beings from the underworld called corelings, who rise from the surface as soon as the sun sets with an unhealthily insatiable taste for human meat. The only protection against these beings is a series of arcane & mysterious drawing called wards. The origin of these is lost in time (you can assume an apocalyptic battle between forces of good & evil in the ancient past). In some places, the wards are hard-coded (so to speak) i.e. etched/inked into the surface. In some places, they need to be constantly refurnished like a bad paint job. Hence humanity is in a constant struggle and night life sucks big time…literally.

Now the human interest story, a runaway boy, a rebellious girl & an orphaned sidekick (?) constitute the characters…note characters, not cardboard cut-outs. There’s a good amount of back-story built into these characters and the people they meet & the changes they undergo, as part of growing up feel natural instead of contrived. Ofcourse, the lead character’s story is more solid than the other two; but that’s forgivable.

The plot of the story is how these characters find ways (individually) to rebel & fight against the present situation that they are in; not just the societal but also those to find if there’s a way to combat those pesky, bloody night crawlers.

There is quite a bit of graphic & gratuitous violence happening from & against lead characters, a general move in line with the gritty “knights who say fuck” genre of fantasy. Which is becoming a bit of a fad these days. But hey, it has been well done here, so no complaints.

Overall, the plot is strong because there’s a single-minded handling to it; Find a way to stop & combat, if possible, against the corelings. So, the overall hook for the reader is always there. The plotting within the book, as far as action sequences goes, is very tightly done. The dialogue isn’t exactly competition to Neal Stephenson, but hey! it’s an amped-up pulp fantasy volume, with loads of grits thrown in.

As a first book in a trilogy, it definitely works. I’ll be picking up a copy of The Desert Spear as soon as it hits the interwebs (’cause publishers in this part of the world wouldn’t know a good fantasy even if it raised its heckles and bit them on the butt)

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