At THE WARBLER, Elan Samuel reviews Peter V. Brett’s THE GREAT BAZAAR & BRAYAN’S GOLD. 

Ulti­mately, I found the story beneath the sound effects, accents, and ear-splitting shrieks to be one that I knew I would enjoy if I’d read it myself. I haven’t read The Warded Man on paper yet, but I will, and soon. Why, you ask?

A few weeks ago I was con­tacted by San-Francisco-based Tachyon Pub­li­ca­tions, who asked if I’d like to review an upcom­ing release of Peter Brett’s. THE GREAT BAZAAR & BRAYAN’S GOLD con­tains two novel­las from the Demon Cycle, as well as two deleted scenes from The Warded Man. I jumped at the oppor­tu­nity, and am glad to report that my pre­dic­tion was entirely accu­rate. Sit­ting down and read­ing the book, I found myself trans­ported in a way that the audio ver­sion of The Warded Man was never able to achieve. In these two novel­las, I got a taste for how great the “real” thing is, and an under­stand­ing of why so many peo­ple are so entranced by the series.

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The book also includes two deleted scenes from The Warded Man. The first pro­vides fans with the source of the whole she­bang — Peter Brett’s first foray into this world, in the form of a short story writ­ten for a class­room assign­ment. It’s pretty good too, despite the (nec­es­sary) caveat that it was writ­ten in one night, as home­work. The sec­ond is a moment where Lee­sha — one of the pro­tag­o­nists in The Demon Cycle — in the course of her stud­ies to become a med­i­cine woman, years-since ostra­cized by her com­mu­nity for per­ceived inde­cency, con­fronts one of her old friends, whom she dis­cov­ers is being beaten by her hus­band. Lee­sha is a char­ac­ter who is hard­ened by the cru­elty of her world, threat­ened by demons from with­out and social con­structs from within. No split­ting hairs here — this world isn’t kind to women. Lee­sha is empow­ered by Bruna, the healer before her, and with the man­tle of a healer grows into her own. In this scene we find a Lee­sha who man­ages to be impar­tial and objec­tive, and sim­ply help some­one who des­per­ately needs it, despite the dif­fi­cul­ties this par­tic­u­lar young woman caused her. I can under­stand why Peter Brett cut it from the final ver­sion of The Warded Man, but I was glad to read it here.

The bot­tom line is that I was on the fence about the Demon Cycle. I went into great detail about that in my review of The Warded Man. These sto­ries helped me fall to one side — the one that’s ready to read more. Now I want to hop into The Desert Spear and keep the momen­tum going. I highly rec­om­mend this to fans of the Demon Cycle. It’d be a bit tough to pick up and digest if you’re new to the world, but not hard enough that you won’t enjoy your­self. An alto­gether great read.

Read the rest Samuel’s review at THE WARBLER.

Meanwhile over at BLACK GATE, John O’Neill recommended THE GREAT BAZAAR & BRAYAN’S GOLD. 

Peter V. Brett’s second novel in the Demon Cycle, The Desert Spear, became an international bestseller, and the next two books in the series made him one of the top-selling authors on the market. So it’s no surprise that The Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold, two limited edition novellas from P.S. Publishing, set in the world of the Demon Cycle, and detailing Arlen’s early adventures, have been sold out for years.

Now Tachyon Publications is releasing an omnibus collection of both novellas in a handsome and affordable trade paperback edition. It something no fan of Peter V. Brett will want to miss.

Defensive ward against: Clay Demons
First appeared: The Great Bazaar 

Ward by Lauren K. Cannon, copyright by Peter V. Brett. 

For more info about THE GREAT BAZAAR & BRAYAN’S GOLD, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story.