Brett, Peter V. (The Warded Man)

I need another fantasy series to follow like a need a hole in my head. And, truthfully, if Martin or Rothfuss or Sanderson published a book in any of their series, I'd go there first. (Also, truthfully, since that happens so frickin' rarely with those authors, I guess I'll have plenty of time to spend on Brett's books...) That is to say, I think this is Brett's first foray into this land, and it shows, but perhaps by the 3rd of 4th novel he'll have learned a bit more about the trade.

I'll be more specific. He has built a world with an excellent limitation-- at night, you must go inside an area that has been protected by magical wards or you have about a 99% chance of being torn apart by demons. That kind of limitation-- man oh man you can write the hell out of that, and he does. He also has written some engaging characters, ones we can try to understand and feel for, and a familiar enough landscape.

But there were two things that irritated me.
- In one section, he created a people and land so close to the Arabic peoples and lands that the similarities are too close for fantasy. Hey, it's fantasy! It's your opportunity to change things up! Never give us exactly what we have in the real world.
- He horrifies us by having one of his central characters raped. The problem is, he then has her pretty much forget that this ever happened after about 24 hours, as well as have the hots for someone a few hours after that. I think he needs to spend some time putting himself in women's shoes.