Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle has gained readers over the course of the first two installments, The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, and reader anticipation for The Daylight War has been quite high. In the first two novels the demons, which rise in the night, were the greatest threat facing humanity. While the demons are still very present in The Daylight War, humanity’s remnants need to get their collective heads together before the demon threat can effectively be vanquished. In many post-apocalyptic stories—and a case can be made for The Demon Cycle as a post-apocalyptic story—the trigger event marginalizing human society becomes window dressing as the story progresses and the human character’s conflict takes center stage.
Perhaps the most popular current example of a human conflict against an apocalyptic backdrop is The Walking Dead (in both comic and TV format). Sure the zombies are still an ever-present threat, but the characters’ struggles against each other is what drives the story, as their competing ideologies and beliefs define each individual character’s reaction to the threats. The same can be said of The Daylight War, as the clash of cultures between those who consider Arlen to be the Deliverer and the desert dwellers claiming Jardir as the Deliverer.
[Brett’s best effort yet.]