Clare L. Deming

The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett is the fourth book of five in The Demon Cycle series. I have been meaning to finish this series and I’m not sure why I kept putting it off, since I’ve enjoyed the earlier books.

You can read my review of The Daylight War (book 3) at this link here. I did not formally review The Warded Man (book 1) or The Desert Spear (book 2) on this blog (paid links).

Here is the blurb:

The Skull Throne of Krasia stands empty.

Built from the skulls of fallen generals and demon princes, it is a seat of honor and ancient, powerful magic, keeping the demon corelings at bay. From atop the throne, Ahmann Jardir was meant to conquer the known world, forging its isolated peoples into a unified army to rise up and end the demon war once and for all.

But Arlen Bales, the Warded Man, stood against this course, challenging Jardir to a duel he could not in honor refuse. Rather than risk defeat, Arlen cast them both from a precipice, leaving the world without a savior, and opening a struggle for succession that threatens to tear the Free Cities of Thesa apart.

In the south, Inevera, Jardir’s first wife, must find a way to keep their sons from killing each other and plunging their people into civil war as they strive for glory enough to make a claim on the throne.

In the north, Leesha Paper and Rojer Inn struggle to forge an alliance between the duchies of Angiers and Miln against the Krasians before it is too late.

Caught in the crossfire is the duchy of Lakton–rich and unprotected, ripe for conquest.

All the while, the corelings have been growing stronger, and without Arlen and Jardir there may be none strong enough to stop them. Only Renna Bales may know more about the fate of the missing men, but she, too, has disappeared…

This is not a series that you can jump into at any point. The action in this book picks up immediately after the events of the previous volume, with no time spent rehashing the storyline. The questions brought up by the cliffhanger ending of book 3 are quickly answered, although there isn’t an immediate resolution to the situation.

The plot in this story follows our ongoing collection of main characters, with much of the action centered in the Hollow and the nearby lands of Everam’s Bounty, Lakton, and Angiers. The author jumps through multiple point-of-view characters to tell the story, but focuses in the right parts of the story so that the pacing never slows too much. He manages to have me simultaneously cheering for characters on opposing sides, even when the situation is dire.

I stayed up most of the night reading the last 200 pages of this book. The tension and the impending sense of doom built so much that I couldn’t stop myself. Although be warned, this was the most heartbreaking part of the series so far and approached a “red wedding” level of devastation.

I’ve already started the final book, The Core, so that I can discover if there will finally be a Deliverer who can end the demon threat (paid link).

The new editions of this series have rather boring covers. I prefer the ones that I’ve used here, where each book features one of the main characters on the front. The mass market paperback edition of The Skull Throne also featured a glossary and a family tree for some of the Krasians at the back, both of which were very helpful.

Have you read any of The Demon Cycle? Who do you think will be the Deliverer? Let me know in the comments (above).

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