Demon Cycle Short Stories by Peter V Brett

Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons – bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting and killing humanity for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.
But there was a time when the demons were not so bold. A time when wards did more than hold the demons at bay. They allowed man to fight back, and to win. Messenger Arlen Bales will search anywhere, dare anything, to return this magic to the world.

You may remember the Demon Cycle series. I have talked about it before - so far it consists of The Painted Man, The Desert Spear and The Daylight War - and so far it's been 5 stars all the way through. On another note book 4 in the series, The Skull Throne, is published on the 31st of March and I'm so freaking excited I can barely contain myself! I'm going to have to set a day aside when I start reading that one, because no way will I be able to put it down once I get started!

In the mean time though I've been catching up with the series with these amazing two short story collections.

The first book contains two short stories which have previously been published on their own. Brayan's Gold follows Arlen on his first run as an apprentice messenger alone on a frozen mountainside hunted by a giant rock demon and in The Great Bazaar of Krasia he and Abban work to get hold of maps of a long lost city. These two are #1.5 and #1.6 in the series, and requires you've read the first book to recognise characters, plot and settings.

The second book, Messenger's Legacy, is a bit different. It's book #3.5 in the series, and Brett explains in the introduction that the first chapter of it was meant as the opening chapter of the third book, but the story grew and had a mind of it's own. It's the story of the child Briar Damaj, a half-Krasian, living with his family in Bogton, who flees into the night when tragedy strikes. It's a story that features the Messenger Ragen rather than Arlen himself. Brett also writes in his introduction to look for Briar making appearances in the 4th book, The Skull Throne.

On their own these books are not 5 star books. More like 4 stars. But the thing is - these books are not on their own. They stand tightly interlaced with the other books in the series and might as well have been in them. They are more like chapters cut out because of lack of room rather than individual short stories. And such - as a whole - they are every bit as good as the other 3 books published so far - and every single one of those were 5 star reads, and so are these two.

THE GREAT BAZAAR / BRAYAN'S GOLD Demon Cycle #1.5-1.6 by Peter V. Brett ISBN13: 9780007492534 121 pages / Published in April, 2013

THE MESSENGER'S LEGACY Demon Cycle #3.5 by Peter V. Brett ISBN13: 9780008114701 112 pages / Published on December 4th, 2014

Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2015