It’s just…I guess he needed to have an actual middle book somewhere in the middle, and this is it. Go read it.” With three novels under his belt, Brett is definitely in his stride, and everything’s building towards his grand fifth book finale, and no part of this instalment is anything less than the high standard of quality he’s already established. So the tl dr version of this review, for the people who’ve already read the previous three books is a nice succinct “Yup, still great. Only Renna Bales may know more about the fate of the missing men, but she, too, has disappeared. 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.Ĭaught in the crossfire is the duchy of Lakton-rich and unprotected, ripe for conquest.Īll the while, the corelings have been growing stronger, and without Arlen and Jardir there may be none strong enough to stop them. 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. 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. 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.īut Arlen Bales, the Warded Man, stood against this course, challenging Jardir to a duel he could not in honor refuse. That said, this is still a tremendously entertaining and well-written novel, and Brett writing filler is better than many other published author’s climactic third novel of a trilogy.īuilt 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. I can’t shake the feeling that writing a quintet turned out to be just a tad too much length for the story, and so now in the fourth instalment we finally get a bit of filler.

While maintaining the excellent standards of writing quality and pacing that I’ve come to expect from this series, it is the first book to actually feel like a middle book in terms of plot. The Skull Throne is the fourth novel in the bestselling Demon Cycle by American author Peter V.

The skull throne by peter v brett