The Core
core novel 2017 The Demon Cycle
Record
| First published | 2017 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.10 (21,376 ratings, collected 2026-08-27) |
| Page count | 880 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780345531513 |
| Internal chronology | 5 |
Synopsis
The Core is the fifth and final novel in the Demon Cycle, following humanity's long war against the demons that have hunted them every night for generations behind wards of protective magic. Two men have emerged as leaders of that fight: Arlen Bales, the tattooed Warded Man, and Ahmann Jardir, the desert warrior proclaimed the Deliverer, whose earlier confrontation set off a massive demon swarm now threatening the Free Cities. As allies work to hold the line against that onslaught, Arlen, Jardir, and Arlen's wife Renna set out on a desperate mission of their own: to capture and bind the will of a demon prince and force it to lead them down into the Core itself, the deep breeding ground where the Mother of Demons spawns her endless army, in hopes of striking at the root of the threat before it overwhelms the surviving Free Cities.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Demon Cycle
- Series: The Demon Cycle core; position 5 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Peter V. Brett
Notes
- From the series record (The Demon Cycle): Published in the UK in 2008 as The Painted Man; The Warded Man is the US title of the same book.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Demon Cycle: position 5 of 5: previous The Skull Throne (2015)
Sources
← The Demon Cycle dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.