So I finally finished the Painted Man by our own Peter V. Brett after plowing through it this weekend.

My summary

Demons come from the Core every night to pillage, plunder, and chaos for the humans because they're back with a vengeance. The demons used to be around but then some guy just beat their arses and then they went in to hiding for 3000 years. In those years people became pretty comfortable and started forgetting all the wards that kept them so safe in the first place.
The current time in which The Painted Man is set, 300 years after the demons have been back, could almost be our world in another um...898 years, just very medieval feeling.

Buildings, fields and anything human are warded. Wards are symbols that repel demons and keep them back from humans. However wards need to be redone, maintained and have proper usage of math when they are painted, carved, imprinted, etc... in to the house.
People are afraid to go more than a day's journey from their houses. People are afraid of these demons, they see the shadows grow and they're like "oooh shit I need to get myself inside LIKE NOW!" unless they want to be torn to pieces by some demon that wants to nom-nom on humans and not some big old deer that night. To be outside in the dark is to be left to death.
There are the rare few cultures that fight the demons but they get pwned mostly.

There is a hope in the people for the fabled Deliverer that shall come again that is spoken of in their religious works which has quite a few parallels to the Christian Bible except it's mainly about why they are damned with the demons and that people are bad and the whole male-supremacy sort of thing.

Then there are Messengers that dare to brave the night away from cities and buildings in special warding circles. They deliver goods and letters between towns. On the side some even search the ruins for long lost wards that might help in fighting the demons off. They tend to travel with entertainers called Jongleurs, much like the traveling troubadours of Europe, who tell tales and sing and preform for towns and cities. If a Messenger comes to a town without a Jongleur people are not all that happy. They're like "what the hey? You bring this freakin' letters but no entertainment? Poo you dude!" so Jongleurs are a rather necessary accessory to Messengers that need to town hop.
There are also Herb Gatherers who are women are really the town medicine women and midwives. They are pretty self-explanatory but are necessary to a town's survival to keep the numbers of their people up and healthy.
There are other roles but those are the three dominant ones in the Painted Man and the characters that really require the most courage and duty from human beings should they chose the path.

Anyway our three main characters each have some early circumstances arise that slowly begin to change their minds about the way things work in their world and they start to not be so okay with it and realize there are things that can change. People don't have to live in fear. They know this as they are all survivors and have seen with their own eyes that things can be different. But it requires people to not be so secluded in their towns, in their walls, in their wards and to just open up and start sharing and caring. Each town is like an island on one continent and in order to get past what cripples them separately they must unite as a whole and not be so secretive with their secrets when they have one common enemy.

And that is my summary....sort of.

What do I think?
Well from the reviews I read I was expecting it to be darker and grittier but I myself didn't find it that way....maybe I've read one too many Chuck Phalanuk books. I think it could be read by young adults and the only um...really "adulty" things are not too graphic anyway. That's just me though.
The way that it is written you do feel as though you are in the small world of isolation with the characters and you start to feel their need to escape in themselves and want to smack someone yourself.
I like that it is not purely magic based and that there is math and all behind it though that is not quite explained you know it is complex and time consuming.
My favorite character is Rojer because I feel like he is very easy to understand. He is the most human feeling and I think limited among on the characters as far as special ability goes. He has a quick wit and definite likeability only suiting as he grows to be a Jongleur.
In a close second is Bruna, the tough as bones Herb Gatherer that trains one of our other main character. She has no mercy and takes no shit but is EXTREMELY good at what she does and is the embodiment of what a Herb Gatherer is and can be. Also, crotchey old women are just great.

So yeah, I want to read the next one because I kind of feel that the book just got rolling when it ended. But that is why there are sequels and I am ready for the next two. Introductions aside, lets kick some fuckin' ass now.

And that's it.
~Lo