Many reviewers have already pegged this book as the biggest fantasy release of 2010. That's a big claim only days into the New Year but it's not hard to see why this is book is getting so much hype.
From its opening lines we are drawn into an intense, almost urgent atmosphere as Hoffman cleverly hints at the depths and layers of the story to come. This is a world where nothing and no one can be trusted, where words can have great power but little meaning and where cynicism and dark humour are essential to survival.
Our protagonist (hero is too definite a word this early in such an ambiguous series), Thomas Cale, has been raised by the fanatical and brutal Redeemer Monks for a life as a religious soldier. Cale learned early the value of well told lie and the necessity of secrecy - skills that serve Cale well as he and his companions make their way in a world on the brink of holy war. For discretion is not the only skill Cale possesses and there are some very powerful and determined people who will go to great lengths to control him.
While The Left Hand of God reads like an epic fantasy, it features no magic and its world is more of an alternate history with a patchwork of references from Jesus of Nazareth and Jonah, to Australian place names such as Arnhem Land and The Bite. It is a fantasy novel with big ideas, complex characters, absorbing action, entertaining dialogue and a plot that will shock and surprise. The Left Hand of God really has it all, setting the bar high for 2010.
'Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.'
The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place – a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose – to serve in the name of the One True Faith.
In one of the Sanctuary's vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old – he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die.
His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt.
But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price… not because of the secret he now knows but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not.
'Writers like Hoffman are too rare. This wonderful book gripped me from the first chapter and then dropped me days later, dazed and grinning to myself. I haven't enjoyed a new world this much since Feist's 'Magician'.' Conn Iggulden
Industry Reviews
Writers like Hoffman are too rare. This wonderful book gripped me from the first chapter and then dropped me days later, dazed and grinning to myself. * Conn Iggulden * Brooding and magnificent... Hoffman has created a terrifying world and filled it with strange and complex characters. * Eoin Colfer * Brilliant. Mervyn Peake takes on Dickens in a head to head clash with a manga comic that takes no prisoners. Strange, funny, violent and intriguing. * Charlie Higson * A dark novel, haunting and exciting. If you do not enjoy this book something has died in your soul * Harry Sidebottom *
