Series Review: The Left Hand of God - Paul Hoffman

OVERALL RATING: THREE STARS

The Church of the Hanged Redeemer bought Thomas Cale when he was just a boy. They treated him cruelly, punished him and moulded his young mind for the brutality of war. He was little more than a slave and they turned him into a weapon, into one of the greatest soldiers alive. Thomas is as lethal with his hands as he is with blades and crossbows. His mind plans tactics and strategies that even the most experienced generals cannot see. He has been trained to perfection and will lead the Hanged Redeemers in their jihad to purify the world.

Yet for all their planning and training, the Hanged Redeemers failed to understand that Thomas also has plans for the course of his life. Setting out with Vague Henry and Kleist, his most trusted friends, Thomas flees the Sanctuary and sets his eyes on a life of freedom, away from the Redeemers brutal religion. His adventures take him to Memphis, where he quickly finds himself in political crossfire. The Redeemers are eager to reclaim the 'incarnation of God's Wrath' and hunt him zealously. Thomas is literally caught between a cross and a hard place and turns to the only thing he truly knows to save him: his great prowess in violence.

Book 1: The Left Hand of God
Book 2: The Last Four Things
Book 3: The Beating Of His Wings

The Good
The Left Hand of God is a remarkable series and Paul Hoffman has really let his imagination run lose, developing a sinister religion (which is essentially a very dark form of Christianity), a complex host of characters and a world with its own society and problems.

The series is written in a strange, slightly quirky style and I haven't read another Dystopia quite like it. It's certainly unique, and is full of danger and battles that will keep you captivated throughout its three instalments. Hoffman address the problems with religion well and how it can be used to justify terrible acts of evil, epically wrapping up Thomas Cale's terrible story at the series end.

The Bad
I really enjoyed The Left Hand of God (series), but it did have a few problems that were never resolved and ruined my enjoyment of the books slightly. The main one of these was the fact that Hoffman doesn't include a map of this world and never bothers to establish its geography. The fact that he uses real place names, such as Memphis and Cyprus, only makes this worse and it's difficult to get a feel for the story's setting. For example, Hoffman may be talking about an army that's approaching one city from another, but it didn't mean much to me because the cities could be 50 miles apart or 500. This made it hard for Hoffman to build tension in places and I think it's a real shame because he could have rectified it so easily!

My Thoughts
Despite a few little things that make it hard to follow, The Left Hand of God series is an excellent read. It's a strange mix of fantasy and Dystopia, being dark and brutal in a way that few books are. Hoffman's world is developed and complex, and his characters are fun to read about. It's one of the most unique fantasies I've read in a long time and I highly recommend it for your reading list!

The Beating Of His Wings - Paul Hoffman

RATING: THREE STARS

The Hanged Redeemers are nearly ready to unleash their holy war against mankind. Their soldiers, the best and most highly trained in the known world, are moving and they have already left the Sanctuary in the dust behind. The only person who can hope to stand against them is Thomas Cale, a once proficient warrior who is ailed by a crippling disease. Yet Cale cares nothing for the world around and would gladly watch it burn if it meant others would leave him alone.

No-one will and Cale is pursued and manoeuvred mercilessly by those who think to use him. The Swis King means to have him lead his armies against the Redeemers. Kitty the Hare means to use Cale's talents in violence to make him richer than he has ever been before. Brusco, the Pope of the Hanged Redeemer Church, believes Cale to be the Left Hand of God and the incartion of His wrath. Cale is supposed to wipe man - God's greatest mistake - off the face of the world.

All Thomas Cale sees is chaos and the suffering of his broken soul.

The Good
The Beating of His Wings was a satisfying conclusion to an undoubtedly superb religious fantasy and Paul Hoffman ties up every loose end that has split during the trilogy. It's exciting and inventive, being filled with tactical battles, multi-layered characters and the justifications of faith.

Hoffman has also continued to write in his dry, quirky manner that I really liked in the previous instalments and the book has this odd childishness to it (despite it NOT being for children!). Beloved characters such as Vague Henry and IdrisPukke are back, wandering through Spanish Leeds and adding their wits to Cale's own.

The Bad
My main fault with The Beating of His Wings is with the strange geography of Hoffman's world (once again). No map has been included with the book and he never really makes references to places or the distances between them, simply flinging in real places so they mix together strangely. I assume this is a subtle attempt to remind his readers of the real world so we link to it and add depth to the book, but I found it a little disconcerting!

My Thoughts
Overall though, I think the book was pretty good and I enjoyed reading it. It certainly wasn't a page turner and I had been expecting more from it (although I suppose I was still stunned by the quality of The Martian by Andy Weir and had forgotten that not all books were like this), yet it ended the Left Hand of God trilogy well. I would recommend this book (and series) to anyone who is looking to read something a bit different, especially if you're after something dark and gripping.

'The Beating Of His Wings' release date

It has recently been confirmed that The Beating of His Wings, the final instalment of Paul Hoffman's Left Hand of God trilogy, will be released on the 18th July 2013! Sadly, this is a bit later than the previous and more optimistic estimates of an April launch but I guess that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things and followers of the series with know the fate of Thomas Cale and the ruthless Redeemers soon enough!

The Last Four Things - Paul Hoffman

RATING: THREE STARS

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Last Four Things, which had a strong and unpredictable plot that kept me encapsulated in the story throughout. Hoffman's use of bold descriptions and sentimental quotations (though  he admits that many were 'borrowed' from other sources), help to add a richness to the language of the book, which in turn helped to immerse me in the events of the world that he has created.

As with his previous book (The Left Hand of God), Hoffman centres the story around a small handful of well-developed characters, particularly focusing on the previously featured Thomas Cale, who has now been promoted from an acolyte to the rank of an untouchable Redeemer, which have different adventures across various locations. He switches between these different sub-plots well, although it could be easier to follow if he used one 'point-of-view' character per chapter like George R. R. Martin does in his series: A Song of Ice & Fire. However, this isn't really an issue and the different sub-plots help to stop the book from developing any monotony whilst reading it - with stories ranging from grand battles through to the brutal and fear-based 'sovietesque' politics of the central Redeemer government.

However, whilst the book is undoubtedly enjoyable to read, it is not as good as its predecessor and loses some of the depth and brutality that made the earlier book stand out. Hoffman also spends less time describing the settings and cultural aspects of the story and instead gives more detailed accounts of the politics that govern Redeemer society which, despite being interesting, slow down the pace of the book and make it slightly harder to follow.

Don't let this discourage you from reading The Last Four Things however! And I would still recommend that you give it a go if you are in any doubt whatsoever, as it is both a very enjoyable read and a satisfactory sequel to its predecessor - one that leaves me looking forward to the next (and final) instalment of the saga: The Beating of his Wings, which is scheduled to be released in April 2013.

The Left Hand of God - Paul Hoffman

RATING: FIVE STARS

I really enjoyed reading The Left Hand of God, which provides a somewhat unique and slightly novel perception of a dystopian society. The society of the Redeemers, which appears to be based around an altered form of Christianity, seeks (rather predictably) to spread its control across the rest of world, but is unable to do this because it has been engaged in a hundred-year war with a rival faction of another odd Christianity-based religion, which they refer to as the Antagonists. 

Without spoilers, the plot of the book focuses around a young boy, Thomas Cale, who has been brought up under the ruthless regime of the Redeemers in a fortress called the Sanctuary, where he has spent his entire life and has been trained to be a merciless holy soldier. Cale soon finds himself outside of his sheltered life in the Sanctuary and is plunged into the aristocracy of a honour-bound militant society, where he continuously finds himself to be out of his comfort zone - a factor that makes his life very difficult and leads to decisions that leave his loyalties questioned by both sides. 

The contrast between the two societies that feature in the book help to keep it fresh throughout and Hoffman does a splendid job in highlighting the differences in the culture between the Redeemers and the Materazzi (the militant society mentioned above), describing how these differences impact on Cale and effect his decisions. This, along with an interesting and strong plot line, helped to keep me enthralled in the story and made the book very difficult to put down. 

Hoffman also develops the majority of his main characters well and steers away from making their personalities generically good or bad. This adds a 'third dimension' to his characters and helps to keep them interesting, as well as making them more relatable - adding a believability to the story, despite its complex and fictitious setting. 

One flaw with the book however, (although I should point out that this doesn't hinder its enjoyability), is that the geography of the world Hoffman has created is confusing. This is mainly because there is no map with the book and he uses the names of real places, which may be mere miles away from each other in the book, yet be in different countries in real life. This slightly odd 'map' and Hoffman's alterations of Christianity makes the setting of the world slightly hard to comprehend - is it supposed to be an entirely new world, or is it set in the future for example, with the world recovering from some sort of apocalyptic disaster? However, this problem is just me 'nit-picking' and has no real reflection on the story. 

So, overall, the book is very well-written and the religion, societies and characters that Hoffman has developed are believable and fairly original. Due to this, I would strongly recommend adding The Left hand of God to your reading list if you're interested in dystopia or fantasy.