Hush: The Dragon Apocalypse [Mass Market Paperback]

James Maxey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 26, 2012 | Series: Dragon Apocalypse (Book 2)

The invulnerable, super-strong warrior Infidel has a secret: she’s lost her magical powers right at the moment when she needs them most. To keep a promise to a fallen friend, she must journey to the frozen wastelands of the north. Her quest leads her through the abstract realms of the Sea of Wine, where she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all life. Hush, the primal dragon of cold, has formed an alliance with the ghost of a vengeful witch to murder Glorious, the dragon of the sun, plunging the world into an unending winter night. Without her magical strength, can Infidel possibly survive her battle with Hush? If she fails to save Glorious, will the world see another morning?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Maxey’s stories have appeared in a score of anthologies and magazines. The best of his short fiction is now available in the collection There is No Wheel. He continues to write about ghosts and pirates, also spaceships, monkeys, and circus freaks and other geeky delights. His novels currently in print are the cult-classic superhero tale Nobody Gets The Girl and the Dragon Age trilogy of Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed.

Orson Scott Card praised Bitterwood, currently in its fourth printing, as ‘…a book that feels like fantasy but is, at core, smart science fiction. It feels like — and is — a magnificent hero story.’ For more information on James and the Dragon Apocalypse, visit dragonprophet.blogspot.com.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Solaris (June 26, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1781080178
• ISBN-13: 978-1781080177
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #739,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I live in Hillsborough, NC with my wife Cheryl. My work is known for fast paced action and humor, with each story built around a large moral question.

My works to date are:

His superhero novels:
Nobody Gets the Girl (2003): A tale on an invisible man and the women who dig him.
Burn Baby Burn (2011): A love story about two supervillians on a crime spree.
Coming in 2013: The Confessions of Cut-Up Girl!: A young girl with the power to create duplicates of herself by cutting off body parts gets swept up into a war between the Lawful Legion (the only superhero team authorized by the government) and Red Line, a team of super-powered vigilantes fighting to save a world that fears them.

My Dragon Age novels:
Bitterwood (2007): In a world where dragons rule over men, the mysterious hunter Bitterwood wages war against the beasts from the shadows.
Dragonforge (2008): When all out war breaks out between dragons and men, the human forces stage a daring attack on the heart of the dragons' military might--the fortress town of Dragon Forge.
Dragonseed (2009): As war takes its toll on both mankind and the dragons, disease and famine threaten to sweep the land. Does salvation lie in the talons of dragon claiming mystical healing powers, who feeds his followers the miraculous dragonseed?
Coming in 2013: The Complete Bitterwood. An ebook collection that collects the three core Dragon Age novels, plus the prequel short story "Tornado of Sparks," plus the previously unpublished novel "Empire of Angels," the book that laid the blueprint for the published novels that followed.

My Dragon Apocalypse novels:
A more lighthearted take on fantasy than my Dragon Age novels, the Dragon Apocalypse novels blend my love of epic fantasy and my love of superheroes. In each book, superpowered adventurers pit themselves against the primal dragons, elemental beings who are manifestations of aspects of nature.
Greatshadow (2012): Twelve superpowered adventurers band together to slay Greatshadow, the primal dragon of fire. But, before they fight the beast, can they first survive each other?
Hush (2012): When the warrior woman known as Infidel journeys to the frozen north in order to fulfil a promise made to a dying friend, she winds up swept into a plot by Hush, the primal dragon of cold, who plans to murder the sun and plunge the world into permanent winter.
Witchbreaker (2012): Centuries ago, the knight known as the Witchbreaker nearly wiped out the cult of witches. Now, a young witch named Sorrow seeks to launch a new golden age of witchcraft by seeking out the legendary queen of witches, Avaris. She's joined on her quest by an amnesiatic warrior who seems to have come from a different time. Could her new closest ally secretly be the long lost Witchbreaker?
Coming (hopefully) in 2014: Soulless, the sequel to Witchbreaker.

Short story collections:
There is No Wheel (2011): Ten critically acclaimed short stories collected from the pages of Asimov's, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and various anthologies. Dark, weird, funny, and truthful.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Greatshadow, Still Satisfying Fantasy June 26, 2012

By Nickolas X. P. Sharps VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Being a book critic is sort of like getting to experience Christmas at least once a week. Getting books from your favorite authors, months before release is the gift that keeps on giving. Earlier this year I read GREATSHADOW by James Maxey, and despite my cynical reservations it blew me away. Now we have HUSH, the much anticipated sequel that I had to wait excruciating months for. Months! With great excitement I started reading about the most original and colorful fantasy world I have encountered in recent memory.

HUSH picks up almost immediately after the events of GREATSHADOW. If you haven't read GREATSHADOW please stop with this review and go buy it. Otherwise you may encounter some spoilers, though I will try to keep those to a minimum.

The great and mighty Infidel, minus her vaunted invulnerability and super strength, is determined to fulfill an oath made to friend, the late ice-ogress shaman Aurora. Infidel seeks to return a sacred relic to Aurora's people up North. Along the way Infidel blunders into a conspiracy to kill Glorious, the elemental dragon of the Sun and bring an unending ice-age to the world. Can Infidel defeat this insidious plot?

If you remember correctly, you will recall that I was unenthusiastic to begin reading GREATSHADOW. I quit reading fantasy in the first place because of dragons and magical quests and the like. It was only the new wave of gritty, ultra-dark Sword & Sorcery fantasy that brought me back to the genre. Ironically enough, as much as I love the works of Abercrombie and Martin, GREATSHADOW proved to be a welcome diversion from all the backstabbing and plotting. HUSH is no different in this regard, though perhaps the luster may have worn off a little.

The most striking thing about Maxey's Dragon Apocalypse series is the world he has created. GREATSHADOW was set solely on the Isle of Fire but HUSH expands on this, taking us across the Sea of Wine and up to the icy North. This is a world where magic is the rule rather than the exception. And you won't just find one kind of magic either. There are layers upon layers of different belief system driven magic. Everyone appears to have a super power of some sort or another. The half-seeds are particularly cool - humans bonded with animals through blood magic to create a sort of hybrid. There is a fair amount of philosophical introspection, musing on the nature of magic in a world where myth overpowers reality. HUSH is absolutely loaded with ideas and that may just be a hindrance as well as a selling point.

For the most part all of these conflicting viewpoints and magic systems mesh surprisingly well, but the overabundance can lead to shellshock. The Silver Isles are exotic and dangerous. I love that this is a fantasy novel in an island setting with a heavy dose of pirate swagger but sometimes Maxey seems to just make up the rules as he goes along.

The cast this time around is also noticeably weaker than that of GREATSHADOW. We are once more joined by the ghost of Stagger, impotent observer of doom. Stagger plays a much bigger role this time around and I would even hazard to say that he is the main protagonist as opposed to Infidel. I liked watching Stagger develop but I feel like he faced far too many death defying scenarios for an already dead guy. Then of course we have Infidel, lacking in super strength and invulnerability but armed with the Immaculate Attire and a hammer made of solid sunlight. I didn't enjoy Infidel as much this time around. She had room to grow as a character but failed to do so. Without her super powers she happens to get knocked out quite a lot. Joining our two lead characters is a crippled witch by the name of Sorrow. Sorrow will be taking the lead in the third book of the series, WITCHBREAKER, and I have high hopes for her. Sorrow is a materialist weaver with the ability to manipulate the very particles of matter. Then there is the Romer family...

To make the journey North, Infidel hires the notorious Wanderer ship the Freewind. This is a vessel crewed by a family with magical powers. The captain has a mastery over the wind. She has a son who can run on water and swim through air. There is a son who can control ropes with his mind. A third son is partially shark. There is a daughter who can control a person's taste buds and another daughter who can see unseeable things through a spyglass. Oh yeah, there is also a girl who can impart her inertia upon other people with only a touch but she appears only briefly at the beginning and then sort of vanishes never to return...I liked the Romer family, but I think they were sadly underdeveloped. Perhaps we will see them again in WITCHBREAKER as there are some minor plot threats involving the family that need tying up.

Perhaps my greatest problem with HUSH is that I had set my expectations too high. With GREATSHADOW my expectations couldn't have been any lower and that allowed Maxey to surprise and captivate me immensely. HUSH didn't have this same luxury, instead having to meet my ridiculous standards. Maxey has talent and just as importantly (and even more rare) is that he can generate truly novel ideas. As a sequel HUSH expands upon the world introduced in the first book, even if it doesn't match up in terms of quality. I still had a good time reading this novel, and fully intend to read and review WITCHBREAKER when it is released.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: I can't actually remember there being any foul language this time.
Violence: Dynamic fights stripped from the pages of a comic book it would seem, with the addition of some grisly deaths.
Sex: Hinted at but nothing more.

Nick Sharps
Elitist Book Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting continuation to Greatshadow February 9, 2013

By Rob Slaven

Format:Mass Market Paperback

As a slight variation to a usual theme, I received this book as a result of a GoodReads giveaway but somewhat indirectly. I won the third book in the series but the author was exuberantly kind enough to send the entire series. Despite this wonderfully kind consideration, my candid opinions follow below.

Like Maxey's immediately previous novel, Greatshadow, this book has a touch of everything. Sex, violence, and humor abound in optimal proportions. Hush picks up exactly where Greatshadow leaves off and continues the same basic plotline. While this is a continuation of previous work Maxey does a good job of helping the second novel stand on its own if you haven't made time for the first.

Hush is a novel almost identical in tone to the first though at one point the story does become rather maudlin. Otherwise our author does very well at build a milieu for the reader that is not only entertaining but thought provoking. As usual Maxey proves himself a master of the fantasy genre.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars More dragons, more action, more heft... great story July 22, 2012

By W.M.M. van der Salm-Pallada

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Earlier this year I read and reviewed Greatshadow, and I thought it was brilliant. As I said in my review: '... any story that can legitimately clothe its main character in a chain mail bikini and make it functional can only be genius!' Having enjoyed Greatshadow so much, I was looking forward to reading Hush rather impatiently as I wanted to find out what would happen to Infidel and Stagger. So you could say I had rather high expectations when I started Hush.

Happily, my high expectations weren't disappointed. I loved Hush, perhaps even more than I loved Greatshadow. Other than obviously being part of a continuing story, Hush never felt like a second book in a series; Maxey knew where he was going with his tale and keeping a tight rein on it, never letting it meander or bog down. Instead we get action by the minute and travel by the mile, as we leave the Isle of Fire, the main focus of the action in the last book and follow our intrepid adventurers to icy Qikiqtabruk. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a story if everything was as straightforward as that sentence made it seem, so there are plenty of interesting characters and shenanigans to keep us occupied on our way there.

Action, travel and shenanigans aside, Hush had some surprisingly philosophical leanings thanks to Stagger. Returning in his capacity as narrator, this time round he isn't just along as a ghost observer, he actually gets in on the action thanks to Sorrow, a materialist who binds him as a wood golem in her service. This semi-return to life - Sorrow makes it clear that the binding won't last and once Stagger's spectral energy runs out he'll move on for good - prompt a lot of musing on the meaning of life and love for Stagger and give him a chance to, for once and for all, tell Infidel the whole of his feelings for her. There are a lot of lovely passages in the book, unexpectedly touching in this hard-hitting tale of high adventure, such as the one I added as a quote to my Tumblr. It made reading Hush a pleasure beyond that of a fantastic story, it made me appreciate the prose as well.

Beyond the addition of Sorrow as one of her travel companions, Infidel also adds the Romers, a family of Wanderers and the owners of the Freewind. She hires them to take her to Qikiqtabruk and they are a fabulous set of characters. Consisting of the captain, Gale, and her children, they are a handy bunch to have a round in a pinch, as they each have gifts given them as rewards by the mermen - the tale of which must be interesting in its own right and which we don't fully get here, alas - and they are very resourceful. They are joined by their dry man Brand, who is the one who conducts their business on land, as Wanderers can't set foot on dry land, because of their deal with Abyss, the primal dragon of the sea. However entertaining and intriguing the Romers are, the real star to join Infidel is Sorrow. Not only is she a materialist - a witch who is able to manipulate matter after hammering the relevant nail into the correct position on her head (!!) - she's also the estranged daughter of one of the judge-captains of King Brightmoon's fleet and as such has a lot in common with Infidel in the daddy-issues department. Sorrow is a fascinating character, at once coldly analytic and strangely empathetic; I never was quite sure whether she didn't have a hidden (nefarious) agenda.

Beyond a new set of companions for Infidel, we also get a new set of dragons, Hush, Rott and Glorious, a new villain, Purity, and a lot more information on the world, its links with the abstract world and its magic. Hush and Glorious are awesome - well duh, they're dragons, but even beyond that - I loved that they were at the same time all too human, I mean they're whole animosity was based on a lover's quarrel as Greatshadow told us in the previous book, and far beyond humanity as the humans don't even rate in their decision-making process. The world seems to have far more depth to it than I suspected after last book, which was mirrored both in the races and people we encounter and the way the different magics we've come across so far are connected.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed Hush. Despite its sometimes a little more serious passages, it was still a fun romp and anyone just looking for more of what made Greatshadow such a great read (no pun intended) will definitely find it in Hush. For those who found Greatshadow to be mostly light entertainment, I think you'll find more heft in Hush, with a world that has more depth, a narrator given to more serious introspection and some more rounded motivations for its characters. Hush's ending left me spinning and I can't wait to see where Maxey will pick up Infidel's tale in the next book, Witchbreaker, next year! Hush was released by Solaris Books earlier this month and should be available from all the usual venues, both online and off.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.