Customer Reviews

The Left Hand of God

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The first truly hyped release of 2010, The Left Hand of God has a lot going for it - at least, on the surface. Gritty, dark fantasy cover art, great word of mouth & a tantalizing plot all add up to a lot of sound and fury. And, to give it credit, Hoffman does write a very more-ish book, fast-paced from start to finish.

The book's protagonist is Thomas Cale, an orphan in the care of the Redeemers. The Redeemers are a sinister, reclusive religious order that stress penitence & punishment (also torture and the occasional bout of pedophilia). Although the orphans are cut off from the world, it doesn't take much for Thomas to figure out that the abandoned kids are being trained into an army of killers.

The first part of the book (and probably the best), takes place in the Sanctuary. Cale and his friends scuttle around like rats - survival is their only goal. Oddly, I've always enjoyed the opening "before the prophecy happens" sections of high fantasy epics, and this is a pretty good one. Compared to Garion's kitchen or Frodo's farm, Cale's miserable orphanage is quite a change.

Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for the reader), Cale and his friends manage to escape. The latter two-thirds of the book take place in the trading city of Memphis, the vague capital of an Venetian-like trading empire. Cale works his way up the ranks and somehow gets mixed up in the local politics. Eventually, predictably, we learn that everything revolves around him, and some prophecies come into play. Whew.

Unfortunately, the book relies too much on pace and energy, and not enough on plot, character development and good old-fashioned world-building. While things are constantly moving, the merest hint of a pause (say, a chapter break) was enough disruption to remind me that book wasn't actually that gripping. Cale is a bastard. There's a bit of character development, in that he momentarily reconsiders his continuous foul mood, but then decides to stick to it anyway.

Besides perpetual and overwhelming gloom, there's not much else to define the world. At best, it could be considered a vague medieval analogue (like something out of KJ Parker), but the confusing use of historical names just confuses things. Geographically, places are just where they need to be. History and society are pretty much just how they need to be at the moment, often in implausible ways. The entire Empire of Memphis, for example, refuses to believe in the crossbow. And even when demonstrated, their entire military staff decides that archery is a bad idea? Peculiar.

The Left Hand of God isn't even cinematic - it is televisual (I think I may have just coined that term) - very punchy, very hasty, but ultimately, very thin. This is good documentary evidence of the post-Wire generation of fantasy authors, but, equally, feels like an experiment gone slightly awry. With less haste and more consideration, the series could be redeemed, but that may be too much of a departure from the author's natural style.

The Left Hand of God is a confusing book. It is as if the author, Paul Hoffman, took a history of Classical and Medieval Europe and ran it through the blender. Once the source material was a rich broth of ideas, Paul, with a story teller's flair, reassembled the whole mess into something new. However, he did not quite end up with a cake.

The Left Hand of God just never gels together into something greater than the sum of its parts. As you read you see flashes of Harry Potter, Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy, or alternate history fantasy, etc. The last is especially jarring. Mr. Hoffman's re-use of familiar terms is off-putting. Every time it seemed that I was sinking into this new world a very familiar term would pop up and yank me back to the present. Trying to reconcile the fact that Jesus of Nazareth makes an appearance is difficult. It breaks my immersion.

What exacerbates this issue of reality intruding into fantasy is the enormous amount of irrelevant information pouring off the pages. While the use of historical terms may have been intended to be comforting and familiar to a fan of history, the majority of them are not needed and simply confuse you. The narrative is constantly speaking of far away lands and nationalities and then promptly forgetting them.

What really illustrates this problem is the world map supplied with the book. It is very small. It focuses on the two primary points of interest, The Sanctuary and the Great City of Memphis; excluding all else. The maps conveys the idea of a narrow narrative focus. Yet, the main focus of the Redeemers is their War with the Antagonists along two great Fronts. This is repeatedly referenced yet is agonizingly absent on the map. The story steadily doles out new people, facts, places, names, etc that are not on the map. If the tale is suppose to be focused on this little corner of the world, then why does it constantly wander off?

The most damning aspect of this deluge of useless trivia is trying to figure out what is important and what isn't. Some things seem important, such as the scented pellet Cale finds during his ordeal with Redeemer Picarbo, but are never mentioned again. Others, such as Arbel Materazzi's brother Simon, are equalling confounding. Without any foreshadowing, Simon appears, figuratively, out of thin air seeming to serve no more purpose than to cement the relation between Cale and the ruling Materazzi. Will Simon become a central figure or will he simply be dismissed with a laconic "that is that," as with Solomon Solomon?

My worst complaint with the narrative are the jumps. Mr. Hoffman sets the stage for conflict and then promptly leaps to the resolution. This left me angry. Everyone knows a Hollywood movie has a happy ending, its the path there that makes the movies interesting. When the plot leaps forward from conflict to resolution without traveling the intervening thorny path you feel robbed.

I did enjoy the book though. It was amusing and interesting. More than anything it has a feel of promise. Perhaps all its component parts have not yet meshed very well but maybe in two or three more books I will get the cake I want.

The rise of fantasy has, in my opinion, produced two kinds of cliche-oriented reactions within the publishing spectrum: entertaining, inventive, and/or enjoyably derivative trilogies, and fascinating ideas and worlds mired by barely serviceable prose, lackluster plotting, and/or a general failure to maintain cohesion (in the plot, worldbuilding, character development, and/or the writing). Both groups aren't always separate, since sometimes a book with weak prose can still be a thrilling read, but usually they are. Unfortunately, I think The Left Hand of God fits into the latter of the two groups.

The novel sounds intriguing enough, and Hoffman's book does deliver on a number of the points described in the synopsis for the U.S. edition, but overall, The Left Hand of God falls desperately short in three key ways.

The first failure has to do with point of view. While the synopsis indicates that Cale is the main character, Hoffman's writing fails to adequately display that, almost as if Hoffman didn't seem to know who the book was supposed to be about either. The first quarter of the book does focus on Cale, but the rest of the novel switches randomly from POV to POV to give the reader the thoughts of basically anyone in the room at that moment, or even people who are completely insignificant to the actual plot. None of this is done between chapters, which might have been okay, but within chapters, sometimes between paragraphs, and sometimes between sentences. One second we're hearing Cale's inner thoughts, and the next it's someone else. And before you can grow used to the transition, Hoffman switches again.

From a purely stylistic standpoint, this is simply poor writing for two reasons: 1) trying to tell your readers everything everyone is feeling about everything sucks the life right out of the story, because very little remains a mystery, and 2) switching POVs in the middle of paragraphs is unnecessarily jarring and almost as annoying as inconsistent tenses. Sadly, Hoffman violates one of the golden rules of writing on a routine basis in order to give as many perspectives as possible--i.e. "show, don't tell." I suppose you'd have to in order to perform the aforementioned task, but breaking the rule so clearly, with no regard for its eccentricities and ambiguities, is careless. The prose suffers as a result.

The Left Hand of God also suffers from narrative inconsistencies. For example, the synopsis indicates that Cale isn't aware of the world outside of the sanctuary. The problem? This isn't actually true. He doesn't understand the customs of the cultures that exist beyond the walls of sanctuary, sure, but, as we learn later in the book, he is both aware of the outside world and instrumental in the Redeemer's plans for those places (i.e. he actually designed their plans). This leads me to another inconsistency, which is Cale's fighting ability. When Cale first exhibits these abilities, it's a shock both to the reader and to the non-Redeemer characters. Why? Because it's never mentioned beforehand. One moment he's just some poor, beaten-up, grumpy guy, and the next he's the Roman equivalent of a ninja. It's all rather convenient, and obviously so. Narratives aren't supposed to be convenient. They're supposed to feel believable. Nothing should feel as though it doesn't belong.

The last problem I had with The Left Hand of God was the general unbelievability of some of the events that occur throughout the narrative. Characters do things that are completely contrary to who they are, despite Hoffman's attempts to establish them as pretty clearly in one particular form. Perhaps the worst instance of this is when Hoffman writes the Materazzi as a Spartan-esque warrior class, but then proceeds to have them lose a battle in the most idiotic manner conceivable--a thing that no military of the Materazzi's caliber would do. Likewise, characters fall in love at random, sometimes despite legitimate reasons why they shouldn't. I may have rolled my eyes more than once while reading. The point is, Hoffman's novel regularly devolves into nonsensical plot points, which sucks it dry of the potential established in the first chapters--the strongest part of the book is the beginning.

The Left Hand of God isn't without positive qualities. Hoffman does have a knack for tension, and, as I've just mentioned, the beginning third of the book, while a tad long, is quite strong and intriguing. Plus, the interior of the book is quite beautiful, with nice texture for the pages, an awesome map, and a good design for the pages and chapter headings. But it's not enough to have some great ideas, a relatively strong beginning, a nice interior, and a few generally entertaining sections. A novel needs to be more than that, and, unfortunately, I don't think The Left Hand of God comes close to meeting the burden of minimums. The biggest problem for me is that I had high hopes for the book. It had a lot of potential and there truly were some good moments. But I ended up being disappointed and thinking that this isn't the right direction for fantasy at all. Let's keep the mediocre writing standards to the vanity presses, please.

I am a very picky reader and I could not put this book down. There is so much badly written fantasy- this is the exception to that rule. I found the story intriguing, the characters alive and the plot compelling.

Having never read anything by Hoffman, I didn't know what to expect. Was in an airport and needed something to pass the time while in the air. The beginning is dark and is carried throughout the story. After landing and began my vacation, I found myself not wanting to leave the hotel room due to being engrossed in this book. Ended up reading it in two days. This is a must read for anyone no matter what your tastes might be. Painfully waiting for "The Last Four Things."

This is an amazing book, the first one written by Paul Hoffman. He is no beginning writer. He knows the craft of writing very, very well. His plot, characters, settings, and the action are all wonderfully described. And the story is immensely gripping. I was totally drawn into the actions surrounding the main character, a 15 year old, raised from childhood in a monastery prison, ruled by savage monks. All the children are brutally treated to become insensitive, brutal soldiers, an army of cold killers, and in the process, they are killed if they do not obey the least command of their masters. However, Cale, our protagonist, does escape with 2 others, and, avoiding a brutal search for them, make their way to the main city of Memphis, in this make believe world. Soon he is the pawn of the ruling class but, possessing superior powers in fighting, becomes a favorite of the monarch, protecting his beautiful daughter. Soon however, war breaks out between the Redeemers, the cruel monks, and the army of Memphis. Cale is very instrumental in the planning and action of this war. But, as this is Book I of three volumes planned by the author, the ending is a cliffhanger. I can barely wait to get my hands on Book II!!!!

So what have you checked off your bucket list by age 14? Killed or maimed two dozens elite warriors? Check. Eaten dead rats? Check. Made love to the most beautiful woman in the world (hopefully after brushing your teeth?) Check. Written up plans for both sides in a war that destroys the greatest empire in the world? Check.

OK, so Hoffman gets a little carried away with stuffing the shirt of his hero. All right, you need extra large suspenders to suspend disbelief throughout much of the story. Sure, the connections make little sense, and the author checks us into a world that just hasn't been thought out as well as it ought to have been.

But I confess -- I enjoyed the book. I also enjoyed Dan Brown's The Da Vince Code.

There are a few interesting characters here -- Vague Henri, sidekick No. 1; the guy first met buried up to his head in sand; the villain.

But mainly, I guess, I enjoyed the book because I love science fiction, but usually don't allow myself the time to read the stuff.

A closer parallel than Dan Brown might be Phillip Pullman. Pullman's stories begin in Oxford; Hoffman studied at New College. Like Pullman, Hoffman creates a parallel universe in which much is the same, and much different -- though Pullman does a far better job of making his fictional worlds believable.

Both men also have a thing against Christianity. Hoffman wins the battle of "who can make the Church looks the most warped and sadistic" by several lengths over Pullman, and a couple laps over Brown. Hoffman could have invented a religion out of whole cloth, instead he borrows almost everything, even Bible verses and Jesus, off the, uh, rack, from the Inquisition, only a couple magnitudes worse. The Aztecs would have grounds for a lawsuit.

Aside from the fact that I am, myself, a Christian, I have two problems with all this borrowing:

(1) It shows a lack of artistic invention. Much of the pleasure of Dune, for instance, lies in its creation of a credible alternative religious world, with parallels to our own, and internal cohesiveness, but with only masked and distant influence. There is nothing like so clever here. If you're going to quote so much directly, why make Jesus hanged instead of crucified? It's awkward and senseless.

(2) One should probably not applaud when Nazis sketch Jews with hooked noses. Even if Hoffman did the same thing to some other religion that has contributed greatly to human progress, like Confucianism or Buddhism, or even one I like less, like Islam, I hope I'd find it disturbing. If Hoffman himself was a victim of child abuse in a Church institution, what he does here might be more excusable.

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First things first- don't be put off by the cover art on this book. While it may look dark and gloomy the novel is actually a coming of age story about a fantasy universe. In Paul Hoffman's most recent novel The Left Hand of God we are transported to another time and place, just as any other fantasy novel. This novel may not be for us women but it is applicable to many of the young adults and boys in your life. Similar to his predecessors he has mastered the creativity and experimentation exhibited in many fantasy novels. As an individual I would not have chosen this book off the shelf for myself or for anyone else however disregarding my original ignorance I was quickly enveloped into the novel. As a virgin to the Fantasy genre -besides Harry Potter- Hoffman was descriptive and a good leader not only was I able to connect with his dialogues but also his descriptions.

This is an alternate world where the boys are destined for the Redeemers at a young age. Not only are they taught to fight -quite brutally- but a myriad of other skills which could lead to their dominance. The sanctuary is rife with men from across the country coming to leave their children in the hands of the brutal men. This institution turns the young careless boys into warriors for a war they are hoping to start. The boys are forced to conform and eat gruel at the prison like institution. Cale- the main character- is stronger than most and equally as suspicious of those around them, especially his captors. As he escapes his captors Cale travels to a new city where he is used once again for his unique expertise. In this`re-imagined' world Cale is quickly transformed and becomes powerful and wanted by all. This is an amazing tale of pursuit and battle perfect for anyone interested in fantasy with a slight tinge of humor.

The redeemers rule the land with power and strength, sole authority over these boys, and answer to no one. The rule with such fear that all around them are afraid of them, well everyone except Cale who attempts to flee to Memphis. In this new city is a world of pleasure and lust amongst many other distractions. With the loss of their most precious warrior the Redeemers strike and Cale must come to terms with his abilities and the strength that he has.

Now when I first saw this novel I thought `no, this will probably not work for MISS.' But I was wrong while this may not be perfect for you I am sure you know some teenager who is struggling with things and this novel is a perfect escape. The language is energetic and evasive at the same time where we are intrigued by the details of this story. We are left with many questions; why is the Lord of Discipline cutting apart girls? Arbell Swan-Neck's mute brother. There are many different questions and plot lines intermingling that it is hard to understand the result of this novel. However we must understand that this is the first of a triad. This novel is intended for those teenage sci-fi readers of the world.

I have never written a one star review before. However, this book is the worst of some hundred fantasy novels I have read in the past two years. There are numerous reasons for why I felt this way.

1. The novel embraces numerous of fantasy's worst cliches. The main character is an orphan with amazing abilities and he falls in love with the most beautiful and famous girl in the world. Although they have only one or two short dailogues together, they are both so attractive that they have relations and fall in love. It doesnt matter that she is the daughter of the most powerful man in the world and he is a 14 year old orphan without a job, education, or interpersonal skills. Cale, the main character, is also the best fighter in the world. The explanation given is that he had a terrible skull fracture and when it healed he could tell how people were going to attack him before it happened. So the 14 year old boy beats the most famous and skilled adult warriors in the land in a series of duels. Not only is he the best warrior in the world, he is also a peerless military strategist. He devises the military strategy the main "bad" army uses by reading through decades of military history. When he is then on the side of the "good" army, they use him to devise a counter-stratgey to the one that he invented which the "bad" army is employing. Again, an amazing 14 year old. Twice in the novel when confronted with medical situations, the doctors in the book are baffled when it comes to healing. Once again, Cale steps in and also is more trained in the healing arts than the physicians. Finally, when the brother of the girl he loves is shunned as a simpleton because he is deaf, Cale again steps in. This time it is because he learned sign language in a previous flashback. Through Cales intervention, the boy learns sign language and can finally communicate his intelligence to his father. One of these flashes of brilliance from an 14 year old would have been hard to swallow. When he is the constantly the best this or the best that in the world, it becomes laughable. Of course, he is so brilliant because of the worst fanatsy cliche of all- the prophecy. "They call him Cale. He is destined to save the world... or destroy it."

2. I guess the novel is set in some strange alternate historical past, because there were lots of odd references. The author refers to Norweigans, a hybrid Jesus of Nazereth/Jonah in the whales belly, the Ark of the Covenant, Jews who are the worlds main money lenders, and several other real world references. These references were distracting and added nothing to the story.

3. The use of superlatives was constant. I mentioned in point one that the main character was amazing at everything, but the superlatives didnt stop with him. His other adolescent friend is such an amazing asassin, he can shoot a target at 600 yards with a crossbow. My understanding is crossbows are ussually accurate to 40 yards, so again we have another prodigy that suspends belief. When food is described, it is the most succulent dish copied after the famed House of So-and-So in land Far-Away. When lovers are described, the are compared to named characters who everyone in the world is familiar with because of their Casanovian exploits. When the antagonists are described, they are the most evil and reviling characters to escape from hell. In the author's desire to build a rich world and bring us into his imagination, he forgets that subtlety and simplicity allow more for the imagination than a constant barrage of superlatives. I dont think the author understands that characters are made interesting through their humanity, weaknesses, and struggles. Insights into the inner workings of the mind and heart give the reader the impetus to care, not because they are the best something in the world.

4. Finally, the book could still have been worth two or three stars to me despite the above flaws. That is if it was otherwise well written. I honestly felt like I was reading a work from a high school or college course. I dont recall worse prose and dialogue in fantasy since reading Eragon. The author loves using dashes, commas, and colons to the point that I sometimes read sentences three or four times to understand what was being said. "He had expected- well, he wasn't sure what he had expected precisely- but someone, surely, given his fearsome reputation, with majestic presence, the charasmatic power that any great man of violence always, carried with him." Im still not sure what this sentence meant and its one of numerous examples. During a duel, the crowd gathers in hundreds and shouts "BOOM LACALACALACA BOOM LACALACALACA". Really? When love is described, it is because people are so gorgeous that they surely must be attracted to each other. I think this novel was written at a level to appeal to teens. The author has a long ways to go in refining his prose and writing believable dialogue.

The main antagonist Bosco is an intriguing evil character. There is something intelligent and malicious about him and he was a lone bright spot in the novel. The maps on the novel were decent, although 90% of the story takes place in two locations, so they are superfluous. The writing is fast paced and so the book moves along, despite its many weaknesses.

Those are my main complaints for whats its worth. Why did I finish the book then if I disliked it so much? I have a morbid curiosity to understand why I dislike a novel, almost as much as why I like a novel. I started underlining and highlighting passages that caught my eye about 25% of the way into the novel. If you want a good fantasy novel, there are dozens of authors serving up good reads. I would leave Paul Hoffman until his writing develops further.

(No Spoilers) Thomas Cale is one of many boys under the "care" of the Redeemers, a sanctimonious group of "holy" warriors. The Redeemers train the boys through violence to join the ranks of the Redeemers, or die trying. Cale is one of the more gifted youths, able to seemingly perceive things in combat: blows before they are dealt, tactics on a map, etc. Cale may be our hero, but he is a dark and deadly one. And with such a young protagonist (15 at best), the gritty nature of this book disturbed me.

While sneaking around where he shouldn't, Cale witnesses a secret within the ranks of the Redeemers and must escape. He and a couple friends embark on a mission to leave the torture of their caretakers behind. What follows is more torture, violence, and occasional cool bits of character development.

The writing is third person, past tense, and is well done. Narratives are detailed and engrossing, but sometimes border on excessive. I found myself wanting to skip pages of exposition and backstory to get to the proverbial good stuff. It's a dark, terrifying world that Hoffman has built, and not for the weak of heart (or stomach). As you would expect from epic fantasy, pacing is slow. The characterization is decent, and I found myself more drawn to Cale's friends than Cale himself. The female characters were rather one-dimensional, which accounts for a decrease in my rating.

While THE LEFT HAND OF GOD has some religious overtones, as far as I can tell it is not written with any particular theology or soapbox in mind. It simply uses our real-world history as a backdrop and mixes it up with some fantastical changes. You'll find no magic or wizards, but you will find an intriguing setting with engaging characters.

My biggest issue with this book was the plot. It doesn't resolve. Much of this book is laying down the groundwork (background information, inciting incident, etc) for the series. As an avid fantasy reader, I'm accustomed to a slow build, but I do expect each book within a series to have an plot within the overarching series-plot that resolves by the end of each book. I didn't get that here.

If you enjoy dark, epic fantasy, then you'll enjoy THE LEFT HAND OF GOD. The second book in the series recently released, so hopefully you'll be able to get some resolution to the plot without having to wait years. All in all, it was an enjoyable read, but not one I would recommend if you don't particularly enjoy this genre.

Content Warning: R (mild language, dark violence: rape, torture, war, abuse)

Rating: 3 Stars