The Left Hand of God

Pros: fascinating characters who develop a lot throughout the course of the book, interesting (if terrifying) religion

Cons: the ending makes it feel more like a set up for the next book than a novel in its own right

The Left Hand of God is an interesting book. It's packaged like a fantasy novel, but reads more like an historical fiction. It's not really either. The book takes place on earth - from what I could tell - but not the earth of our history. The religion of the Redeemers is similar to the Catholic church, if the Catholic church went to extremes that even the inquisition would find horrific.

Thomas Cale entered the Sanctuary when he was a child. Now, a few years from manhood, he understands how to avoid beatings and other punishments. That doesn't stop him from getting punished as the Redeemers who run the Sanctuary believe every act is sinful. He's been trained from youth to be a killer and he's the best at what he does.

When two non-friends of Cale's (friendship is discouraged, and if discovered, punished) find and open a sealed off door, their lives are forever changed.

There's a lot happening in the book. The only problem being that the ending makes you realize the entire book was simply to put Cale in a specific position in relation to the Redeemers. It's fascinating how he gets there (about half way though I started wondering where the book was going, but the characters were so interesting it didn't bother me that I couldn't figure out the author's aims). A few characters near the end also make choices that seem odd given the circumstances. These are minor points though, and don't marr the enjoyment of the story.

The narrator is slightly sarcastic, especially with regards to medicine, making the book a lot of fun. When things get too serious the narration itself provides a bit of tension relief. There's a lot of character development - much of it fun as the three boys have never seen a woman before leaving the Sanctuary and don't know how the world outside the Sanctuary works.

Bottom line, it's a great set up and I can't wait to see where the next book takes the story.

The Left Hand of God was a disappointment. Even allowing for over-hyping, I expected more from a book hailed as ‘ “Ender's Game” meets the Inquisition.' In truth, while it does deal with harshly, highly trained children, Daniel Abraham recently covered the same ground better (A Shadow in Winter).

Overall, Left Hand could have benefited from a more aggressive editor. There were occasional well-turned or strking phrases, but they were mixed in with a greater amount of awkward phrasing, typos, poor or even incorrect word choice, inconsistent narrators, and inappropriate context.

Left Hand tells the story of three boys who've grown up almost entirely in an inland monastery, and a girl from a similar convent. The setting appears to be a post-apocalyptic North America, given references to Memphis, the Appalachians, and dollars. The universe here is very small - a couple of neighbouring kingdoms (essentially) - and the known world appears to extend no more than several hundred miles. Society has regressed to a standard fantasy/medieval level where siege engines are an innovation. Yet at one point, a lady blithely sends someone off to the Middle East, and there is mention of a Jerusalem campaign a couple of hundred years back. It's hard to see how such a minor empire can so easily cross the Atlantic.

The book is full of similar inconsistencies or improbabilities. For example, while our world is still restricted to four children with very limited experience, a colour change is compared to color changes in an octopus - a creature none of the children will have heard of, and which likely no one in this entire world has heard of or observed. Similarly, while our protagonist is described as the youngest ever to enter the monastery, at about age 6, the author later describes crowds of 5 year olds chanting.

The story itself is interesting, with some novelty, though also with some enticing threads left almost completely unexplored by the end of the book. However, the inconsistent writing prevents it from being convincing, and tired stereotypes make matters worse - for example, Jews suddenly enter late in the story, purely to describe a class of moneylenders.

All in all, interesting, but hard to recommend, like a fantasy written by someone with only a passing familiarity with the genre. Some new things happen, but the errors more than overset the freshness.

Loved the premise and strong opening. The well plotted escape in the opening chapters was slickly done.
Beyond that, once we hit the second location, I slowly lost interest. Momentum seems to falter and while there are a few great set pieces through the middle section and some touching moments it never quite sticks the landing.

The ending is a bit anticlimactic too and all the female characters are underdeveloped.