Hiero's Journey - The April 2019 Monthly Book
Hi everyone,
I posted a short summary on Google+ (remember those halcyon days?) but for some unaccountable reason forgot to cross-post here. I've posted below the blurb from Amazon, which is particularly florid, but which you might find entertaining. I've enjoyed this book since first encountering it long ago in my late teens, and still like re-reading it. Hopefully others will also like it. Sterling Lanier, the author, intended to write a trilogy but died after completing only two of the three. To my mind the first book (which is our monthly choice) is the better of the two which were written, but if anyone wants to go the whole hog and read number 2 (The Unforsaken Hiero) then let us know what you think.
Here in the UK, we have a public holiday on May 6th, so I'll be posting discussion starters a couple of days before that.
Hiero's Journey is available in KIndle edition, eg
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hieros-Journey-Sterling-Lanier-ebook/dp/B004KSR4H0
(or equivalent for different international marketplaces), and is also readily available on the second hand market.
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Welcome to North America, 5000 years after the death. The ruins of the civilized world are overgrown with post-holocaust forest and deadly desert wasteland. The five Great Lakes have merged to form a vast inland sea.
Evolution has reshaped much of the plant and animal kingdoms into terrifying and unknown life forms with powers so vast, the mind struggles to distinguish dreams from reality until the results become horrifyingly clear.
In what was once the Canadian west, the small Metz Republic, led by the scholar-priests of the Abbeys, is struggling to recapture the glow of knowledge, order and civilization, but the savage forces of the Brotherhood of the Unclean seem determined to crush anything that stands in the way of its evil plans for total domination. There is hope for the outnumbered Metz, but it depends on a long lost secret that must be recovered from deep within dangerous Brotherhood territory. If anyone can discover and return with this knowledge, it is Per Hiero Desteen, telepath, warrior and priest.
Hiero's Journey chronicles that daring quest. Setting out, he is soon joined by other strange and mysterious characters.
Hiero and his companions face unimaginable danger and perils at every turn, and must overcome the sinister and powerful dark forces, if civilization is to survive. On and on they go with nothing left but sheer will, with thousands of years of evil straining to crush them for eternity. On and on they fight, yet nothing can prepare them for the surprise that awaits them at their destination !!!
Read this at your own risk, as your mind may be assailed for weeks or even months at a time after you finish reading this book by images of unspeakable creatures, or by the never ending challenges and heart stopping danger Hiero and his brave band faced, relentlessly battling to save the future of the mankind.
Comments
Thanks, Richard.
I started reading this... The setting is quite distinctive, and the style is somewhat as well. It's not quite like anything I've read before, so I'm finding it quite interesting.
I haven't gotten my book yet, Richard! Ordered it weeks ago.
That'll be your trained deer again
You mean "trained" deer... The animal education system in this nation is pathetic! Not like Europe at all!
The deer finally found its way here! I will attempt to keep up!
> The deer finally found its way here! I will attempt to keep up!
Great news... I'm intending to post discussion starters towards the end of this week so hopefully people can join in next weekend
Awesome!
Yah... none of this nonsense about the post not getting through on time...
Glad to see at least 4 of us are in on this book.
I didn't get my act together soon enough, but I'm now reading my way through it! I may not be finished in time for the start of the discussions.
I will do my best to catch up!
OK, I am putting up some discussion starters now... it's a holiday weekend here in the UK so plenty of time to sit back and enjoy chatting about Hiero's Journey...
Just letting you all know I plan on commenting on the questions, but I am not finished reading yet!
> Just letting you all know I plan on commenting on the questions, but I am not finished reading yet!
Ditto. I lost my Kindle for a few days. But I should finish tonight.
I'm sure I saw a post bt @Apocryphal a while back but can no longer find it
We don't have May book - there didn't seem to be much enthusiasm or consensus around what to read next, and with the Slow Read I thought maybe people were feeling saturated, so I didn't press it.