I was recently sent a new sword-and-sorcery book, Lord of a Shattered Land, by Howard Andrew Jones. I have really only known Jones (or HAJ as some have been calling him at times) as the editor of the excellent collection of Howard Lamb works. But he has done other work, including writing fiction. He may be best known for his Ring Sworn trilogy.
Lord of a Shattered Land came out from Baen Books recently and is the first of a planned series of five volumes. though the author hints he could take it further.
The series focuses on our hero and former general Hanuvar Cabelar. His is a world similar to ours, though there are also magic, dangerous animals, and supernatural beings, including some Lovecraftian ones. The series overall is inspired by the Punic War between Carthage and Rome, with Hanuvar himself loosely based on Hannibal.
Here the Dervan Empire is the Rome analog, against the nation of Volanus, the Carthage analog. Dervan has finally conquered and destroyed Volanus, selling the survivors, around a thousand, into slavery. Hanuvar has established a new land for the Volanus far to the West and has returned to try to find and free his people.
Hanuvar is no Conan. While a skilled warrior and general, he is an older man. He has lost his family, though there is a chance his daughter is alive, and so this is another goal of his. But he must work unseen, going in disguise and making use of all his skills and cunning. This means that often the people he meets and helps must be kept in the dark about who the person helping them.
Here he is aided only by a Herrenian playwright and actor, Antires Sosilos, who hopes to write of his tales. I suspect Herrenia is meant to be a Greek analog. He doesn’t join in until the fourth story, but plays an important part there and travels with him afterwards. We are told that he has written about their travels as The Hanuvid. Further, a subsequent historian named Silenus made alterations, and now Andronikos Solilos, a great nephew several generations later cleans up The Hanuvid, and this is what we are reading. This all harkens back to actual works such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, et al.
The stories here are all stand-alone, each one telling of a further episode in his journey, tho we are kept in the dark as to his goal until the end of the volume. And that is not a bad thing. Some are minor events, others much larger. In an early story, he helps a young woman who wants to prove herself rescue others from her tribe. In another, Hanuvar engineers the rescue of a large number of his people from a gladiatorial game where they will be sacrifices in more ways than one. It’s a complex and difficult task that almost fails. And some of the outcome of that will come back in a later story. In others he deals with a man who has a hate for all things Volani, and in another he meets again the only Devan who defeated him. But you will also see with the last story that this volume closes out the first phase of Hanuvar’s plans. Hopefully, the next volumes do something similar.
About half the stories actually appeared in other works previously, especially Tales of the Magician’s Skull from Goodman Games. This is like many pulp series where individual stories tie together to tell a long story once linked all together.
It will be interesting to see where this series goes. A big mystery here is whether his daughter still lives and whether can he find her. Will this be answered at some point, and if so, will the author have another plot point that we can then look forward to? And does he pick up other associates as he goes along? It remains to be seen, but we get a hint here of one. But it should be a fun ride.
I also like that we got a map in this volume, and we are shown the path of his travels. I hope we get this map in future volumes, and it gets updated as to his adventures.
The second book in the series, The City of Marble and Blood is already out. If you like good sword-and-sorcery works, this is a series to get. And if you like this one, check out his other works as well.
