{"id":18658,"date":"2025-01-01T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=18658"},"modified":"2024-11-12T10:02:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T15:02:03","slug":"the-city-of-marble-and-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2025\/01\/01\/the-city-of-marble-and-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The City of Marble and Blood’ by Howard Andrew Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I am not a big sword-and-sorcery<\/a> fan, I did enjoy the first in Howard Andrew Jones<\/a><\/strong>‘s book Lord of a Shattered Land<\/a><\/em>. The first of a planned series of five volumes, though the author hints he could take it further. I recently picked up the second volume, The City of Marble and Blood<\/em>, and the third volume is out now, all from Baen Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>In case you missed it, the series focuses on our hero and former general Hanuvar Cabera<\/strong>. His is a world similar to ours, though there are also magic, dangerous animals, and supernatural beings, including some Lovecraftian<\/a> ones. The series overall is inspired by the Punic War between Carthage and Rome, with Hanuvar himself loosely based on Hannibal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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 Volani far to the west and has returned to try to find and free his people. I should point out that Dervan at this time only controls the equivalent of the Italian peninsula.<\/p>\n

Hanuvar is no Conan<\/a><\/strong>. 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 is.<\/p>\n

In the first book, Hanuvar was aided only by a Herrenian playwright and actor, Antires Sosilos<\/strong>, who hoped to write of his tales. I suspect Herrenia is meant to be a Greek analog. He doesn’t appear until early on in the first book, but plays an important part there and travels with him afterwards.<\/p>\n

We are told that he has written about their travels as The Hanuvid<\/em>. Further, a subsequent historian named Silenus<\/strong> made alterations, and now Andronikos Solilos<\/strong>, a great nephew several generations later cleans up The Hanuvid<\/em>, and this is what we are reading. This all harkens back to actual works such as the Iliad<\/em>, the Odyssey<\/em>, et al.<\/p>\n

They have been joined by further allies toward the end of the first book, including the Dervan general who previously defeated Hanuvar, Ciprion<\/strong>. Ciprion has further been buying Volani slaves to save them from a worse fate.<\/p>\n

While the first book was far-reaching and was setting things up, this one is mainly set in the area of Tyvol, loosely analogous to Veneto, along with the Dervan capital. Hanuvar’s plans to build a port and shipbuilding facility there, where his people can build ships to take them to their new land.<\/p>\n

The Dervans think that Hanuvar is there to take revenge. And some of his former allies, who are opposed to the Dervans, think the same, which will cause a lot of issues for Hanuvar and his associates.<\/p>\n

Antires will be overseeing this port area, so this takes him out of the main action for most of this volume. But there will be new allies joining in.<\/p>\n

In the first chapter, Hanuvar is cursed, which will have a profound effect on him. In a following chapter Hanuvar encounters the daughter of a political rival who fled to Derva. She will become another associate, helping him further toward his goal, though not after a lot of work by Hanuvar.<\/p>\n

In another chapter, Hanuvar meets up with the former head of his spy network, and so re-starts it for a new purpose, also gaining the aid of the man’s adult children as well. The main task in this volume is the freeing of various Volani slaves, which isn’t as easy as it seems.\u00a0 Thankfully the stories are creative and not repetitive.<\/p>\n

But other issues appear. One is that other groups, like the Cerdians, are causing problems; maybe it’s a prelude to war. And it appears that Hanuvar’s daughter may have survived. She was one of Volni’s Eltyr, or female warriors. She somehow escaped with a few companions. So when an Eltyr appears, is it one of them? Another thread deals with Enarius<\/strong>, the nephew of the Dervan emperor, who may be named his adopted son, and thus successor as emperor, as there are plots against him. How will all of this affect Hanuvar’s plans? Will they help or hurt them?<\/p>\n

The third volume, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain<\/em>, is out now. I was sent an ebook version, but wanted to read the second one first.<\/p>\n

We are told the titles of the planned fourth and fifth volumes, but I am uncertain when or if we will get them. This is because Jones has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. This is generally known<\/a>, so I’m not giving anything away.<\/p>\n

I think everyone is hoping he will be able to finish the next one, if only to be able to leave a legacy of his work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I am not a big sword-and-sorcery fan, I did enjoy the first in Howard Andrew Jones‘s book Lord of a Shattered Land. The first of a planned series of five volumes, though the author hints he could take it further. I recently picked up the second volume, The City of Marble and Blood, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'The City of Marble and Blood' by Howard Andrew Jones.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[1766,1581,991],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-18658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-review","tag-baen-books","tag-howard-andrew-jones","tag-sword-and-sorcery"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2024\/11\/city-of-marble-and-blood-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-4QW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18658"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18999,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658\/revisions\/18999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18658"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=18658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}