Hierath by Jo Hall
Book 1 of an epic fantasy trilogy by an EPPIE Award finalist
An epic new fantasy trilogy that looks set to extend beyond the original three books in the same way as Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga
Epic Fantasy
Hierath by Joanne Hall (238pp, ISBN0978977222421) is the first volume of an epic new fantasy trilogy that looks set to extend beyond the original three books in the same way as other series such as Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Raymond E Feist's Riftwar series have, and which will appeal to all connoisseurs of magic and sword and sorcery.
Hierath
On a world very much like ours, the most obvious difference is that there are two moons and magic works, two young young hunters find a young woman lying unconscious by a pool. They rescue her from an attack by creatures lurking in the pool, and take her back to the castle of Hierath.
As she is convalescing, the young woman, Lydia grows attracted to one of the men Alex, before learning that he is the ruler of the little Kingdom. By contrast, Lydia is a commoner whose parents died in a recent famine, and is travelling through the kingdom to stay with relatives.
Alex is an uncommonly egalitarian ruler, in stark contrast to his aunt, who has plans for her nephew that she hasn't bothered to consult him about. Aunt Ammaline is furious that those plans are disrupted by a mere commoner, and with the aid of her accomplices sets out to rid herself of this troublesome newcomer. The King is entirely unprepared for treachery from those close to him, and his furious response escalates the conflict, until Hierath stands on the very brink of war.
Joanne Hall
Joanne Hall is a comparatively new writer, whose fiction has appeared primarily in webzines such as Afterburn, The Harrow, and most recently her 'The Company of Women' appeared in Sorcerous Signals.
Hierath is her first novel, but has already spawned a trilogy, and the series is being worked on, and will be extended further. It's a richly drawn and complex world, full of well-drawn characters; the heroes are heroic, while the villains are suitably malevolent, and there is a fine show-down with the forces of darkness.
EPPIE Awards
The Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC) is a writer's organization that is geared solely to electronically published writers. Those writers published in old-fashioned print books are not specifically excluded, but the criteria is that they must be published in e-book format.
Many long-time genre writers are dismissive of such organizations, but the reality is that electronic publishing is not going to go away, and that the only way to raise standards is to participate rather than to ignore the field. The EPPIE Awards, which are given by EPIC each year, is one such mechanism, and Hierath --having come from nowhere-- was selected as a finalist for the best fantasy novel, a massive honour for a first novel by an unknown Briton.
It's a well-deserved honour.
