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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

The Hunter’s Kind is coming! Book Two of Rebecca Levene’s Hollow Gods quartet, which began with a bang last July, is to be released less than a year since Smiler’s Fair sunk its hooks into more than a few folks, including yours truly. As I concluded in my review:

Fans of either Abraham or Abercrombie—fans of fantasy full stop, in fact—will find lots to like in Smiler’s Fair. Its setting, its narrative, its characters—unlikeable though they may be—all impress immensely, developed as they are with depth and discerning detail. In truth, the only complaint I’d make about the book is that there isn’t more of it.

Well, there will be in just a couple of months. Time to start getting excited, right? Not least because this week saw the release of some cracking cover art and a tantalising plot synopsis.

When I was little, mum told me stories about the moon. She said he made the monsters in the forest and that’s why the Hunter had to kill him. We all heard these stories. But we thought that was all they were. Stories.

Krish once believed himself but a humble goatherd, but now knows he’s the son of the king of Ashanesland—and the moon god reborn, as foretold. Now, with his allies Dae Hyo and the mage Olufemi by his side, Krish has begun to seize control of Ashanesland… and receive the worship he is due.

But Kirsh has many enemies, including Sang Ki, the bastard lord, who has discovered the key to Krish’s overthrow in the distant Moon Forest. There lives a girl named Cwen, a disciple of the god known only as the Hunter. And she has made it her life’s mission to seek out Krish and destroy him.

If Krish has any hope of defeating his enemies, he must travel to the forbidden Mirror Town and unlock the secrets of its powerful magic. And the price of his victory may be much greater than the consequences of his defeat.

What price might that be, one wonders? His life? Or something still more meaningful?

Clearly, July 2nd can’t come soon enough for some. In the meantime, I’ve been feasting my eyes on Tim McDonagh’s wonderful wolf moon:

“As you may have noticed,” editor Anne Perry points out, “the moon here looks a little different here than it did on Smiler’s Fair. There the foil was meant to indicate a waxing crescent; here it’s a waxing gibbous moon. The next two in the series will continue this trend, with waning gibbous and waning crescents to come!”

Isn’t it lovely when covers play nice with one another? You ask me, some publishers could learn a precious lesson from the example Hodder & Stoughton has set.


Niall Alexander is an extra-curricular English teacher who reads and writes about all things weird and wonderful for The Speculative Scotsman, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com. He’s been known to tweet, twoo.

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