A faceless, nameless assassin. A forgotten past. The Hunter of Voramis--a killer devoid of
morals, or something else altogether?
Blade of the Destroyer by Andy Peloquin, is dark fantasy with a look at the underside of
human nature. We all have that voice in our heads, the one
that fills our mind with dark thoughts and tries to drive us to do dark things. What if the only way to silence that voice
was to kill? If that was the only way to find peace, what would you do?
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| Not just dark, but grimdark! |
That drive--along with the
fact that he is near-immortal--has made the Hunter the perfect assassin,
immortal, inexorable, ruthless. Feared by all in his city, he is the best at
what he does. But he is also an outcast,
looking for his place in a world he fears will never accept him. He seeks the
company of others, and finds a place as a protector of sorts.
When all that is taken away,
there will be hell to pay!
Early reviews are excellent
Blade of the Destroyer is a fresh and original
offering in a genre I have heard described as 'grimdark', or more
traditionally, dystopian fantasy. It follows the adventures of The Hunter, a
mysterious figure who, we gradually discover, is the last of the Bucellarii,
human/demon hybrids.
Unlike so many works in this genre, the development of
the nameless Hunter's character is three-dimensional and believable. This above
all is what makes the book work as well as it does. The story is exciting
without being overdone, the writing smooth and the dystopic world is detailed
and grainy. Peloquin has avoided the trap that so many fantasy writers fall
into, of saving all the sympathetic characters; there is plenty of grief and
loss for our hero to deal with, and this is used to good effect in the
exposition of his character. A very nice piece of work.
About the Author
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| Portrait of Andy as a young man. |
Andy Peloquin--a third
culture kid to the core--has loved to read since before he could remember.
Sherlock Holmes, the Phantom of the Opera, and Father Brown are just a few of
the books that ensnared his imagination as a child.
When he discovered science
fiction and fantasy through the pages of writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs,
J.R.R Tolkien, and Orson Scott Card, he was immediately hooked and hasn't
looked back since.
Andy's first attempt at
writing produced In the Days: A Tale of the Forgotten Continent. He has learned
from the mistakes he made and used the experience to produce Blade of the
Destroyer, a book of which he is very proud.
Reading—and now writing—is
his favorite escape, and it provides him an outlet for his innate creativity.
He is an artist; words are his palette.
His website is a second home for him, a place where he can
post his thoughts and feelings--along with reviews of books he finds laying
around the internet.
Buy Links for Blade of the Destroyer
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