book: Left Hand Of God by Hoffman
Jan. 8th, 2012 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynI finished a real book, you know one of those things with the tiny print that isn't just fluff to fill hours when there aren't any reruns on the television even if you stored a TiVo full of things for the holidays (when there is no tv).
It was called The Left Hand Of God and was by Paul Hoffman. I borrowed it from the library.
Overall my impression is this, WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Seriously.
I read the whole thing. I have no idea why I didn't just stop. It was kind of catchy, but thinking about it after the fact, I don't know why.
The characters were not at all developed. They had personalities, but those bases were known solely to the author and the characters appeared to act randomly. The situation and plot bothered me immensely.
Honestly, it was supposed to be a science fiction book. But it appears to be set in some post apocalyptic New England (according to the map) and there doesn't seem to be any magic in it whatsoever. It's full of hands-on battles akin to ancient times and medieval ones. Not that I'm historian enough to know what I'm talking about, but swords, arrows, crossbows, armor, horses. So what's differentiating this from being an alternate history book that could be marketed toward the non-genre fiction grouping that supposedly carries less stigma for publishers? I have no idea.
It's like if it's not real history and there are sword battles, then it's "fantasy".
But to me, there was enough Handmaid's Tale style realism in this to make it repulsive.
Supposedly we're supposed to see the main character as this amazing guy who has brilliant strategems for any situation, who can predict what an opponent will do, but the author doesn't have a Dr. Watson character who is explaining it to the reader by asking questions to elicit detail, so we're merely told this is what Cale (the main character) predicts. And when the author shows us that happening, we're told, "See? Cale's awesome!"
All of these things would not have bothered me, however, had the book not been Christo-preachy. Sure it's got another "name" to it as a faith, but it's the same thing. Son of the male god is sacrificed so inherent sins are washed away by his blood for everyone who accepts this as truth but anyone who doesn't is a heretic who should be slaughtered. Corrupt priests torture young boys and defile them because otherwise "The Redeemer" will have sacrificed in vain.
There is a rule. If you create a fantasy world, you shouldn't drag the same shit we already have and hate with you. If you're going to bring it with you, write something here and now; don't bother creating your own world.
It is anathema for a book to be considered science fiction or fantasy and be about the glorification of Christianity. The whole point of imagination is to imagine how to make things better than they are or at least to see how things play out. If it's a thought exercise to warn people about the dangers of a paradigm, fine... but lately more and more of the time science fiction horror novels are taken as a playbook by the government and the peoples in power. So, at the very least, there should never be a book published in the genre that dutifully toes the line that the base strata of reality relies upon which isn't intended as a warning.
I'm offended this was ever allowed out of the religion section. And if it had to be allowed out, then it should have been excluded from science fiction because this kind of claptrap should be preserved for the non-thinking masses.
It was called The Left Hand Of God and was by Paul Hoffman. I borrowed it from the library.
Overall my impression is this, WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Seriously.
I read the whole thing. I have no idea why I didn't just stop. It was kind of catchy, but thinking about it after the fact, I don't know why.
The characters were not at all developed. They had personalities, but those bases were known solely to the author and the characters appeared to act randomly. The situation and plot bothered me immensely.
Honestly, it was supposed to be a science fiction book. But it appears to be set in some post apocalyptic New England (according to the map) and there doesn't seem to be any magic in it whatsoever. It's full of hands-on battles akin to ancient times and medieval ones. Not that I'm historian enough to know what I'm talking about, but swords, arrows, crossbows, armor, horses. So what's differentiating this from being an alternate history book that could be marketed toward the non-genre fiction grouping that supposedly carries less stigma for publishers? I have no idea.
It's like if it's not real history and there are sword battles, then it's "fantasy".
But to me, there was enough Handmaid's Tale style realism in this to make it repulsive.
Supposedly we're supposed to see the main character as this amazing guy who has brilliant strategems for any situation, who can predict what an opponent will do, but the author doesn't have a Dr. Watson character who is explaining it to the reader by asking questions to elicit detail, so we're merely told this is what Cale (the main character) predicts. And when the author shows us that happening, we're told, "See? Cale's awesome!"
All of these things would not have bothered me, however, had the book not been Christo-preachy. Sure it's got another "name" to it as a faith, but it's the same thing. Son of the male god is sacrificed so inherent sins are washed away by his blood for everyone who accepts this as truth but anyone who doesn't is a heretic who should be slaughtered. Corrupt priests torture young boys and defile them because otherwise "The Redeemer" will have sacrificed in vain.
There is a rule. If you create a fantasy world, you shouldn't drag the same shit we already have and hate with you. If you're going to bring it with you, write something here and now; don't bother creating your own world.
It is anathema for a book to be considered science fiction or fantasy and be about the glorification of Christianity. The whole point of imagination is to imagine how to make things better than they are or at least to see how things play out. If it's a thought exercise to warn people about the dangers of a paradigm, fine... but lately more and more of the time science fiction horror novels are taken as a playbook by the government and the peoples in power. So, at the very least, there should never be a book published in the genre that dutifully toes the line that the base strata of reality relies upon which isn't intended as a warning.
I'm offended this was ever allowed out of the religion section. And if it had to be allowed out, then it should have been excluded from science fiction because this kind of claptrap should be preserved for the non-thinking masses.
