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A review by eshied
The Hunter's Kind by Rebecca Levene
4.0
This turned out to be long, wow! TL;DR: Read this very good Grimdark Fantasy series with great world-building, complex characters, and the subversion of some common fantasy tropes.
Content warnings: rape, child abuse, child death, torture
Genres: Fantasy, Grimdark
I just finished The Hunter's Kind, book two of the Hollow Gods quartet and loved it so much I had to write a review.
First of all, you need to know that the gorgeous cover art does a bad job of selling what these books contain. These are not the cheery, cartoonish books the art might suggest - these books are grimdark in every sense of the word, far closer to Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and GRRM than the works of someone like Sanderson or Naomi Novik. These books feature every sort of depravity, from rape to visceral murder to torture to the abuse of children. But it never feels like the inclusion of these depravities is meant to titillate - their horror is always clearly underlined and for the most part, the victims are treated as people, not as plot tools. But if any of these topics are ones you'd rather avoid, definitely steer clear of these books. Levene doesn't shy away from showing you horrors.
One of the most compelling aspects of the series for me is the world-building. The Lands of the Sun and the Moon(this is one of those books where you'll find yourself flipping often to the map to track characters' progress) show the wide-ranging ramifications that one simple idea can have on world-building. In the world of the Hollow Gods, that central idea is this: Beneath the ground of the Lands of the Sun and the Moon live the Worm Men, servants of the dead Moon God who resemble twisted, clawed men and who spell disaster and death for the surface-dwellers. Fortunately, Worm Men cannot surface anywhere that the light of the sun has touched in the past few weeks. But if any piece of ground should remain in darkness or shadow for a period of weeks or months, Worm Men can emerge from it and snatch surface-dwellers away to their deaths. Permanent structures in this land are a rarity, as their interiors would be constantly in shadow and vulnerable to attack.
Thus, the people of this world have devised a variety of methods to ward against the Worm Men. The Ashane nobility live on "Shipforts," massive ships that ply the great lakes that dot their land, trusting a barrier of water to protect them against the moon's servants. The plains to the west are populated by the nomadic peoples of the fourteen tribes, who never stay in one place long enough to risk attack. [minor book 2 spoilers](#s "there's even a city rigged with mirrors that are constantly moved to ensure that every square inch of every building is scoured with light to keep the Worm Men at bay"). Then there is Smiler's Fair, a massive carnival and den of sin that travels a circuit around the known world. The fair's method of dealing with Worm Men is simple - they take a careful roll call of all workers and guests in each section of the fair at various times throughout the day. When anyone goes missing, they know that they have stayed in one place too long and the Worm Men have begun their snatching. Then the whole fair packs up and moves, its buildings easily deconstructible and movable thanks to the freight mammoths employed by a guild of drovers. Smiler's Fair is a central locale during book 1, a crossroads for our characters and the threads of the story to come together, disperse, and interact.
The threat of worm men affects every aspect of life in this world. Metal is extremely rare and precious, as plumbing the depths of mines is an even more dangerous job in this world than in ours. And the threat of horrors lurking just below the surface give the world a sense of impending threat and tension that spurs the story forward.
There is magic in this world, but it is in the background for much of the story - it takes a bigger role in the plot in book 2. For most of the story, it is mysterious, ancient, and poorly understood. Magic was thought lost with the death of the moon god and now that he is reborn, magic has been reborn with him.
The books' other great strength are its complex characters and the shades of gray that bely easy descriptors of each side as right or wrong. From just reading what I've written so far, you might think identifying the "good" and "bad" side of the conflict are easy - the people of the Sun are in the right, while the Moon and its twisted followers are evil abominations that must be destroyed. But the Moon has human followers too, those descended from the losers of the Sun and the Moon's last great war. And as the series progresses, we gain hints that even the more monstrous creatures of this world might be more than just faceless horrors in the night.
Indeed, this struggle between choosing a side and justifying one's actions in pursuit of a cause is a central struggle that many of the characters face. It's especially evident in the case of Krish, a goatherd who grew up with an abusive father who finds out that he is much more - but this tropey fantasy cliche is twisted interestingly, as he finds out that the god of whom he is supposedly the reincarnation is the same one that most of the people of his world use stories of to scare children to sleep at night. And as the story progresses, Krish struggles with great atrocities committed in his name. His story is that of growing up while learning to deal with holding the lives of strangers and innocents in his hand, and struggling to do what is right when those around him pull him in a thousand different directions and want to achieve different, often contradictory goals.
While Krish is the fulcrum around whom the story turns, the other POV characters are equally as vivid and while their stories do not have stakes of the same gravity, we feel them as strongly and perhaps even more viscerally, as they sometimes feel closer and more intimate than Krish's nation-spanning ambitions. Dae Hyo grapples with grief from the genocide of his people and searches for oblivion in drink, violence, and finally in brotherhood. Wild runaway whore Eric is finds betrayal and purpose in an unexpected place, and Nethmi, married against her will, escapes her unwanted fate at terrible cost and is forced to run. Perhaps the most one-note character, at least through the first two books, is Marvan, a drover at Smiler's Fair with a Dexter-like love of torture and killing. He is constantly finding excuses to challenge drunks to duels in order to sate his bloodlust, but his companions at the Fair are catching on. He's fine if you like that sort of thing, but honestly I think the books would suffer very little from his exclusion. [book two spoilers](#s "he literally spends half of book 2 on top of a pole. Kinda wish he'd just stay there.") Perhaps he will have a bigger role to play in books 3 and 4 of the series.
Book 2 introduces several new POV characters, promoting some side characters from book 1 and introducing some new ones altogether.
***MAJOR BOOK 2 SPOILERS BELOW***
My favorite of these is Cwen, who is relatively unique in these books in that she has a clarity of purpose. She doesn't believe in some abstract ideal of the sun god, but rather in serving the Hunter Bachur, the only one who ever cared for her or wanted her. Even as she hates what she has to do, the death and suffering of which she is the cause, she never wavers in following Bachur's orders, even unto her own death. It is interesting that the only one with that kind of purpose is the one who doesn't survive the battle of Mirror Town. Her ending is abrupt at Dae Hyo's axe and her purpose left unfulfilled. Alfreda is a welcome addition bringing something new to the table. I found Olufemi largely uninteresting and tiresome, but she is necessary to the plot and learning the workings of magic from her is interesting. Sang Ki is a wonderful character - he reminds me of Geder Palliako from The Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham, if he were a little wiser and didn't go bad. I love his conflict over maybe-Nethmi and how at the end he decides it doesn't matter who she was in her past - only who she is now and going forward. I love his slow discovery that he actually has morals when he's always considered himself a pragmatist. And I love his grief for Laali, his great old war-vulture who no one could love but himself - surely he sees himself in the bird. I think Sang Ki by the end of the book may have proven to be the only 'heroic' character in the series - though the stakes are low and he is able only to save one life, that of Maybe-Nethmi. And more than her life, he is able to save her soul.
I love that the sides of this war between the Sun and the Moon has no right and no wrong. We have POV characters on each side of the conflict and each of them makes compromises with depravity, has heroic and despicable moments, commits atrocities and acts of mercy. It reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones, if both the Starks and Lannisters were removed from the equation and there were no Zombie Army to the North. There are no paragons of virtue, and no blackened, irredeemable hearts. And there is no pure evil descending upon the world that all men and women must put aside their petty differences in order to face. Indeed, this war is all about petty differences - the people are fighting the echo of a war between gods none of them have ever known - one dead and the other long departed. They seem to be fighting at times merely because their ancestors did, and because each expects the other to. The characters are forced to constantly question their own motivations and reasons for fighting, and rarely are the answers comforting or easy. War is slaughter, and there is little honor left for those who survive.
The books have a slow build, and I found myself struggling through them at first, but as I continued the characters hooked me in and I couldn't put the book down. The same cycle repeated in book 2, due to the introduction of new characters. But by the end I felt inspired to come write a 13,000-word review, so clearly something worked.
The books have great diversity and representation, including characters of all different races, skin tones, genders, sexualities, and more. There is a gay POV character, a lesbian POV in book 2, bisexual characters, and minor transgender characters. In addition, there is a major character who is fat, and while it is an important part of his character, he is a fully realized character with complex feelings and motivations.
Content warnings: rape, child abuse, child death, torture
Genres: Fantasy, Grimdark
I just finished The Hunter's Kind, book two of the Hollow Gods quartet and loved it so much I had to write a review.
First of all, you need to know that the gorgeous cover art does a bad job of selling what these books contain. These are not the cheery, cartoonish books the art might suggest - these books are grimdark in every sense of the word, far closer to Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and GRRM than the works of someone like Sanderson or Naomi Novik. These books feature every sort of depravity, from rape to visceral murder to torture to the abuse of children. But it never feels like the inclusion of these depravities is meant to titillate - their horror is always clearly underlined and for the most part, the victims are treated as people, not as plot tools. But if any of these topics are ones you'd rather avoid, definitely steer clear of these books. Levene doesn't shy away from showing you horrors.
One of the most compelling aspects of the series for me is the world-building. The Lands of the Sun and the Moon(this is one of those books where you'll find yourself flipping often to the map to track characters' progress) show the wide-ranging ramifications that one simple idea can have on world-building. In the world of the Hollow Gods, that central idea is this: Beneath the ground of the Lands of the Sun and the Moon live the Worm Men, servants of the dead Moon God who resemble twisted, clawed men and who spell disaster and death for the surface-dwellers. Fortunately, Worm Men cannot surface anywhere that the light of the sun has touched in the past few weeks. But if any piece of ground should remain in darkness or shadow for a period of weeks or months, Worm Men can emerge from it and snatch surface-dwellers away to their deaths. Permanent structures in this land are a rarity, as their interiors would be constantly in shadow and vulnerable to attack.
Thus, the people of this world have devised a variety of methods to ward against the Worm Men. The Ashane nobility live on "Shipforts," massive ships that ply the great lakes that dot their land, trusting a barrier of water to protect them against the moon's servants. The plains to the west are populated by the nomadic peoples of the fourteen tribes, who never stay in one place long enough to risk attack. [minor book 2 spoilers](#s "there's even a city rigged with mirrors that are constantly moved to ensure that every square inch of every building is scoured with light to keep the Worm Men at bay"). Then there is Smiler's Fair, a massive carnival and den of sin that travels a circuit around the known world. The fair's method of dealing with Worm Men is simple - they take a careful roll call of all workers and guests in each section of the fair at various times throughout the day. When anyone goes missing, they know that they have stayed in one place too long and the Worm Men have begun their snatching. Then the whole fair packs up and moves, its buildings easily deconstructible and movable thanks to the freight mammoths employed by a guild of drovers. Smiler's Fair is a central locale during book 1, a crossroads for our characters and the threads of the story to come together, disperse, and interact.
The threat of worm men affects every aspect of life in this world. Metal is extremely rare and precious, as plumbing the depths of mines is an even more dangerous job in this world than in ours. And the threat of horrors lurking just below the surface give the world a sense of impending threat and tension that spurs the story forward.
There is magic in this world, but it is in the background for much of the story - it takes a bigger role in the plot in book 2. For most of the story, it is mysterious, ancient, and poorly understood. Magic was thought lost with the death of the moon god and now that he is reborn, magic has been reborn with him.
The books' other great strength are its complex characters and the shades of gray that bely easy descriptors of each side as right or wrong. From just reading what I've written so far, you might think identifying the "good" and "bad" side of the conflict are easy - the people of the Sun are in the right, while the Moon and its twisted followers are evil abominations that must be destroyed. But the Moon has human followers too, those descended from the losers of the Sun and the Moon's last great war. And as the series progresses, we gain hints that even the more monstrous creatures of this world might be more than just faceless horrors in the night.
Indeed, this struggle between choosing a side and justifying one's actions in pursuit of a cause is a central struggle that many of the characters face. It's especially evident in the case of Krish, a goatherd who grew up with an abusive father who finds out that he is much more - but this tropey fantasy cliche is twisted interestingly, as he finds out that the god of whom he is supposedly the reincarnation is the same one that most of the people of his world use stories of to scare children to sleep at night. And as the story progresses, Krish struggles with great atrocities committed in his name. His story is that of growing up while learning to deal with holding the lives of strangers and innocents in his hand, and struggling to do what is right when those around him pull him in a thousand different directions and want to achieve different, often contradictory goals.
While Krish is the fulcrum around whom the story turns, the other POV characters are equally as vivid and while their stories do not have stakes of the same gravity, we feel them as strongly and perhaps even more viscerally, as they sometimes feel closer and more intimate than Krish's nation-spanning ambitions. Dae Hyo grapples with grief from the genocide of his people and searches for oblivion in drink, violence, and finally in brotherhood. Wild runaway whore Eric is finds betrayal and purpose in an unexpected place, and Nethmi, married against her will, escapes her unwanted fate at terrible cost and is forced to run. Perhaps the most one-note character, at least through the first two books, is Marvan, a drover at Smiler's Fair with a Dexter-like love of torture and killing. He is constantly finding excuses to challenge drunks to duels in order to sate his bloodlust, but his companions at the Fair are catching on. He's fine if you like that sort of thing, but honestly I think the books would suffer very little from his exclusion. [book two spoilers](#s "he literally spends half of book 2 on top of a pole. Kinda wish he'd just stay there.") Perhaps he will have a bigger role to play in books 3 and 4 of the series.
Book 2 introduces several new POV characters, promoting some side characters from book 1 and introducing some new ones altogether.
***MAJOR BOOK 2 SPOILERS BELOW***
My favorite of these is Cwen, who is relatively unique in these books in that she has a clarity of purpose. She doesn't believe in some abstract ideal of the sun god, but rather in serving the Hunter Bachur, the only one who ever cared for her or wanted her. Even as she hates what she has to do, the death and suffering of which she is the cause, she never wavers in following Bachur's orders, even unto her own death. It is interesting that the only one with that kind of purpose is the one who doesn't survive the battle of Mirror Town. Her ending is abrupt at Dae Hyo's axe and her purpose left unfulfilled. Alfreda is a welcome addition bringing something new to the table. I found Olufemi largely uninteresting and tiresome, but she is necessary to the plot and learning the workings of magic from her is interesting. Sang Ki is a wonderful character - he reminds me of Geder Palliako from The Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham, if he were a little wiser and didn't go bad. I love his conflict over maybe-Nethmi and how at the end he decides it doesn't matter who she was in her past - only who she is now and going forward. I love his slow discovery that he actually has morals when he's always considered himself a pragmatist. And I love his grief for Laali, his great old war-vulture who no one could love but himself - surely he sees himself in the bird. I think Sang Ki by the end of the book may have proven to be the only 'heroic' character in the series - though the stakes are low and he is able only to save one life, that of Maybe-Nethmi. And more than her life, he is able to save her soul.
I love that the sides of this war between the Sun and the Moon has no right and no wrong. We have POV characters on each side of the conflict and each of them makes compromises with depravity, has heroic and despicable moments, commits atrocities and acts of mercy. It reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones, if both the Starks and Lannisters were removed from the equation and there were no Zombie Army to the North. There are no paragons of virtue, and no blackened, irredeemable hearts. And there is no pure evil descending upon the world that all men and women must put aside their petty differences in order to face. Indeed, this war is all about petty differences - the people are fighting the echo of a war between gods none of them have ever known - one dead and the other long departed. They seem to be fighting at times merely because their ancestors did, and because each expects the other to. The characters are forced to constantly question their own motivations and reasons for fighting, and rarely are the answers comforting or easy. War is slaughter, and there is little honor left for those who survive.
The books have a slow build, and I found myself struggling through them at first, but as I continued the characters hooked me in and I couldn't put the book down. The same cycle repeated in book 2, due to the introduction of new characters. But by the end I felt inspired to come write a 13,000-word review, so clearly something worked.
The books have great diversity and representation, including characters of all different races, skin tones, genders, sexualities, and more. There is a gay POV character, a lesbian POV in book 2, bisexual characters, and minor transgender characters. In addition, there is a major character who is fat, and while it is an important part of his character, he is a fully realized character with complex feelings and motivations.