Book Review: Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

Let’s talk about orphans and fiction. The Guardian UK recently put together a list called “10 of the Best: Heroes from Children’s Fiction“. A full 4 of them (almost half) are orphans or were abandoned by their parents. Shockingly, this list excludes Harry Potter, an orphan whose franchise has become the tenth largest economy in the world. Here are three books I’ve reviewed on this site whose protagonists are orphans or abandoned children: Green by Jay Lake, Foundling by D.M. Cornish, and Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest. As you can see from these statistics, it’s a good thing that there are evil fairy godmothers, witches who live in candy houses, and diabolical evil wizards to keep these orphans down, because otherwise they would be kicking our butts out of the world.

By now you’ve probably guessed that the protagonist of The Left Hand of God is an orphan or abandoned child. If you’re hip to the standard orphan plot, you’ll be able to guess that the protagonist is “special” somehow, and is more than likely suffering at the hands of some adults. In this case, our hero is fourteen year old Thomas Cale, who has been raised in an appallingly violent environment while being trained to be a soldier by a group of militant religious fanatics.

The world Thomas Cale discovers when he and his friends escape their cruel tutors is very much like an alternative medieval Europe. The book itself is very firmly in the fantasy genre, and I would say is really properly a young adult book. It is also, I should mention, the first in a series.

I thought that the first half of the book was rather interesting, but vague disappointment set in rather quickly after that. There is a mysterious lack of emotional depth in Left Hand of God. All foreshadowing proves to be superfluous. Bad decisions lack consequences. Like many novels being published now, there is almost no sex and plenty of descriptive, explicit violence.

Creepy Factor: 1 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 1 out of 5

Final result: Because of its choice of subject matter, this book is entering a crowded field, and to me it compares poorly to some others that I named above. If you told me you really liked this book, I would be able to relate. But I thought it wasn’t so hot.

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman – Dutton Adult – 2010
Buy The Left Hand of God now at Amazon

Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews, and thanks to Penguin Books for the review copy. See you next time!