The Left Hand of God

Title: The Left Hand of God
Author: Paul Hoffman
Published: 2010 by Penguin
Genre: Sci-fi-ish fantasy. Thing.
Pages: 498


This book made me go "Umm. What?" more times than any in... quite a long time! The writing is... oddly paced, and I couldn't quite get a grip of it. Or the characters. But granted, there was a reason why the characters were hard to read or identify with, and Hoffman eventually seemed to know where all this is going. Still. What?

What's it about then. The Left Hand of God starts at this place called Sanctuary, which turns out to be some kind of a religious military training camp for boys from hell. The world is obviously ours, but maybe in a far, distant and distorted future?


"So it's my fault? Well, if it is, I'm going to put it right. That boy is a menace. He's a jinx like that fellow in the belly of the whale."
"Jesus of Nazareth?"
"Yes, him."


Thomas Cale is one of the much-beaten boys kept more or less prisoner there, but there's one powerful man in Sanctuary who seems to have special interest in him. So then, when Cale escapes, things get interesting. Except that it still didn't convince me that I should read the rest of it, as well. You see, several times I thought I'd just do the nigh unthinkable and STOP READING.

There was, however, one big reason why I did keep reading, and will probably read the sequel as well: I never knew what the hell would happen next. I'd guess, deduce and reason, but get it wrong.


As Redeemer Stape Roy emerged from the building the air of Kitty Town hit him like a blow to the face. The noise! The people! He felt like a blind man whose first sight was of the rainbows of hell, a deaf man whose hearing is restored to the sound of the end of the world. There were bawlers with their loozles, mawleys with their ya-yas hanging out for all to see; there were benjamins in jemimas calling out 'Yellow, come and get get.' There were burtons and their naked pikers, middlemen calling for agony, Aunts with their bung nippers covered in rouge and shouting for a half and half. There were Huguenots selling bum-baileys to the highest bidder and nutty lads with long tongues looking for a pigeon in a packet of two.


...like I said. What?