In Her Name
Media:
Paperback Book, 684 pages
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Product Description
This is the omnibus edition of In Her Name, and contains the complete story that are also available as individual titles called In Her Name: Empire, Confederation, and Final Battle. As one reviewer said, In Her Name is “a grand story of love, power, sacrifice and good versus evil” that seamlessly blends together epic fantasy, science fiction, and romance as it chronicles the coming-of-age of a young warrior hero torn between love and honor... The galaxy is at war. The Confederation of Humanity is a democracy fracturing under the strain of nearly a century of war with alien invaders, the warriors of the Kreelan Empire. Humanoids with blue skin, fangs and fingers that end in razor sharp talons, they have technology that is millennia beyond that of the Confederation, yet they seek out close combat with sword and claw, fighting and dying to honor their god-like Empress. For the Confederation, there is no negotiation, there is no surrender. There is only the fierce struggle to survive. On an embattled world, young Reza Gard finds himself face to face with Tesh-Dar, the greatest of the Empire’s warriors. Born to a race whose recorded history spans half a million years, Tesh-Dar - a warrior priestess - is endowed with powers that are supernatural to human eyes. In Reza’s eyes, the eyes of a boy whose parents she has just slain, she is a monster. Holding him off the ground, face to face, she is slowly strangling him when he lashes out with his dead father’s knife, cutting her face across the left eye. Surprised and impressed with this young human animal, she bestows upon him a matching wound, a trophy of sorts, and inexplicably lets him live. Orphaned and alone, Reza is sent to the planet Hallmark. Supposedly a safe haven for war orphans, in reality it is little more than a slave labor planet. Toiling in grain fields under a burning sun, Reza leads a ragtag band of orphans doing the best they can to survive. But again, Tesh-Dar intervenes in his life. Leading an attack against Hallmark, she has been sent by her Empress on a special mission: to gather human children and return them to the Empire as part of an experiment to see if they have souls. Reza, along with thousands of others, is captured, with Hallmark left behind in flaming ruin. He awakens to the silver-flecked cat’s eyes of Esah-Zhurah, a young warrior tasked with teaching him the language and customs of her people. At first beaten and caged, Reza gradually earns her grudging respect. Over the years that follow he not only survives, but thrives as he learns the warrior ways of the Empire, becoming both more and less than human. As the relationship between the two young warriors deepens, Tesh-Dar and the Empress wonder if Reza may be the One foretold in an ancient prophecy, who will redeem the Kreelan race from an ancient blood curse. As Reza’s final challenge looms, Esah-Zhurah performs an ancient blood ritual that binds them together in body and spirit. For the first time the Bloodsong, the tie that binds every Kreelan soul to the Empress, echoes in his veins, at last making him one with the Children of the Empress. But his acceptance of the Kreelan Way leaves him with a dreadful choice: he must either make war against the humans, or - if he refuses - leave the Empire and Esah-Zhurah behind forever. The path he takes leads him toward a destiny set in motion millennia before, with the fate of both races hanging in the balance...
Product Details
- Media: Paperback Book, 684 pages
- Publisher: Imperial Guard Publishing (April 01, 2008)
- Edition: 2
- ISBN-10: 0615208533
- ISBN-13: 9780615208534
- Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.1 lbs
- Note: Some of this information came from Amazon.com
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Customer Reviews
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Characters You Care About, Action You Can Feel May 12, 2008 (12 of 13 found this helpful)
In Her Name is a superior science ficton novel, with intimate insight into its characters' thoughts and feelings, a fully realized alien culture, sweeping space battles, and fierce hand to claw combat.
Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs may feel at home in the first part of the book. It features a blue-skinned race of alien female warriors and a lone boy who grows up with them, learning to fight as they do. In the process he becomes both more and less than human. It seems a bit like a cross between Tarzan and Barsoom.
But this is not your grandfather's pulp fiction. It is a complex (but clearly structured) tale that takes us through the life of Reza Gard. From his struggles on an orphanage planet to his capture and assimilation into the Kreelan race, to political twists and turns as his native and adopted races clash, the book grows along with him from adventure story to military science fiction, but never forgets to let us relate to the rich array of characters he meets. This is 21st century sci fi, with questions of personal identity and how one relates with the universe integrated with bloody combat.
Readers of the old pulps would also be surprised at the number of strong female characters. Although like everything else in the book, we know them primarily through their connections with Reza, they stand on their own as interesting people.
One word of warning: if this was a movie, it would be rated R. Not all readers will be comfortable with the harshness, the language, and the explicit nature of some of the plot elements. Those that are will see that they are a legitimate part of the drama, but others may find them distasteful.
Overall, this is a great example of the self-publishing that Amazon's Kindle enables. It's hard for any book to work its way through the traditional process that gets a paperback in your local store. Hopefully, one of the traditional publishers will become aware of the book here and release it to the (currently) much wider audience it deserves. For this reader, though, the Kindle was perfect for an epic that would otherwise be quite bulky.
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Very engrossing and not to be put down Sep 13, 2008 (6 of 6 found this helpful)
This novel is a mixture of military space opera and epic fantasy that works very well.
Structurally the book is split in several parts that follow the main character Reza Gard from a very young boy in a middle of a brutal war with terrifying alien invaders to the fulfillment of his extraordinary destiny years later.
The roughly 6 main parts are quite distinct in character, ranging from plucky exploited orphans fighting back against their corrupt "guardians" to epic fantasy with prophecies, blood curses, spirits, coming of age as an warrior in a society that practices combat as sport, to hard core military sf, political and military space opera and much more
It seems an odd mixture and the transitions are disconcerting for a while - you think you have it figured out and suddenly there is a left turn in the book - but it works for two main reasons.
First - the author' style is very engaging - even emotional if you want - which makes you keep turning page after page to find out what happens next and lets you live the book.
Second - the main character Reza Gard human by birth, alien by upbringing, who struggles to straddle two mutually incompatible societies, a scientific, more or less democratic and individualistic human one, and a fantasy like - if you want in the sense of sufficiently superior technology will seem like magic - which is communal, blood bonded, hierarchic, based on honor and place.
While the main villains are a bit cartoonish, most secondary characters are very well drawn and the style of the book, the intensity of Reza's struggles to allow both societies to survive somehow despite their mutual incompatibility make this an excellent book and a big positive surprise for me.
The ending is very well done bringing together all the threads of the novel and the seemingly insoluble problem of co-existence finds a fitting resolution.
Highly, highly recommended
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Not easily pegged Dec 30, 2008 (4 of 4 found this helpful)
In Her Name is a book that isn't easily pegged. It's got your basic Fantasy/SciFi elements, with portions taking place on other worlds; it has a futuristic element, being set in a non-current time period; it's a romance between two strong characters from different lands; it even manages to be somewhat "current" in feel, since even with the futuristic element it's still based on Earth-based humanity as one aspect (though a future Earth that's much different, with space travel and other planets that have been settled). It's got warriors and lovers, good guys and bad guys, evil deeds and deeds of redemption.
How do I peg such a book into any one simple definition or genre? I can't.
All I know is that a couple of weeks after finishing the book, I'm still having thoughts about it and the characters I met within its pages. It's taken me this long to decide how I could put those thoughts into words. Most books I finish and have a general feel of "I'm done, and I liked it well enough/okay/not at all" and I've forgotten all but the basics a week later; but this one doesn't quantify itself quite so easily.
And to me, that's the mark of a pretty darn good book.
Highly recommended.
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Can I have more please... Dec 3, 2008 (4 of 4 found this helpful)
I absolutely loved this book...
I wasn't sure to begin with as war, alien or si-fi are usually not the type of book I would pick up, but it didn't take long before this book had it's grip on me and it was hard to put it down...
What I liked the most was the many and sometimes totally unexpected twists and turns, the book had a way of making you do a complete 380 in your thinking...
A war story mixed with love and friendships that will last forever... the unexpected bonds that are formed, and of course the heartache... it's got it all...
Only bad part was that it ended... I want more :)
Thank you Mike Hicks for a wonderful book.
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A Must Read! Dec 29, 2008 (3 of 3 found this helpful)
This is a "must read" for any sci-fi fans,the story is a real page turner. The characters and situations are so well developed and original. It was so good that I was sorry when the book ended. I want to read more from this author.