77. (April 2019) Hiero's Journey by Stirling Lanier — The Tabletop Roleplayers' Book Club

Hiero's Journey - 8. The rest of the series

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:13:55 +0000

The follow-up book, The Unforsaken Hiero, starts by following Hiero's own personal exploits, but becomes increasingly organisationally focused, as the war between the Kandan Confederacy and the Unclean hots up. Would this development interest you or do you prefer individual sagas? Sterling Lanier intended to write this as a trilogy, but died in 2007 at age 80, over 20 years after The Unforsaken Hiero was published. One can only speculate why he never fulfilled his intention.
What kind of storyline would you like to have seen in a final volume?

Hiero's Journey - The April 2019 Monthly Book

RichardAbbott — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 21:24:19 +0000

Hi everyone,
I posted a short summary on Google+ (remember those halcyon days?) but for some unaccountable reason forgot to cross-post here. I've posted below the blurb from Amazon, which is particularly florid, but which you might find entertaining. I've enjoyed this book since first encountering it long ago in my late teens, and still like re-reading it. Hopefully others will also like it. Sterling Lanier, the author, intended to write a trilogy but died after completing only two of the three. To my mind the first book (which is our monthly choice) is the better of the two which were written, but if anyone wants to go the whole hog and read number 2 (The Unforsaken Hiero) then let us know what you think.

Here in the UK, we have a public holiday on May 6th, so I'll be posting discussion starters a couple of days before that.

Hiero's Journey is available in KIndle edition, eg
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hieros-Journey-Sterling-Lanier-ebook/dp/B004KSR4H0
(or equivalent for different international marketplaces), and is also readily available on the second hand market.

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Welcome to North America, 5000 years after the death. The ruins of the civilized world are overgrown with post-holocaust forest and deadly desert wasteland. The five Great Lakes have merged to form a vast inland sea.
Evolution has reshaped much of the plant and animal kingdoms into terrifying and unknown life forms with powers so vast, the mind struggles to distinguish dreams from reality until the results become horrifyingly clear.

In what was once the Canadian west, the small Metz Republic, led by the scholar-priests of the Abbeys, is struggling to recapture the glow of knowledge, order and civilization, but the savage forces of the Brotherhood of the Unclean seem determined to crush anything that stands in the way of its evil plans for total domination. There is hope for the outnumbered Metz, but it depends on a long lost secret that must be recovered from deep within dangerous Brotherhood territory. If anyone can discover and return with this knowledge, it is Per Hiero Desteen, telepath, warrior and priest.

Hiero's Journey chronicles that daring quest. Setting out, he is soon joined by other strange and mysterious characters.

Hiero and his companions face unimaginable danger and perils at every turn, and must overcome the sinister and powerful dark forces, if civilization is to survive. On and on they go with nothing left but sheer will, with thousands of years of evil straining to crush them for eternity. On and on they fight, yet nothing can prepare them for the surprise that awaits them at their destination !!!

Read this at your own risk, as your mind may be assailed for weeks or even months at a time after you finish reading this book by images of unspeakable creatures, or by the never ending challenges and heart stopping danger Hiero and his brave band faced, relentlessly battling to save the future of the mankind.

Hiero's Journey - 7. Hero's Journey

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:12:55 +0000

Even back in 1973 (the publication date) I suspect that the idea of the Hero's Journey was reasonably well known - Joseph Campbell popularised it in the 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it is latent in many earlier writings back to anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in 1871, and it features prominently in both Freudian and Jungian schools of psychoanalysis. The journey can be split into up to 12 stages, but a simple three-stage summary is
a: Departure: the Hero leaves the familiar world behind,
b: Initiation: the Hero learns to navigate the unfamiliar world of adventure,
c: Return: the Hero returns to the familiar world.
Does the book reflect this or is the title simply a happy coincidence?

Hiero's Journey - 6. Gaming

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:10:45 +0000

Hiero's progress feels (to me, at least) very like an old-style game mechanism - win a battle, gain experience, develop extra abilities, go on to the next battle. How might you be inclined to set up a game based around the book today?

Hiero's Journey - 5. Motivations of the bad guys

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:09:46 +0000

Did these seem at all realistic to you? Or are they just too cartoonish?

Hiero's Journey - 4. The Death and beyond

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:08:36 +0000

DId the book's descriptions of people, places and attitudes strike you as reasonable for a setting some 5000 years after a globally destructive war? Is there any way to compare it with The Girl with all the Gifts?

Hiero's Journey - 3. Religion and Magic

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:07:20 +0000

Hiero tries to fuse strong Christian beliefs with what one might call magical or psychic powers, which (by and large) today's churches would frown upon. Did the meld work for you? Were there specific powers or abilities that you particularly admired?

Hiero's Journey - 2. The factions

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:05:59 +0000

Several different factions, human and otherwise, are identified. An incomplete list would include the human cultures from which Hiero and Luchare originated, the Unclean, the Eleveners, the Bear Old Ones, the (Beaver) Dam People, and so on. Which seemed credible or the opposite?

Hiero's Journey - 1. Vividness

RichardAbbott — Fri, 03 May 2019 19:03:25 +0000

Did Lanier's description of the post-apocalyptic world seem vivid and/or compelling to you? Which parts were most effective? What about the mutated versions of animals and other living things? The various human societies?

Il Viaggio di Hiero

Apocryphal — Thu, 02 May 2019 22:36:53 +0000

Noticed this cover for the Italian edition. Luchare... va-va-voom! Not sure why Hiero is riding donkey-saddle on Klootz, but maybe to keep clear of the antlers! Notice the leemute in the foreground.