The Left Hand of God - Paul Hoffman

Thomas Cale is one of a number of young acolytes who have been inducted into the ascetic lifestyle of the Redeemers from the age of seven, knowing little of the world outside other than that which has been revealed to them and beaten into them by the brutal religious sect who represent the One True Faith and uphold it against the heathen Antagonists in the East. All is not as it seems however. Cale knows he has special intelligence and fighting skills and is consequently being treated differently from the others, as if groomed for a role in what appears to be a looming grand battle against the Antagonists, but he knows what he is being told cannot be trusted. 

The discovery of women in a secret part of the Sanctuary, used for unknown purposes - certainly unknown to the boys who have never seen a woman before - and put to use in disturbing practices convinces Cale to make his escape with two of the other boys and the young girl they have rescued. What lies outside the Sanctuary - a place that no-one has ever successfully escaped from - could be even more dangerous as the boys make their way towards the great city of Memphis.

The Left Hand of God is a decent novel, well structured and keenly paced to keep you reading along easily, with the subject of blind devotion, whether to a religious cause or to a romantic inclination, followed through well and with appropriate force. For all its harrowing depictions of religious fanaticism however the novel ultimately lacks any spark of originality or real satirical bite. There are some incidental parallels to real-world events, but little effort is made to make anything of them. The characters are well-defined but they all fit into typical roles and there is never a case where anyone is going to act out of character in any way - resulting in no real tension or suspense. As it is then, the novel is superficially entertaining, but it ought to be so much more. 

The strength of the novel should be in its setting, as it has found a nice medium between its part gothic-fantasy with its Gormenghast-like Sanctuary and its part real-world resonances - but it just hasn't yet been sufficiently developed. There's a little bit of social colour and humour added to the depiction of the crowds attending a duel at the Opera Rosso, but another couple of hundred pages to flesh this out elsewhere wouldn't have gone amiss or been inappropriate in this genre. The lack of resolution by the end suggests however that this will continue as a series (some indication that this is the case would have perhaps meant less disappointment for readers expecting a satisfying resolution), so this still certainly has plenty of potential.