(Title: The Hand of God / Author: Yuval Kordov / Publisher: Self-Published / Publication Date: February 13, 2023 / Total Pages: 374)
Back Cover Blurb
The world ended twice.
Once at humanity's hand and a second time at God's, according to legend. Only Ester, the Eternal One, saw it all happen. Chosen by the Messiah to redeem humanity, She heads a holy sisterhood that rules Cathedral, the Last City. Except Cathedral isn't the last city, and the source of the Revenant Sisterhood's supernatural power is far from holy.
It's the year 2500, give or take. The passage of time has become as blurry as the gray wastes that cover most of North America. No moon or stars light the night, and demonic hordes smash against the last outposts of civilization.
Two reborn nations vie for humanity's future. In the west, Cathedral unleashes its God-engines - ancient walking war machines - in a final bid to cleanse the earth. In the east, the struggling city-state of Bastion turns to the last living AI for salvation.
Between them, a tribe of technological scavengers known as the Union unwittingly holds the balance of power.
Hell is on the horizon. Who will survive?
Review
I would first like to mention that THE HAND OF GOD is set in the same universe as the Dark Legacies tabletop RPG which author Yuval Kordov created almost twenty years ago. Full disclosure, I'm not familiar with the game but I'm happy to say that it didn't affect my enjoyment of this book at all. So anyone who is concerned about that need not be, this is very much a self-contained story where no prior knowledge is needed to get the most out of the experience.
I haven't read a post-apocalyptic SF book in quite a while so I think this one hit at exactly the right time for me. My favorite thing about post apoc stuff is the underlying mystery as to what happened to cause the cataclysm and then piecing together those events through the present day narrative. Kordov does an excellent job of hinting at that mystery throughout this shattered world where the main factions are separated on opposite sides of the wasteland with a ragtag group of scavengers roaming the area in between. As events get closer and closer to a potential clash between the sisterhood of Cathedral and the military inhabitants of Bastion, it just might be the side who creates an alliance with the battle-hardened scavengers that could tip the scales in their favor.
This was an insane (in a good way) fast-paced read with some ultra cool world-building and lost technology aspects that I found incredibly gripping. It kept me reading well into the early morning hours on more than a couple of occasions. The story is broken up in such a way that we get a perspective from both Cathedral and Bastion, and there are multiple POV characters whose eyes we get to experience the action through. Oh and then there are the giant robot battle walkers. Yes, you heard me correctly - I said GIANT ROBOT BATTLE WALKERS. Let's just say you'll have a fun time getting acquainted with these menacing purveyors of chaos and destruction.
This book does not hand-hold in any way, you really have to get your bearings and figure out who is who without the aid of info dumps or a character glossary. I'll admit that this took me a while to get used to but once I gained a familiarity of the parties involved and who they represented, the story became a much more fluid and seamless read and I enjoyed it immensely.
THE HAND OF GOD took me on a wild ride that was intensely dark at times but also managed to counterbalance that with a very palpable message of hope and perseverance in the face of overwhelming fear and uncertainty. Kordov has set the stage beautifully for the next books in this series and I can't wait to see where he takes us next. I'm sure that if this book is any indication we will not be disappointed. A very emotional and thrilling start to the Dark Legacies series that I highly recommend for readers who enjoy their post apocalyptic SF with loads of mystery and imaginative world-building.
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