Amgalant

In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1166…'What is a Mongol? – As free as the geese in the air, as in unison. The flights of the geese promise us we don't give up independence, to unite.'The hundred tribes of the Mongols have come together with one aim: to push back against the walls that have crept onto the steppe – farther than China has ever extended its walls before. Walls are repugnant to a nomad. But can people on horses push them down, even with a united effort?This story begins when nobody has heard of Mongols – not even most Chinese, who think the vast Northern Waste at its weakest and are right. A spectacular history starts obscurely…Reception'I happen to know this world: a wolf's world, a world of strange talk in strange places. Bryn Hammond did a miracle of transporting the reader there, but I've no idea how she did it. Total and instant immersion – thoroughly compelling and powerful.'- Dmitry Chen, author of The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas'It is pure magic when one finds a book that travels that difficult path between fact and fiction but author Hammond has not failed us. Her characters are based on solid research and in-depth reading of the original historical documents: her facts are sound. They are the foundation upon which author Hammond has built a story that that is so realistic and so true that it literally pulls you into the Mongol world body and soul...I haven't read such an enjoyable and intelligent historical fiction series since Colleen McCullough's works and I thought I would never find her equal. Now I have. This series deserves far more notice than it has been given.'-Patricia Bjaaland Welch, author of Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery'Hammond describes scenes that so perfectly illustrate the cultural norms, the habits, the landscape, the housing, the clothing and the rest that soon you are in, and deeply, this world of early Mongolia. It's a wild ride-there are horses and epic grandeur-yet you feel everything for all the characters and outcomes in a way that only small domestic stories can provide. How Hammond juggles this I do not know. But it's kind of like War and Peace set in the early days of Chengiz Khan.'-Laury Silvers, author of The Sufi Mysteries'Bryn Hammond has accomplished a feat seldom seen in literature: Retaining the very distinctive character of her historical source material while injecting it with her own narrative voice; and this feat is all the more remarkable when you consider that this is a long book. The enchanting quality of the voice stays consistent throughout.'-Libbie Hawker, author of The She-King Saga and Tidewater'With oral cultures like the Mongols, you really need to understand how they spoke about themselves to each other. Rather than simply taking the Secret History of the Mongols and regurgitating the story into modern English, Ms. Hammond has written her story as if the Mongols used English words while still utilizing their own thought and speech patterns. This brings to life the Mongols in a way most historical fictions or histories cannot and also adds a poetic aspect which enhances the story.'-reader Pete'By setting aside commonly recited assumptions about a giant of history, her effort grinds against the popular heroic/demonic image of imperial Mongol power, releasing Temujin as a breathing, bleeding person, full of desire and uncertainty-befriended and hated, feared and hunted by others. And the love-bond between Temujin and Jamuqa? It is so carefully explored that the relationship itself becomes a primary character of its own... Two months after closing the cover, each character still walks in my imagination as if through the backyard garden.'-reader Chris O'Neill Bryn Hammond (she/her, and queer) lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. She grew up on ancient and medieval epics, the Arthur cycle original and modern, nineteenth-century novelists, particularly R

In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1188…'Jamuqa rode his trophy mare, off-white, black-pointed, on a Tartar seat, high arches of ornamental silver fore and aft. He wore a winterfur of snow leopard, near white with black whorls. The effect was kingly and fantastic: he might be Irle Khan himself, the king of ghosts, in his eery splendour.'Aged twenty, Temujin has been named Tchingis, khan over the Mongols. But only a third of his people accept a kingship based on dreams and omens. His own sworn brother Jamuqa challenges his title, and comes in the guise of a mock king against him.The steppe has been without a great khan for three hundred years – fragmented in the face of giant China. Are dreams and omens enough to unify its peoples? What makes a true king?Amgalant gives voice to the Mongols in their explosive encounter with the great world under Tchingis Khan. Both epic and intimate, Amgalant sees the world through Mongol eyes. It's different from the world you know.'Amgalant brings to life a complex, remote society with amazing immediacy' Bryn Hammond (she/her, and queer) lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. She grew up on ancient and medieval epics, the Arthur cycle original and modern, nineteenth-century novelists, particularly Russian and French, and out of fashion poets, namely Algernon Swinburne. Always a writer – to the neglect of other paths in life that might have been more sensible -- she found the perfect story in The Secret History of the Mongols, a thirteenth-century prose and verse account of Chinggis Khan. Series description:'Amgalant' means unity.This story is about the unification of the steppe under Tchingis Khan. From the shattered condition of the Mongols before him, to 1206 when Tchingis is acknowledged khan over the peoples of the steppe.Amgalant likewise follows Temujin, the boy who becomes Tchingis Khan, from an outcast life of poverty to the achievement of his dreams.The forty years from 1166 to 1206 saw great drama on the steppe, although settled societies off the steppe scarcely noticed. That remains true to this day. Temujin's rise to instatement as Tchingis Khan is the heart and guts of the Secret History of the Mongols, more important to its Mongol creators and audience than the off-steppe conquests afterwards.The Secret History of the Mongols is a gorgeous source for a novelist, rich in human interest and incident. Amgalant follows this source with humble fidelity and faith in the art of the original.