Product details

Paperback: 462 pages
Publisher: I G Hulme (30 July 2018)
ISBN: 978-1981117413
Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.9 x 20.3 cm

Description

The Story

The Diary of Otto Kandinsky is a companion novel to the Heavenfield series, and takes the form of a series of journal entries from a young soldier, recruited to the Exile cause.

Set in the times before the first Heavenfield novel, when the Exiles built their Fortress and began to increase their fighting strength, it follows Otto through his training to become a member of the notorious Wraith squads - messianic warriors tasked with assassinating key figures around the globe in a desperate attempt to put a stop to all Heavenfield research.

Otto becomes an unwilling fighter, his loyalty to the 'Holy Land' keeping him in the struggle against ever-stronger forces that assail them.

Picked to lead a squad of the Exiles' latest armoured fighting vehicles, at only nineteen Otto is already a seasoned veteran of many conflicts, and finds himself in some of the bitterest fighting at the onset of the Heavenfield wars.

As events run up to those detailed in the first Heavenfield novel, Otto must help salvage the remains of the Exiles' cause, and ultimately join forces with his previous enemies, as they unite against an overwhelming force that threatens to bring the world to the brink of destruction.

Reviews

"Simply put, I can’t get enough of the Heavenfield universe.

Hulme's debut novel offered a glimpse of the Heavenfield's rare and fleeting paradise, but much more of its underlying/copresent horror; The Diary of Otto Kandinsky takes us on a firsthand journey through Hell itself. The Diary's deceptively tranquil title conceals a constantly-building crescendo of action, suspense, wonder, and terror: one man's ground-level odyssey through a mechanized war between human factions, played out on a demoniac shadow-earth where titanic monsters stalk, and where oceans of damned souls teem around every feeble human beachhead.

It’s a postmodern Dante’s Inferno, but it’s also a top-notch fictional military memoir like Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn. It captures the most intriguing and awe-inspiring aspects of H.P. Lovecraft, but with none of Lovecraft’s failings. Its heavy-industrial technology is reminiscent of James Cameron’s near-future aesthetic (e.g., Aliens, The Terminator): realistically utilitarian and brutalist machines, powerful yet believably fallible in the corrosively harsh world they must traverse.

Despite its diverse influences and homages, however, Hulme's story is uniquely and confidently his own. It is intensely personal and philosophical science fiction, but it also transitions — effortlessly and frequently — to gripping, relentless, and harrowing sequences of action and cosmic horror. Its characters are human and relatable: flawed but endearing, often terrified but remarkably resilient, enthralled but inevitably altered (and scarred) by the terrible wonders they encounter in the Field.

For these reasons and more — including specific events and details that I won't include here to avoid spoiling the story — I wish Mr. Hulme all the success, accolades, and wide fanbase that his work so richly deserves."

Read review - DHS - Amazon.com