The Heirs of Babylon

(Paperback)

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Description

The dystopian politics of 1984 meet the naval warship backdrop of The Last Ship in fantasy master Glen Cooks reissued first novel, available for the first time in decades.

It is 2193, and still the war continues.

Two hundred years after nuclear and chemical weapons have nearly annihilated the global population, the last of mankind struggles on in isolated communities. Law and order is carried out by the Political Office, black-clad police who rule through fear and violence, commanding the worlds survivors how to think, how to act, and when to obey the call to the Gathering: the ritual massing for war against an unknown and unseen Enemy.

Now the call has come, and all nations must pay tribute.

Kurt Ranke is a young man eking out an existence in the ruins of former Germany with his pregnant wife. But when the Gathering is called, he boards the decrepit destroyer Jgera once-mighty warship now more than two centuries old. Antiquated, broken-down, and running on steam, it wallows through uncharted waters carrying Ranke and a reluctant and ragtag group of soldiers en route to the Final Meeting: a battle from which its rumored none have ever returned . . .

Night Shade Books is proud to reissue, for the first time and now with a brand-new foreword from the author, The Heirs of Babylon, Glen Cooks long-unavailable debut novel, a dark blend of post-apocalyptic naval warfare, Orwellian political intrigue, and the intimate, war-correspondent prose the author is known for.

Reviews

Praise forThe Heirs of Babylon

A loving reissue . . . this early work is much more than a mere curiosity.B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog

Praise for Glen Cook

Glen Cook single-handedly changed the face of fantasysomething a lot of people didnt notice, and maybe still dont. Reading his stuff is like reading Vietnam War fiction on Peyote.
Steven Erikson, author of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series

Over the past 25 years, Cook has carved out a place for himself among the preeminent fantasy writers of his generation. . . . His work is unrelentingly real, complex, and honest. The sense of place that permeates his narrative and characters gives his fantasies more gravitas and grit than most fictions set in the here-and-now.
New York Times bestselling author Jeff VanderMeer

A master realist of the imagination.
Locus

Glen writes a mean book.
Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files

These books, like so many of Cooks series, are epic in scale but intimate in focus . . . Cook is a brilliant writer.
The Green Man Review, on A Fortress in Shadow

One of the defining fantasy series ever written. Glen Cooks writing is a great flood that washes fantasy tropes and clichs away and in their place we are given three novels that make us reflect on what it means to be human. . . . On more than one occasion I found chills running down my spine. Words dont do these novels justice.
The Ostentatious Ogre on A Cruel Wind

Glen Cook is the author of some of my hands-down favorite books. I hold out hisBlack Companyseries as arguably the best military fantasy ever written. The early Garrett books set a standard for the blending of fantasy and hardboiled fiction.
Black Gate

One of Cooks strongest storytelling traits shines through, his ability to cast no judgment and show the opposing sides of a conflict with honesty, empathy, and resonance.
SFFWorld, on A Fortress in Shadow

Glen Cook is a rare beast of a writerhe can vacillate between military fantasy, space opera, epic fantasy, mystery, and science fantasy with great ease. His writing is often marked by a purity; that he is depicting life in its most real sense, from the thoughts in a characters mind to the wind rushing across his or her face.
Rob H. Bedford, sffworld.com, on Darkwar

Cooks talent for combining gritty realism and high fantasy provides a singular edge.
Library Journal, on Water Sleeps

Cook provides a rich world of assorted races, cultures, and religions; his characters combine the mythic or exotic with the realistic, engaging in absorbing alliances, enmities, and double-crosses.
Publishers Weekly, on Bleak Seasons

New and innovative. [Cook] blends the urban, intimate, slightly seedy tradition of sword & sorcery with the pastoral, epic, expansive tradition of heroic fantasy . . . this is the book that injected a shot of realism into the genre, and helped steer it on the course towards modern so-called "gritty" fantasy.
Strange Horizons, on Chronicles of the Black Company

Glen Cook changed the face of the fantasy genre forever . . . and for the better.
Fantasy Book Review, on The Black Company

Author Bio

Glen Cook is the author of dozens of novels of fantasy and science fiction, including The Black Company series, The Garrett Files, and The Tyranny of the Night. Cook was born in 1944 in New York City. He attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1970, where he met his wife, Carol.