Wolfhound Century
2 primary works • 4 total works
Book 2
Book 3
With his loving evocation of a dark and fantastical realm that owes much to the myth and history of 20th-century Russia, and his rare ability to combine poetic writing and kinetic plotting, Peter Higgins has created one of the most original and critically lauded works of recent years. Adored by critics and authors such as Hannu Rajaniemi, Ian McDonald and Richard Morgan the Wolfhound Century novels now reach their extraordinary conclusion.
In RADIANT STATE we discover both the glory and the true horror of Joseph Kantor's plan for the Vast and its people. It is a plan that transcends the boundaries of the world. And out in the depths of the endless forest that borders the Vast the mighty fallen angel and the powers of the earth itself will still have a part to play. Will Vissarion and Maroussia survive the violence of the end game?
A thousand miles east of Mirgorod, the great capital city of the Vlast, deep in the ancient forest, lies the most recent fallen angel, its vast stone form half-buried and fused into the rock by the violence of impact. As its dark energy leeches into the crash site, so a circle of death expands around it, slowly - inexorably - killing everything it touches. Alone in the wilderness, it reaches out with its mind.
The endless forest and its antique folk lore are no concern to Inspector Vissarion Lom, summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist - and ordered to report directly to the head of the secret police. A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown terrorism with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists. Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head at the children's home.
Lom's investigation reveals a conspiracy that extends to the top echelons of the party. When he exposes who - or rather what - is the controlling intelligence behind this, it is time for the detective to change sides. Pursued by rogue police agents and their man-crushing mudjhik, Lom must protect Kantor's step-daughter Maroussia, who has discovered what is hidden beneath police headquarters: a secret so ancient that only the forest remembers. As they try to escape the capital and flee down river, elemental forces are gathering. The earth itself is on the move.
Peter Higgins' Vlast is a superbly imagined 'other' Russia, an epic land of trackless forest, sentient rain and powers deep in the Earth.
Inspector Vissarion Lom is summoned to the great capital city of Mirgorod to catch the terrorist Josef Kantor. He's been chosen because he's an outsider, impartial to the capital's cruel politics - though not for long.
His investigation opens his eyes to a city teeming with corruption: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, and a conspiracy that extends to the upper echelons of the government.
But Lom soon has other concerns. Nature is turning against the city, and the horrors of war threaten everyone within its walls.
WOLFHOUND EMPIRE brings this incredibly powerful trilogy together for the first time.