What do you think?
Rate this book
Hiero #1
Hiero's Journey
The world ended. People survived.
Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath-and a highly trained killer.
Five thousand years after the apocalyptic event known only as The Death, Hiero is tasked with finding the secrets of the old world, which could protect his civilisation from massing enemies.
The planet is not the same as it used to be. Mutations have changed the way humans and animals live together, the holocaust known as The Death. The Brotherhood of the Unclean wants to wipe out all traces of surviving human society, allowing anarchy to rule the wasteland that once was North America.
Hiero's journey takes him into the heart of the Brotherhood's territory. The danger is great if he is caught . . . but even the smallest chance that humanity could be saved is worth the risk.
Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath-and a highly trained killer.
Five thousand years after the apocalyptic event known only as The Death, Hiero is tasked with finding the secrets of the old world, which could protect his civilisation from massing enemies.
The planet is not the same as it used to be. Mutations have changed the way humans and animals live together, the holocaust known as The Death. The Brotherhood of the Unclean wants to wipe out all traces of surviving human society, allowing anarchy to rule the wasteland that once was North America.
Hiero's journey takes him into the heart of the Brotherhood's territory. The danger is great if he is caught . . . but even the smallest chance that humanity could be saved is worth the risk.
348 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1973
77 people are currently reading
1735 people want to read
About the author
Sterling E. Lanier
47 books37 followersSterling Edmund Lanier was an American editor, science fiction author and sculptor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterlin...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterlin...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 149 reviews
January 16, 2014
LOOK, people: Sterling E. Lanier has the chutzpah to refer to the great moose mounts of the future as "morse." Consistently and without any apparent irony. This book is amazing. It is beautiful and pure. This book is like a milkshake made out of Burt Reynold's chest hair and the skeleton of a Brontosaurus - before they made us start calling it "Apatosaurus." Apatosaurus? What kind of morse shit is that? Brontosaurus means "thunder lizard." Do you know what Apatosaurus means? Do you? It means "deceptive lizard." Poor dino went from being a LIZARD OF THUNDER to a mildly prevaricating reptile because of some mealy-mouthed honky named Elmer Riggs. Listen, dudes: I say we hereby ban people named Elmer from naming dinosaurs.
Anyway, this book is like a goddamn enormous, Jurassic badass - but, like, a very naive badass who is yet unspoiled by the spiteful pedantry of sad, lonely men who cry themselves to sleep while they jerk off to their latest victories over all the fun and awesome parts of natural history museums.
Read the Brontosaurus. Read it hard.
Anyway, this book is like a goddamn enormous, Jurassic badass - but, like, a very naive badass who is yet unspoiled by the spiteful pedantry of sad, lonely men who cry themselves to sleep while they jerk off to their latest victories over all the fun and awesome parts of natural history museums.
Read the Brontosaurus. Read it hard.
October 20, 2018
I've been a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre for many, many years. I'm such a fan that I actually co-host a podcast about post-apocalyptic roleplaying games (if you're curious to hear what I sound like on a microphone, if not in person, follow the link). So Marc, one of my co-hosts, had started reading Hiero's Journey and was so excited about it that he bought me and James, the other co-host, a copy of the book. So, grateful for the fine gift, I read the book. I'm finished. Marc isn't even done, which shows that he has more of a life than I do, I suppose. That's okay. I enjoy my reading addiction.
Hiero's Journey is one of those books hallowed by nerds as part of the "Appendix N" canon. This refers to an appendix in the original Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons and Dragons, which lists several books that influenced the creation of D&D. So as I read, I had my brain wide open, hoping to find some snippets of pre-D&D lore.
And I did.
It's clear that Hiero's Journey influenced Gary Gygax's optional psionics rules. That said, like may other "gygaxisms," Lanier's system wasn't lifted wholesale. For example, I do like that there are consequences to Hiero's psionic scrying. It's a two way window if you try to scry through the wrong eyes (rhyming unintentional). That isn't the case, so far as I can see, in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe someone else can point out where I'm wrong.
One thing that surprised me is that it is clear as day that this book is where Gygax (or maybe it was Dave Arneson) got the idea that certain slime and mold creatures might have a latent psionic ability. I thought they just made that up for giggles, but, no, it's right there in Lanier's book!
Unfortunately, the slimy, moldy chapters don't happen until one is very close to the end of the book. And they are, by far, the best chapters. There's a whole lot of infodumping that comes before this, with a few necessary obstacles in the way along the way. This book suffers from being written in the time it was written. Precursors were the old pulp novels and, unfortunately, the New Wave of '60s avant-scifi/fantasy (read: Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, et al) didn't quite affect the mainstream speculative fiction writing market in the US and Canada, at least not by that point. So there wasn't a whole to build on. Sorry, but when your baseline is E.E. Doc Smith and John Norman's [fill in the blank] of Gor, your starting at a low point. Add to the incessant infodumping some very clumsy auctorial decisions, and you've got a poorly-written work with some interesting ideas and a bang up good ending. One way around this would have been to allow the infodumps to be spread out and introduced via narrative and revelation-through-action. Another way would be to throw all the infodump into an introductory piece, a "chronicle," maybe, then cut the first nine chapters down to about six chapters. Yes, there's that much chaff in it.
But I didn't hate it. No, there was a lot to like here. As a historical artifact, it's interesting and provides some insight into the creation of one of the greatest games ever created. As a post-apocalyptic science fantasy, it is quite good, with a surprisingly progressive bent to it, especially as regards the characters. As a piece of literature it's . . . quaint. But still recommended to those hungry for a decent piece of post-apocalyptic fiction.
Hiero's Journey is one of those books hallowed by nerds as part of the "Appendix N" canon. This refers to an appendix in the original Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons and Dragons, which lists several books that influenced the creation of D&D. So as I read, I had my brain wide open, hoping to find some snippets of pre-D&D lore.
And I did.
It's clear that Hiero's Journey influenced Gary Gygax's optional psionics rules. That said, like may other "gygaxisms," Lanier's system wasn't lifted wholesale. For example, I do like that there are consequences to Hiero's psionic scrying. It's a two way window if you try to scry through the wrong eyes (rhyming unintentional). That isn't the case, so far as I can see, in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe someone else can point out where I'm wrong.
One thing that surprised me is that it is clear as day that this book is where Gygax (or maybe it was Dave Arneson) got the idea that certain slime and mold creatures might have a latent psionic ability. I thought they just made that up for giggles, but, no, it's right there in Lanier's book!
Unfortunately, the slimy, moldy chapters don't happen until one is very close to the end of the book. And they are, by far, the best chapters. There's a whole lot of infodumping that comes before this, with a few necessary obstacles in the way along the way. This book suffers from being written in the time it was written. Precursors were the old pulp novels and, unfortunately, the New Wave of '60s avant-scifi/fantasy (read: Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, et al) didn't quite affect the mainstream speculative fiction writing market in the US and Canada, at least not by that point. So there wasn't a whole to build on. Sorry, but when your baseline is E.E. Doc Smith and John Norman's [fill in the blank] of Gor, your starting at a low point. Add to the incessant infodumping some very clumsy auctorial decisions, and you've got a poorly-written work with some interesting ideas and a bang up good ending. One way around this would have been to allow the infodumps to be spread out and introduced via narrative and revelation-through-action. Another way would be to throw all the infodump into an introductory piece, a "chronicle," maybe, then cut the first nine chapters down to about six chapters. Yes, there's that much chaff in it.
But I didn't hate it. No, there was a lot to like here. As a historical artifact, it's interesting and provides some insight into the creation of one of the greatest games ever created. As a post-apocalyptic science fantasy, it is quite good, with a surprisingly progressive bent to it, especially as regards the characters. As a piece of literature it's . . . quaint. But still recommended to those hungry for a decent piece of post-apocalyptic fiction.
January 9, 2011
OH MY HOLY JEEZ I LOVE THIS BOOK. It's ridiculous in all the best possible ways. It's a beautiful artifact from a time before irony - a time when you could have a bad guy named "S'nerg" work for an organization called "The Brotherhood of the Unclean", and not be kidding.
The writing is occasionally clunky; there are parenthetical expressions inside parenthetical expressions, with commas sprinkled willy-nilly. It's campy and ridiculous and almost unbelievable - yes! The hero is actually named Hiero Desteen! He really does have a psychic moose and befriend an intelligent bear! He actually does rescue a princess and make out with her! The book really is set in Canada and the northern U.S. 5000 years after nuclear war - which they just call The Death - and he really is on a quest to find an artifact called a "computer"!
But I found myself totally engrossed. I laughed at the book at first, and then I laughed with it, and in the end I found myself wanting more. And, really, who can help but love an epic fantasy journey with giant snapping turtles and evil ferret-men and psychic warfare and a pitstop in darkest post-apocalyptic Indiana?
The writing is occasionally clunky; there are parenthetical expressions inside parenthetical expressions, with commas sprinkled willy-nilly. It's campy and ridiculous and almost unbelievable - yes! The hero is actually named Hiero Desteen! He really does have a psychic moose and befriend an intelligent bear! He actually does rescue a princess and make out with her! The book really is set in Canada and the northern U.S. 5000 years after nuclear war - which they just call The Death - and he really is on a quest to find an artifact called a "computer"!
But I found myself totally engrossed. I laughed at the book at first, and then I laughed with it, and in the end I found myself wanting more. And, really, who can help but love an epic fantasy journey with giant snapping turtles and evil ferret-men and psychic warfare and a pitstop in darkest post-apocalyptic Indiana?
January 9, 2012
2.5 stars
I really wanted to give this book a higher rating. There’s a lot here to love and Lanier has a very fertile imagination: Psychic Canadian warrior-priest? Check; also psychic Moose destrier? Check; psychic mutant bear pal and assorted demi-human mutant creatures? Check; travelogue through post-apocalyptic North America? Check. It's like the coolest campaign of Gamma World ever that you never got to play as a kid. I fondly recall seeing the far-out Darrell K. Sweet cover on this book during nearly every trip I took to the library as a kid. I always looked at it wistfully, wanting to dive into an adventure so obviously cool, but my own snobbishness kept me away. Well, I finally broke down and took the plunge.
Unfortunately it appears that some of my snobbishness may have been justified. The first part of the book carried me along with the narrative at a fairly quick pace and despite the somewhat clunky prose and more! Exclamation! Marks! than you! can shake! a stick! at!!!! (maybe William Shatner should read the audio version) I was certainly entertained. Somewhere around ¾ of the way through, though, I completely ran out of steam and aside from a few pages here and there I left the book unread for months. I really wanted to finish this book, though, and it did improve somewhat towards the end.
Lanier’s post-apocalyptic North America has some interesting locales: from the expansive pine forests of the north to the miasmic swamps and irradiated buried cities of the south, all of them populated by the mutated descendants of our modern wildlife as well as the ‘Leemutes’, or semi-intelligent human-animal hybrids, most of which are under the control of the nefarious Unclean Brotherhood. Amongst this colourful background Lanier gives us many memorable scenes, especially Hiero's psychic battle with the Dweller in the Mist, his various confrontations with the pompous leaders of the Unclean, and the final confrontation with a living hive-mind fungal-slime. I’m a bit of a sucker for stories with PSI-elements as well, so I enjoyed the psychic aspects of the book: whether it was Hiero’s scrying of the future with the aid of his trusty bag of symbols, his inner battles with other intelligences, or the possession of an animal’s eyes to see the wider landscape.
That being said, the prose really didn’t do the story any favours and despite the intriguing aspects of Lanier’s story I found myself slowed down at many points in the narrative and moving on to other things from time to time, so it took me quite awhile to finish this. Hiero is also a very simplistic hero (the pun certainly isn’t my fault) who is basically almost always right, his enemies always wrong…there’s very little room for any grey in this world. My biggest stumbling blocks, though, were the stilted prose mentioned above and the superfluous romance subplot that added nothing to the story and was cringe-inducing in its puerility and simplicity. Overall there is a lot of awesome here, buried in bad prose and simplistic plotting.
I really wanted to give this book a higher rating. There’s a lot here to love and Lanier has a very fertile imagination: Psychic Canadian warrior-priest? Check; also psychic Moose destrier? Check; psychic mutant bear pal and assorted demi-human mutant creatures? Check; travelogue through post-apocalyptic North America? Check. It's like the coolest campaign of Gamma World ever that you never got to play as a kid. I fondly recall seeing the far-out Darrell K. Sweet cover on this book during nearly every trip I took to the library as a kid. I always looked at it wistfully, wanting to dive into an adventure so obviously cool, but my own snobbishness kept me away. Well, I finally broke down and took the plunge.
Unfortunately it appears that some of my snobbishness may have been justified. The first part of the book carried me along with the narrative at a fairly quick pace and despite the somewhat clunky prose and more! Exclamation! Marks! than you! can shake! a stick! at!!!! (maybe William Shatner should read the audio version) I was certainly entertained. Somewhere around ¾ of the way through, though, I completely ran out of steam and aside from a few pages here and there I left the book unread for months. I really wanted to finish this book, though, and it did improve somewhat towards the end.
Lanier’s post-apocalyptic North America has some interesting locales: from the expansive pine forests of the north to the miasmic swamps and irradiated buried cities of the south, all of them populated by the mutated descendants of our modern wildlife as well as the ‘Leemutes’, or semi-intelligent human-animal hybrids, most of which are under the control of the nefarious Unclean Brotherhood. Amongst this colourful background Lanier gives us many memorable scenes, especially Hiero's psychic battle with the Dweller in the Mist, his various confrontations with the pompous leaders of the Unclean, and the final confrontation with a living hive-mind fungal-slime. I’m a bit of a sucker for stories with PSI-elements as well, so I enjoyed the psychic aspects of the book: whether it was Hiero’s scrying of the future with the aid of his trusty bag of symbols, his inner battles with other intelligences, or the possession of an animal’s eyes to see the wider landscape.
That being said, the prose really didn’t do the story any favours and despite the intriguing aspects of Lanier’s story I found myself slowed down at many points in the narrative and moving on to other things from time to time, so it took me quite awhile to finish this. Hiero is also a very simplistic hero (the pun certainly isn’t my fault) who is basically almost always right, his enemies always wrong…there’s very little room for any grey in this world. My biggest stumbling blocks, though, were the stilted prose mentioned above and the superfluous romance subplot that added nothing to the story and was cringe-inducing in its puerility and simplicity. Overall there is a lot of awesome here, buried in bad prose and simplistic plotting.
September 26, 2020
The best moose book ever, as well as a fine after-the-holocaust science fiction novel. This one is well worth searching for; it's sadly almost forgotten, but I think it's a classic in the same league as Miller's CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ.
March 8, 2018
I read this many-many moons ago. Enjoyed it a lot at the time as it had a nice reminiscence of the Fallout RPG franchise setting.
June 30, 2015
By the end, it had frittered away its energy. The occasionally stilted or awkward writing style, the painful-to-read romance with a character who should have been more interesting than she was (who frankly should have more definition than merely her relationship with the protagonist, Hiero), the near-mechanical description and language used regarding Hiero's psychic abilities, the misguided use of exclamation points to bolster the narration, the narrator occasionally stepping out of the story to mention far-away events in a "what they don't know" way, a quest that ultimately doesn't make any sense , all of this, mire what started as interesting.
May 7, 2013
I can't recall who recommended this book to me way back when but somehow reading it feels familiar. Not familiar as in "I think I've read this before" but familiar as in "old style science fiction - apocalyptic fantasy." Into which I am sinking like an easy chair ... at this early stage of the book.
5,000 years in the future, as an aftermath of the Death which happened long ago, mutations have run amok. Some benefit mankind and some are creepy-crawly creatures that actively hunt humans. Telepathy between men and some animals is now possible. I myself love the "morse" which is a super-sized moose that doubles as a horse and companion.
Into this rides the young priest Hiero (yes, on his faithful morse - deal with it). He's on a super-secret mission which I am just finding out about via a giant info-dump from the abbot.
I've seen reviews naysaying this book's style but maybe it is because I recall those heady times of discovering these sorts of books in the 1970s, when this one was written. For the moment I have a giddy sense of discovery and enjoyment that I haven't felt from sf for a while. So I'm going to ride the wave for the moment, if you'll excuse me.
Plus the first bad guy we met was called S'nerg. C'mon. How can I not love that?
FINAL
This was both an exciting adventure with lots and lots of radiation mutated monsters (and a few friends) and a coming of age quest. It is a book that was very much of its time but it still holds up fairly well. If I had discovered it when I was younger, with fewer post-apocalyptic adventures under my belt I may well have rated it higher. As it is I enjoyed it. Not enough to want to read the sequel, but it was entertaining.
5,000 years in the future, as an aftermath of the Death which happened long ago, mutations have run amok. Some benefit mankind and some are creepy-crawly creatures that actively hunt humans. Telepathy between men and some animals is now possible. I myself love the "morse" which is a super-sized moose that doubles as a horse and companion.
Into this rides the young priest Hiero (yes, on his faithful morse - deal with it). He's on a super-secret mission which I am just finding out about via a giant info-dump from the abbot.
I've seen reviews naysaying this book's style but maybe it is because I recall those heady times of discovering these sorts of books in the 1970s, when this one was written. For the moment I have a giddy sense of discovery and enjoyment that I haven't felt from sf for a while. So I'm going to ride the wave for the moment, if you'll excuse me.
Plus the first bad guy we met was called S'nerg. C'mon. How can I not love that?
FINAL
This was both an exciting adventure with lots and lots of radiation mutated monsters (and a few friends) and a coming of age quest. It is a book that was very much of its time but it still holds up fairly well. If I had discovered it when I was younger, with fewer post-apocalyptic adventures under my belt I may well have rated it higher. As it is I enjoyed it. Not enough to want to read the sequel, but it was entertaining.
September 10, 2007
Sterling Lanier's tales of Hiero Desteen could easily fuel my illustrations and imagination for a great many years. I love his explorations here of a possible future, sadly within which nuclear desolation (or something quite like it) had wreaked havoc on the world as we know it. The Hiero books take place several thousand years after these destructive occurences, set within the confines of a North America very different (and yet eerily similar, in some ways) to the one which we are familiar with. I could ramble and ramble about this book and the one that follows, but rewriting the story would only serve to dull down the original.
Basically, if reading this doesn't make you want me to make a shirt for you or your band featuring a mustachioed, sword-wielding warrior-priest atop a giant, telepathic moose, I don't know what's wrong with you.
Great stuff.
Basically, if reading this doesn't make you want me to make a shirt for you or your band featuring a mustachioed, sword-wielding warrior-priest atop a giant, telepathic moose, I don't know what's wrong with you.
Great stuff.
April 10, 2017
I don’t think I have ever read a book both as engaging and poorly written as this—and I read, and enjoyed, The Sword of Shannara. Lanier is so afraid of repeating the same appellation twice in a row that some of his references to his characters border on the offensive: the priest’s woman, his dark love, and so on. The editing was ridiculously bad, too—they even misspelled the main character’s name at least once.
But the sheer raw gonzo world creation overcomes it all. This is Dungeons and Dragons and Gamma World rolled into one psychotropic semi-narrative. The world suffers under The Death, but everything is intelligent because of it. Over a couple thousands years of high radiation and biological warfare after-effects, animals have merged, have grown, have mutated, and almost all of them grown some form of intelligence; the fish have; the birds have; the bees have. Even the plants and the fungus have.
And along with intelligence, most of them have grown teeth, claws, or long-range explosives as well.
The book is clearly a child of the late sixties/early seventies, right down to the assumption that even a Death-filled world is better than a world in which we have machines to do our laundry and play our music and get us across the world in less than a day. What kind of horrible, mind-numbing place is the latter and how could people have put up with it?
Well, given how cool Lanier’s world is, I can sort of see his point.
But the sheer raw gonzo world creation overcomes it all. This is Dungeons and Dragons and Gamma World rolled into one psychotropic semi-narrative. The world suffers under The Death, but everything is intelligent because of it. Over a couple thousands years of high radiation and biological warfare after-effects, animals have merged, have grown, have mutated, and almost all of them grown some form of intelligence; the fish have; the birds have; the bees have. Even the plants and the fungus have.
And along with intelligence, most of them have grown teeth, claws, or long-range explosives as well.
The book is clearly a child of the late sixties/early seventies, right down to the assumption that even a Death-filled world is better than a world in which we have machines to do our laundry and play our music and get us across the world in less than a day. What kind of horrible, mind-numbing place is the latter and how could people have put up with it?
Well, given how cool Lanier’s world is, I can sort of see his point.
September 9, 2012
This was listed by Gary Gygax in the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide as part of a list of books that inspired D&D, but I think it's probably more accurate to say this book is a direct inspiration for Gamma World.
The time is five thousand years in the future, thousands of years after The Death, a nuclear/biological/chemical war that ended civilization and left us with a mostly pastoral world populated by mutants and remnant humans and studded with ruined cities and radioactive wastelands, as such wars were wont to do in books written in the 1970's. (Lanier also adds a soupçon of Lovecraftian horror.) Across this world goes adventuring the eponymous Hiero, riding his morse (giant domesticated riding moose) and accompanied for much of his travels by a telepathic bear. And there's a beautiful girl he rescues, and various others.
Probably closer to a 3.5 or 3.75, but filled with engaging adventures.
The time is five thousand years in the future, thousands of years after The Death, a nuclear/biological/chemical war that ended civilization and left us with a mostly pastoral world populated by mutants and remnant humans and studded with ruined cities and radioactive wastelands, as such wars were wont to do in books written in the 1970's. (Lanier also adds a soupçon of Lovecraftian horror.) Across this world goes adventuring the eponymous Hiero, riding his morse (giant domesticated riding moose) and accompanied for much of his travels by a telepathic bear. And there's a beautiful girl he rescues, and various others.
Probably closer to a 3.5 or 3.75, but filled with engaging adventures.
September 4, 2021
I've been on an Appendix N binge lately, with the Hiero Desteen novels as one of the less-known of the bunch. But that's not to say they've not had influence: you could tell me that this story single-handedly brought psychic powers to Dungeons & Dragons, and I'd have believed you.
Did the game need psychic powers? Probably not, but I suspect the stuff fits in just fine, when you think about it. It's all good.
The story itself is fine: it's got its tension and drama, the bleak yet hopeful setting, and some good characters and character growth to follow through... though the romance is underdeveloped and comes out of nowhere and I generally never bought it. Worse, the whole thing doesn't feel like flowing right. It feels like it's missing its final act - a mission is completed, a final battle waged, yet it all felt as if it came out of nowhere. Something lacks, and I can't put my finger on it.
Did the game need psychic powers? Probably not, but I suspect the stuff fits in just fine, when you think about it. It's all good.
The story itself is fine: it's got its tension and drama, the bleak yet hopeful setting, and some good characters and character growth to follow through... though the romance is underdeveloped and comes out of nowhere and I generally never bought it. Worse, the whole thing doesn't feel like flowing right. It feels like it's missing its final act - a mission is completed, a final battle waged, yet it all felt as if it came out of nowhere. Something lacks, and I can't put my finger on it.
July 2, 2012
This is my favorite book from when I was a kid. I read it when I was 15, and it's perfect for me as a 15 year-old.
It's about a Canadian psychic warrior priest who rides a moose and is best buddies with a bear. Also, he saves a lady from some giant birds and they fall in love.
I reread it every few years and I still enjoy it, but I'm really glad I read it first as a kid, because it's missing some of the stuff a book needs to thrill me these days. Hiero isn't all-powerful, but it's hard to really call him a flawed character. He deals with everything so well, and he's so good at everything.
I love the setting, though, and the animals, and the ridiculousness of it all. It's set 5000 years in the future, but it's more high fantasy than it is science fiction.
(Edited because I reread it recently)
It's about a Canadian psychic warrior priest who rides a moose and is best buddies with a bear. Also, he saves a lady from some giant birds and they fall in love.
I reread it every few years and I still enjoy it, but I'm really glad I read it first as a kid, because it's missing some of the stuff a book needs to thrill me these days. Hiero isn't all-powerful, but it's hard to really call him a flawed character. He deals with everything so well, and he's so good at everything.
I love the setting, though, and the animals, and the ridiculousness of it all. It's set 5000 years in the future, but it's more high fantasy than it is science fiction.
(Edited because I reread it recently)
June 11, 2024
4.25 stars.
RTC.
RTC.
May 23, 2019
Hiero's Journey, by Sterling Lanier, is set in a remote future. It is post-apocalyptic in tone, but the disaster - The Death - is so far in the past as to have an almost mythic quality.
Humanity has, for a great many years, struggled to survive in isolated pockets, in what historically were marginal and insignificant places. Many - but not all - former prejudices concerning race and lineage have been discarded, and the scattered survivors are mostly descended from those who were mixed-race outcasts in today's world.
The Death has also spawned a wide variety of mutations, most of which are greatly increased in size compared to the progenitors we know. A few of these have traits which favour domestication, and others have attained sufficient intelligence that friendly relations can be established. But the great majority are hostile, vicious, and inimical to human life. The book moves between confrontations with these hostile life forms, and increasingly those few humans who have affiliated themselves with the offspring of The Death.
The human enclaves have cultivated a strong moral code, based on a fairly formal branch of Christianity but adapted syncretically as the need has arisen over the centuries. So Hiero and his people combine a religious sensibility with a burgeoning scientific spirit of enquiry, at the same time as practicing a form of magic. They recognise these as three complementary approaches to the world around them, and try to integrate them all into a single coherent lifestyle. For me, this was, and remains, one of the strongest and most compelling features of Hiero's Journey.
Of course the book describes a journey, from the wilderness of Canada around - and across - the Great Lakes into the former United States, in search of a particular piece of technology. Along the way, Hiero makes new friends and allies, but also discovers that enemies they thought of as purely local are actually organised on a much wider scale. How he manages these interactions, not just as an individual but as a representative of his people and his culture, forms the core of the book.
This is another novel which has held my interest for years, and I am sure it will continue to do so for a long time to come.
Humanity has, for a great many years, struggled to survive in isolated pockets, in what historically were marginal and insignificant places. Many - but not all - former prejudices concerning race and lineage have been discarded, and the scattered survivors are mostly descended from those who were mixed-race outcasts in today's world.
The Death has also spawned a wide variety of mutations, most of which are greatly increased in size compared to the progenitors we know. A few of these have traits which favour domestication, and others have attained sufficient intelligence that friendly relations can be established. But the great majority are hostile, vicious, and inimical to human life. The book moves between confrontations with these hostile life forms, and increasingly those few humans who have affiliated themselves with the offspring of The Death.
The human enclaves have cultivated a strong moral code, based on a fairly formal branch of Christianity but adapted syncretically as the need has arisen over the centuries. So Hiero and his people combine a religious sensibility with a burgeoning scientific spirit of enquiry, at the same time as practicing a form of magic. They recognise these as three complementary approaches to the world around them, and try to integrate them all into a single coherent lifestyle. For me, this was, and remains, one of the strongest and most compelling features of Hiero's Journey.
Of course the book describes a journey, from the wilderness of Canada around - and across - the Great Lakes into the former United States, in search of a particular piece of technology. Along the way, Hiero makes new friends and allies, but also discovers that enemies they thought of as purely local are actually organised on a much wider scale. How he manages these interactions, not just as an individual but as a representative of his people and his culture, forms the core of the book.
This is another novel which has held my interest for years, and I am sure it will continue to do so for a long time to come.
July 15, 2014
This is probably only for you if you are a fantasy roleplaying geek (and I can call people geeks because I am one) as it provided inspiration to the creators of Dungeons and Dragons and Gamma World. My husband does not read a lot, but he has a small collection of sci-fi and fantasy classics, and this one was literally at the top of the stack as the first one he thought I should read. This is definitely a fantasy quest story complete with fantastic creatures and rescued princesses, but there are no hobbits or magicians. This is set in a future thousands of years after nuclear war has ravaged the entire North American continent, and civilization is being re-established by Native Canadians. Instead of magic they have warrior-priests with telepathic powers, which makes them seem wizardlike. Our hero, Hiero, is on a mission to collect ancient knowledge of computer technology to help his order defeat an evil sect bent on domination. Oh, and he rides a "Morse" and has a bear sidekick and they all communicate telepathically as they battle evil and travel through the post-apocalyptic landscape that used to be the northeast United States. It's really quite an interesting story, and if you are the kind of person who has actually reads books like the Lord of the Rings, and not just watches the movies, then I recommend it.
May 18, 2021
|3,0*|
Soft-Sience-Fiction mit schönem worldbuilding und interessanten Charakteren.
In erster Linie ist Hieros Reise ein Abenteuerroman und als solcher funktioniert er ganz gut. Die Welt, durch die sich Hiero bewegt ist spannend und reichhaltig. Als Dystopie kann das Buch nur teilweise überzeugen. Die Fronten sind hier etwas zu klar gezeichnet auch wenn die grundsätzliche Kritik an der Gesellschaft solide ist. Mit einigen gesellschaftlichen Dogmen wird hier gebrochen, diejenigen, von denen sich der Autor nicht ganz lösen konnte fallen jedoch besonders auf.
Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Charaktere sind ein spannender Aspekt der erschaffenen Welt und haben mir gut gefallen.
Soft-Sience-Fiction mit schönem worldbuilding und interessanten Charakteren.
In erster Linie ist Hieros Reise ein Abenteuerroman und als solcher funktioniert er ganz gut. Die Welt, durch die sich Hiero bewegt ist spannend und reichhaltig. Als Dystopie kann das Buch nur teilweise überzeugen. Die Fronten sind hier etwas zu klar gezeichnet auch wenn die grundsätzliche Kritik an der Gesellschaft solide ist. Mit einigen gesellschaftlichen Dogmen wird hier gebrochen, diejenigen, von denen sich der Autor nicht ganz lösen konnte fallen jedoch besonders auf.
Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Charaktere sind ein spannender Aspekt der erschaffenen Welt und haben mir gut gefallen.
March 27, 2019
Absolutely bonkers 70s science fiction/fantasy. If you don't think 300 pages of post apocalyptic Canada with telepathic animals sounds fun I don't know what to tell you.
February 11, 2014
I’ll never be accused of having highbrow literary tastes, but that’s okay with me. Before I started writing in earnest myself, I read voraciously, including everything ever written by Ray Bradbury and many other works by authors of action-adventure, crime, fantasy, mystery, sci-fi, and the supernatural. Moreover, like my father and evidently, much of the U.S. prison population, I’ve enjoyed many “frontier” novels written by Louis L’Amour. Admittedly, I’m not drawn to the “classics”. Of course, having Shakespeare and Dickens forced upon me by high school English teachers didn’t help. Anyhow, I couldn’t really pick an all-time favorite book. However, if threatened with dismemberment and other bodily tortures, then I suppose I would pick “Hiero’s Journey” by Sterling E. Lanier.
It’s said you can’t judge a book by its cover, and I suppose that’s true for the most part. So, I was naturally drawn this book’s artful illustration of an autumn woodland backdrop, a saddled moose, and a buckskinned outdoorsman and a black bear standing on his haunches in greeting. Though “Hiero’s Journey” has been in print since 1973, this particular cover image is far more interesting and revealing of the story within than the stock art and images adorning many books in recent years.
Five millennia after a cataclysmic nuclear holocaust, many of earth’s surviving creatures, including humankind, have undergone dramatic physical and mental mutation. Once purely instinctual, the planet’s flora and fauna have spawned a multitude of sentient beings, some wondrous and some malignant. Telepathic and other paranormal powers have also risen from once dormant psyches. After a radical progression, those who desire to enslave others, and those who wish for peaceful coexistence have chosen sides.
From the northern region of Kanda, formerly Canada, Per Hiero Desteen, a Priest, Rover, and Killman of the Metz Republic, must journey south to the contaminated wastelands of the former United States to recover ancient computer technology. During an arduous and perilous expedition, Hiero befriends unlikely allies and battles all manner of wicked beings.
Along the way, Hiero is found by Brother Aldo, a member of an ancient religious order called “The Eleveners”, an offshoot of environmentalists and practitioners of natural sciences that existed before “The Great Death”. Their most revered edict is the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not destroy the earth, nor the life thereon.” In my opinion, this decree was woefully overlooked in the existing Ten Commandments. Alas, according to the old gospel, mankind has dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Evidently, we can do as please without regard to the other living creatures sharing our planet. But, I digress…
Pursued and harassed, Hiero hastens to reach his intended destination, lest the Unclean possess a weapon that could destroy the last vestiges of humanity.
I know the story sounds kind of hackneyed, but in my very biased opinion, “Hiero’s Journey” is quite possibly one of the finest fantasy, sci-fi novels ever written.
I appreciated the book’s linear storyline, and I didn’t find the reading daunting like “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy”. Mr. Lanier’s descriptions of the flora, fauna, and topography of a post-apocalyptic North America were enthralling and I had no trouble suspending disbelief during the story’s telling. The characters were very interesting, and there was an abundance of suspenseful action. The narrative sustained my interest throughout, and I longed for a sequel, which thankfully arrived in 1983 titled “The Unforesaken Hiero”, another excellent book. Other than the obligatory romantic entanglement and some clichéd dialog, I offer few criticisms.
“Hiero’s Journey” is an excellent story for aficionados of fantasy and sci-fi.
It’s said you can’t judge a book by its cover, and I suppose that’s true for the most part. So, I was naturally drawn this book’s artful illustration of an autumn woodland backdrop, a saddled moose, and a buckskinned outdoorsman and a black bear standing on his haunches in greeting. Though “Hiero’s Journey” has been in print since 1973, this particular cover image is far more interesting and revealing of the story within than the stock art and images adorning many books in recent years.
Five millennia after a cataclysmic nuclear holocaust, many of earth’s surviving creatures, including humankind, have undergone dramatic physical and mental mutation. Once purely instinctual, the planet’s flora and fauna have spawned a multitude of sentient beings, some wondrous and some malignant. Telepathic and other paranormal powers have also risen from once dormant psyches. After a radical progression, those who desire to enslave others, and those who wish for peaceful coexistence have chosen sides.
From the northern region of Kanda, formerly Canada, Per Hiero Desteen, a Priest, Rover, and Killman of the Metz Republic, must journey south to the contaminated wastelands of the former United States to recover ancient computer technology. During an arduous and perilous expedition, Hiero befriends unlikely allies and battles all manner of wicked beings.
Along the way, Hiero is found by Brother Aldo, a member of an ancient religious order called “The Eleveners”, an offshoot of environmentalists and practitioners of natural sciences that existed before “The Great Death”. Their most revered edict is the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not destroy the earth, nor the life thereon.” In my opinion, this decree was woefully overlooked in the existing Ten Commandments. Alas, according to the old gospel, mankind has dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Evidently, we can do as please without regard to the other living creatures sharing our planet. But, I digress…
Pursued and harassed, Hiero hastens to reach his intended destination, lest the Unclean possess a weapon that could destroy the last vestiges of humanity.
I know the story sounds kind of hackneyed, but in my very biased opinion, “Hiero’s Journey” is quite possibly one of the finest fantasy, sci-fi novels ever written.
I appreciated the book’s linear storyline, and I didn’t find the reading daunting like “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy”. Mr. Lanier’s descriptions of the flora, fauna, and topography of a post-apocalyptic North America were enthralling and I had no trouble suspending disbelief during the story’s telling. The characters were very interesting, and there was an abundance of suspenseful action. The narrative sustained my interest throughout, and I longed for a sequel, which thankfully arrived in 1983 titled “The Unforesaken Hiero”, another excellent book. Other than the obligatory romantic entanglement and some clichéd dialog, I offer few criticisms.
“Hiero’s Journey” is an excellent story for aficionados of fantasy and sci-fi.
January 19, 2019
ZOMG! A warrior priest riding a Moose (yeah, sure, it's a "Morse"... whatever) befriends a bear! and totally gets to sleep with a princess that he rescues from certain death! and he has telepathic powers! and then the princess totally lets him bonk a fairy chick! The antagonists are a group of people called the "Unclean"! The other enemy is a giant slime mold!
This book is terrible! Awful! On top of the insanely ridiculous plot the writing might be even worse! The book has words like debouching and lianas and lots of other words that will make you wish your ereader dictionary was more complete! And the melodrama!
Yes, it is that bad!
And it has more than 400 exclamation points!
And yet in spite of that, I read it again and again. I suppose that this is mostly that I first read it when I was 12 or so and all of the above didn't bother me. And looking at the inexplicably high rating for this book, I think I might not be the only one who has a special place in their heart for this story.
If you don't believe me that the writing is bad, I'll leave you with this excerpt.
This book is terrible! Awful! On top of the insanely ridiculous plot the writing might be even worse! The book has words like debouching and lianas and lots of other words that will make you wish your ereader dictionary was more complete! And the melodrama!
Yes, it is that bad!
And it has more than 400 exclamation points!
And yet in spite of that, I read it again and again. I suppose that this is mostly that I first read it when I was 12 or so and all of the above didn't bother me. And looking at the inexplicably high rating for this book, I think I might not be the only one who has a special place in their heart for this story.
If you don't believe me that the writing is bad, I'll leave you with this excerpt.
“I love you, Hiero,” came a small voice from his chest.
“I love you, too,” he said almost sadly. “I’m not at all sure it’s a good idea. In fact, I’m fairly certain it’s a bad one, a very bad one. I have been set a task so important that the last sane human civilization may fall if I should fail to carry it out. I need a further distraction like a third leg.” He smiled down at the angry face which had popped up again.
“I seem to be helpless, however.” He tightened his grip around the firm body. “Win or lose, we stay together from now on. I’d worry more if you were somewhere else.”
She snuggled closer, as if somehow she could bind herself to him. They stood thus, the world forgotten until a mental voice whose very flatness made it seem sardonic broke in.
September 12, 2013
I read this back in high school - and as that has been a long while ago, I can't really review it properly. But I do remember that I found it amazing. It may have been that dystopia as a genre was relatively new to YA (or there just wasn't that much of it).
I will re-read it at some point and do a more proper review.
I will re-read it at some point and do a more proper review.
December 4, 2018
I picked this up because it was supposed to be an influence on Gary Gygax in his creation of D&D. I was expecting a nice fantasy story and not much more. Boy was I wrong. This is a great adventure story and a wonderful read. It was supposed to be a trilogy but the 3rd book never got written. My highest recommendation.
April 9, 2023
It's been ten years since I last read this and a lot of the small details, which flesh out the post nuclear holocaust setting, had slipped from my memory. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.
November 12, 2021
Telepathic war moose nuff said. All in all it was an interesting read and blended technology and fantasy in a unique and endearing way.
April 15, 2024
Sterling E. Lanier is perhaps more well known as the guy that published Frank Herbert's Dune after it had been rejected more than 20 times by other publishers. Besides his keen eye for a good novel, though, he was also a writer and sculptor.
Here we have Lanier's Hiero's Journey, an ecological science-fiction tale with smatterings of A Canticle for Leibowitz thrown in for good measure and, although predating it by about twenty years, a hint of what the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun setting would hold with its post-holocaust world and the idea that almost everyone has some form of psychic ability. It's not really a stretch to link the two, either, as Hiero's Journey was listed in Gygax's Appendix N, which is a list of books that inspired Dungeons and Dragons.
This is just a really fun book. Something exciting happens in every single chapter, the characters are very interesting (well, the good guys at least. The bad guys are pretty one dimensional but still pretty nasty and fun), and the world that Lanier presents to us is fascinating. With weird monsters, evil "sorcerers" (it's actually psychic powers but amounts to about the same thing), ancient religions, super-intelligent psychic animals, pirates, mutants, sword fights, dungeons, and even a classic "rescuing the damsel from being sacrificed to savage monsters" scene, this book is about as close as you can get to science-fiction sword and sorcery.
A sequel was written but it's incredibly unfortunate that Lanier never finished the planned trilogy before his death.
Here we have Lanier's Hiero's Journey, an ecological science-fiction tale with smatterings of A Canticle for Leibowitz thrown in for good measure and, although predating it by about twenty years, a hint of what the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun setting would hold with its post-holocaust world and the idea that almost everyone has some form of psychic ability. It's not really a stretch to link the two, either, as Hiero's Journey was listed in Gygax's Appendix N, which is a list of books that inspired Dungeons and Dragons.
This is just a really fun book. Something exciting happens in every single chapter, the characters are very interesting (well, the good guys at least. The bad guys are pretty one dimensional but still pretty nasty and fun), and the world that Lanier presents to us is fascinating. With weird monsters, evil "sorcerers" (it's actually psychic powers but amounts to about the same thing), ancient religions, super-intelligent psychic animals, pirates, mutants, sword fights, dungeons, and even a classic "rescuing the damsel from being sacrificed to savage monsters" scene, this book is about as close as you can get to science-fiction sword and sorcery.
A sequel was written but it's incredibly unfortunate that Lanier never finished the planned trilogy before his death.
July 2, 2025
I won't complain about the simplicity of the plotting because, well, look at the title. I *will* grumble a bit about the treatment of the female characters, because it's very 1973 at times but, to be fair, it could be worse.
Otherwise, this is great fun. Psychic warrior priests battle each other both mentally and physically across a post-post-apocalyptic landscape full of weird mutants and monsters. Everyone has psychic powers -- even the bear -- the plot barrels along at a wonderful pace, and every chapter brings a new adventure, location, or opponent. And it's often quite funny, intentionally so.
I can see how and why it influenced the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, because it does feel very much like a game. A really, really fun game.
Otherwise, this is great fun. Psychic warrior priests battle each other both mentally and physically across a post-post-apocalyptic landscape full of weird mutants and monsters. Everyone has psychic powers -- even the bear -- the plot barrels along at a wonderful pace, and every chapter brings a new adventure, location, or opponent. And it's often quite funny, intentionally so.
I can see how and why it influenced the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, because it does feel very much like a game. A really, really fun game.
May 19, 2025
це книга із серії "плохашо".
дуже поганий переклад дуже поганого тексту, який своєю наявністю все одно виростає в пам'ять і не відпускає.
сексизм, ейджизм, расизм – багато измів описують книжку, написану в лихі сімдесяті. між білим і чорним тут хіба мідний колір шкіри гг і троха зеленого болота, інші півкольори відсутні.
але тут найкращі у всьому сайфаї маунти: вірні, корисні, можуть спілкуватись подумки, але не люблять
дуже поганий переклад дуже поганого тексту, який своєю наявністю все одно виростає в пам'ять і не відпускає.
сексизм, ейджизм, расизм – багато измів описують книжку, написану в лихі сімдесяті. між білим і чорним тут хіба мідний колір шкіри гг і троха зеленого болота, інші півкольори відсутні.
але тут найкращі у всьому сайфаї маунти: вірні, корисні, можуть спілкуватись подумки, але не люблять
September 24, 2019
I loved the world this was set in. Intelligent Bears! Giant moose! Post apocolypic Canada!! This joyful romp of a book was headed for 5 stars... but I was more than a bit heartsick over the treatment of the main female character. It was so bad by the end of the book I just felt sad reading it.
July 14, 2025
a little bit too much 60/70ies. The three stars are for the post apocalyptic perspective...
August 9, 2021
Pretty thin stuff
Displaying 1 - 30 of 149 reviews