Slow Fall to Dawn

NewEden #1

by Stephen Leigh

The Hoorka, a guild of skilled assassins, maintain their existence in the turbulent society of Neweden through strict obedience to a stern code of Kill only when hired. Reveal your client only if successful. If the victim survives until dawn, he goes free. Through years of harsh training and iron discipline, the Thane of Hoorka Guild has molded a group of men and women without kinship, lassari outcasts, into a lethal force separate from the blood feuds and intricate alliances of other clans. The Alliance of Worlds has been watching the Hoorka closely with an eye to allowing them to operate offworld. But now an important target has eluded the Hoorka's weapons--the leader of the opposition party. And the Rule of Neweden, maker of the contract, suspects them of treachery. Beset with suspicion and fear, and challenged by a young usurper within the Guild, the aging Thane faces a day of He can abide by the code he created, or break it in the name of expediency. His fateful decision could mean a new future for the Hoorka--or its end for all time.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fantasy

165 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Stephen Leigh has been writing science fiction since he was in grade school. He sold his first story in 1975 and has been publishing regularly ever since then.

He has been nominated for and won several awards for his fiction over the years. He has written and published the occasional poems and non-fiction pieces, as well.

Steve teaches Creative Writing at Northern Kentucky University in the Greater Cincinnati area. He also plays music, and studies the Japanese martial art Aikido, in which he holds the rank of Sandan.

Stephen Leigh also writes as S.L. Farrell and Matthew Farrell.

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow Fall to Dawn is the first book of a trilogy. The basic premise is a sort of feudal clan/guild based system, and we're following a guild of assassins within it. They have a very specific code, and are completely neutral, but naturally there's a lot of bad feeling stirred up by a guild of murderers, particularly as they remain neutral (even as that makes them useful to everyone), and the book follows the course of a few events that threaten the stability and perhaps even the existence of the guild.

It's a short book, and a fast read. There's some clunky aspects -- for example, mentioning something as a minor background point and then bashing you over the head with its relevance in the next chapter. (Although then it didn't really seem to be that important at all...) But mostly it flows very smoothly and while I wasn't exactly sympathetic to the characters, I understood them and was interested in their conflicts and dilemmas.

The author cleverly avoids issues of it being an unrealistic science fiction future (i.e. one that's been well outpaced by reality) by having it set after a civilisation collapse. It's not the sort of SF that feels like fantasy; it does manage to feel like a world, a society, that has progressed and regressed and generally evolved over time.

I actually picked up this book (in the omnibus form) in Belgium, while I was doing a little experiment and only getting books I'd never heard of before, preferably by authors who were new to me too. In this case, I won't hungrily seek out every book Stephen Leigh might ever have written, but I will happily finish this series.

[Amie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid, intriguing read. The story centres on the Hoorka, a guild of assassins bound by a strict honour code: only kill when hired, and if the target survives until dawn, they go free. When a key mission fails, the aging Thane of the guild faces pressure from both within and outside the organisation. The concept was clever and the moral tension interesting, but it didn’t totally hook me. Still, a decent read with a gritty, thoughtful sci-fi edge.

[Tani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author mentions in his foreword that this was his first novel and that he struggled mightily with the idea of writing a novel. It kind of shows. It's not bad, but it's certainly not a great novel either.

The good:

The idea is interesting. Moral assassins in space? Yes, please.

I actually liked the characterization. It felt very complete, even though the Thane grew hard to sympathize with as he continually let his emotions overpower his commonsense. I can recognize the symptoms of emotional burnout in him, having been there myself in far less dramatic circumstances. It's quite well-done on the author's part, but it's still hard to sympathize with.

There's some very pretty turns of phrase. In general, the writing itself is good.

The bad:

Pacing. It's very slow-paced, very emotionally focused, and not at all what I expected going in. There is a ton of introspection and not a lot of action at all. I still read it in the span of a day, but that's more a reflection of the length than anything.

Plot. As in, there's very little. Things happened, but the introspection takes precedence. This felt more like an exercise in world-building than an actual story.

I have an omnibus edition of this, so I'll certainly be finishing the series regardless. I don't think it's a bad book, but I would have loved to see more action and more things happening. Or at least, less of the main character making bad choices. Fingers crossed for the next book.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good old science fiction adventure, this one does a fine job of portraying a decaying empire and the efforts of a man to protect his group and the lengths to which he'll go for their survival. In this case it's a guild of assassins, and the author does a good job of making them all sympathetic characters. It's a short book, but was the first of a trilogy.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pastoral planet of Neweden is run by various guilds, all competing for power. The planet is overseen by the Alliance, a multi-world organization that has hands-off control of the planets under its jurisdiction. The culture is interesting – while there is gender equality, the planet is organized on a caste system (with the lessari people, those who are guild-less, treated as dregs). The Hoorka, an assassin guild, are allowed to murder people with no punishment.

The basic plot is that one man, Gunnar, is the target of a hit by the Hoorka. The aftermath of this assassination attempt puts the entire existence of the Hoorka into question. The crux of the story is based around the Thane, leader of the Hoorka and his issues with his subordinate Aldhelm. Thane wants to elevate the Hoorka to working on other worlds, but he and Aldhelm disagree about how to do so. It’s a very political novel.

It’s a really interesting world the author created, but the story itself is lacklustre. While I wasn’t bored, the novel is very short and focused primarily around Thane. The characters are defined, in that they act according to how they are drawn, but I wanted more from all of them. There is a scholar there studying the Hoorka but he doesn’t get a backstory. There is a non-Hoorka assassin at one point whom we get no info on. Thane is well-done – you understand his motivations and problems, but everyone else exists around him. The women in this novel are treated fantastically, in that they have bearing on the plot and feel realistic, but, like everyone in the novel, I wanted more of them. I did learn that this is part of a trilogy, so perhaps I just need to find the other two!
The Hoorka and their murdering doesn’t make sense to me though – why are they allowed to do this? Are they outside the law? It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s not explained.

I liked the writing despite it being excessively flowery.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I likely won’t read it again.

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[Apocryphal Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty decent first novel from Stephen Leigh, an SF author I hadn't heard of or read before. This is the first in a trilogy, but it stands alone as a self contained story. It's fairly tightly plotted. The prose was enjoyable, not literary but good for storytelling. The setting is a distant planet inside a federation of planets. The setting is only lightly described, basically just enough to serve the story.

The plot centres around an Assassin's guild, the Hoorka, which exists only on this planet but would like to expand into the federation. Federation representatives are watching and evaluating the guild, which professes certain ethical practices which they claim keeps them non-personal. One branch of the plot involves them trying to prove themselves, another branch deals with their relationship with the local government, and a third branch tackles their internal politics. It feels like a much bigger book than it is, and I thought Leigh handled that quite well.

Looking forward to reading the others (though I have to find them first!).

[Seth Tomko · Rating 2 out of 5]

My full video review of Slow Fall to Dawn can be found here: https://youtu.be/7rp94lz5VEw?si=sLO6W...

[Scott Holstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow Fall To Dawn is the first book in a trilogy by Stephen Leigh and this is his first novel. It has an interesting premise, bordering more on fantasy than sci fi. The Hoorka, a guild of skilled assassins, maintain their existence in the wild society of Neweden through strict obedience to a stringent code of neutrality – Kill only when hired. Reveal your client only if successful. If the victim survives until dawn, he goes free. Why this is the code and what makes it so important, other than to simply separate them from regular murderers, is never made known. The man who created the Hoorka Guild and its code is known as the Thane. Aging now, he is met with two crisis’s: a younger, stronger challenger within the guild and the fact that a victim has eluded his assassins and survived, the leader of the government’s opposition party. Since the person who took the contract out on him was the leader of Neweden, he suspects they’ve screwed him over, that they’ve joined forces with the opposition, and all of a sudden, the Thane is under assault from all sides. With another contract that MUST be kept, the Thane can abide by the guild code he created or break it in the name of expediency and survival.

Frankly, while this book was moderately interesting to me, the Thane was so unbelievably stupid, that he and the book ended up irritating the hell out of me. Everything he did was wrong. Virtually every decision he made was wrong, except for one. He was delusional. He thought he was stronger than he was. He thought he was more powerful than he was. Even as he was doing stupid things, he was telling himself via interior monologue that this was foolish, he knew he shouldn’t/couldn’t be doing this. Yet he did it anyway. It’s amazing the guild survived at all. I bought this book used for ninety cents. If I were to see the sequel at the used bookstore for, say, fifty cents, I’d probably buy it. But I don’t think this is a good enough series to invest any money in or any serious time in. It just isn’t that good. This book was published in 1981. I know this author was a creative writing professor at a university at one point. I would like to hope his own writing improved over time. The series has potential. It could still turn out to be a decent trilogy. I’m just not willing to invest much to chance that it will be. I don’t have the confidence that it will. Not recommended for most, but as it’s short, it’s a quick read, so if you can get it used, it might be interesting.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting tale. Very solid.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning story, the first of a trilogy. Brings to mind the early Dune books for me.