Simon Richard Green is a British science fiction and fantasy-author. He holds a degree in Modern English and American Literature from the University of Leicester. His first publication was in 1979.
His Deathstalker series is partly a parody of the usual space-opera of the 1950s, told with sovereign disregard of the rules of probability, while being at the same time extremely bloodthirsty.
But in this case, the only thing that did not please me about "Beyond the Blue Moon" was that it ended. I've heard a lot of praise for "Blue moon Rising", the prequel to the Hawk and Fisher series, but I came upon that book only shortly before "Beyond the Blue Moon". My Hawk and Fisher were in Haven and this seemed like a truly worthy send up of the two dealiest individuals in fantasy writing. My only regret is that Green isn't filling in a few more blanks in the lives of Hawk and Fisher in Haven. I honestly can't get enough of them.
Every time we meet a new character, there are 20 pages of exposition about what happened to that character since "Blue Moon." Exposition central. . .
If you want to find out what happened to EVERY character since Blue Moon, this is good. If you want a Hawk and Fisher adventure, you can skip half this book.
This was a breezy read despite the length, but that comes down to Green's usual strengths at character writing. There is also something to be said about how this book is pretty much two books in one with how it less-than-seamlessly transitions the plot to the "main" plot. We get a conclusion to the Hawk and Fisher Saga, which I didn't love but enjoyed well enough for what it was, and we return to the Forest Kingdom in full for the first time since the first book.
The best part for me was the first portion, in which we have some fun with worker's rights by way of zombie scab labor. As the conclusion to the Hawk & Fisher series, pretty much every loose end worth remembering is tied up in a neat little bow, and it's great! So good in fact, that I thought this book would end up being my favorite from the expanded Saga.
No such luck. Instead, we get serviced to the first of many rough 30 page exposition dump catching up Hawk and Fisher to everything that has happened since their departure. This is levied along by the comic-relief talking dog, who I'm guessing was created to serve as a fill-in for Breeze the urinating unicorn from the first book. He sucks and I did not like him. Breeze didn't work all the time for me either but that idiot had some genuine pathos and motivation despite it all that really worked in the end. This stupid dog ran his bit into the ground by the end of this and just keeps going for the rest of the book.
I also would like to take a moment to talk about Hawk and Fisher. I guessed the "twist" with them early on in their own series, but whereas Rupert and Julia were chaotic and fun, the older jaded cops they've become (via possible retconning) never really worked for me and just left them feeling flat and uninteresting throughout this book. The anti-magic axe that Hawk has with him was already starting to prove a bit overpowered in their own series--off-set by the fact that they were solving mysteries more than anything else--but here it proves to be the solution to every single problem they encounter. Despite the fact that they are married and the phrase "Their legendary love" slapped into every mildly soppy scene involving their relationship, they felt more like co-workers in Hawk and Fisher and here.
Still, if this book fully embraced this jaded-cops-turned-reluctant-royalty angle, I think I would have still enjoyed it.
Too bad the plot just devolves into a grappling with Christian beliefs dialogue, and even Hawk and Fisher take a back seat to THE WALKING MAN. THE WALKING MAN is the coolest, most awesomest christian EVER, he is immortal and he punishes sinners so hard there is NOTHING left, and magic doesn't work on him, and he is so religious and so christian and he is god's chosen on this earth and WOW does it suck. The Walking Man is a Christian Gary Stu shoved right into the plot in a series that didn't even have a hint of real-world religion until Hawk made a one-off comment about it a few books into their series. On paper, I think the Walking Man could be a really interesting narrative device...in a different series. He would even have been a viable suspect for The God Killer in the Hawk and Fisher series, but no, he's here, and this is his book now.
He's tragic, he's sad, but by God, he is here to lay some smackdown! Did I mention the Forest Kingdom randomly spawned an evil satanic inverted cathedral in the middle of it? The ham-fisted Christian allegory packs the pig into your mouth with every page until the end. You get "answers" to the wider lore, but you can probably guess every single reveal rather quick. There is an entire sequence with the most evilest heretic demon guy ever in which Green just roleplays his own version of Lucifer tempting Jesus. It is all really rather rote and uninteresting, and the answers to the many mysteries of the Forest Castle are given answers when the mysteries were much more interesting by themself.
Don't worry, the talking dog is providing active commentary to all of this throughout. It ends how you would expect. This is what happens when the author is concerned that the subtext is too subtle and decides to make an entire book explaining and retconning events that taint the original unique charm of the series that came before. The whole book feels like a fourth grader came home from Sunday school and thought it would be a great idea to try and convert his music class in the middle of "Hot Crust Buns."
It's a wonder then, that this book is the highest rated of the saga. High Fantasy Christian Allegory is nothing new, and sometimes it can be really enjoyable! See The Dragonbone Chair and the rest of the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series if you want to see it done right.
This is not that, however. Forest Kingdom Saga had something of a horror-fantasy identity, or more broadly a genre-smashing mixture of themes and ideas that came together in a way much more interesting than the sum of its parts. I found the end result of Beyond the Blue Moon as an ultimately conflicted story, but one I think is worth experiencing for those invested into the 11 book series like myself.
So as the second-worst book, it wraps the series up in a way I didn't personally like, but ultimately still appreciated my time with. While the ending was awful to me, I enjoyed the usual politicking and magic weirdness involving the Magus and his fairy friend quite a bit. There is much to be said of repetitive dialogue with Green, but I also found his prose eminently readable. A dissapointing end, but at least everyone got their ending. At the time of completion, I thought that Beyond the Blue Moon was a collection of Green's worst impulses as a writer, and would easily be the worst in the series...until I read its legacy sequel Once in a Blue Moon. I beg of thee, end your journey now! Let Beyond be the end! Lest you share my fate...
Prince Rupert and Princess Julia left their Forest Kingdom before Rupert's older brother could kill them to ensure the faction that preferred Rupert as King would not have a figurehead to start a civil war. They have worked 10 years in Haven and are Captains of the Haven Guards. However, Harold has been murdered and his widow has sent a messenger requesting they find the murderer and ensure justice is done. They decide to go back as Hawk and Fisher, working as purported agents of the legendary Prince and Princess. Soon, they are knee deep in suspects and people trying to kill them. Meanwhile, the inverted Cathedral has returned and the witches have prophesized that this means a return of the Blue Moon and a tide of new evil unleashed on the Forest Lands.
"Simon Green is an author I really enjoy, but I recommend not reading all his books at once. Green does what he does very well, but he seldom strays outside of those bounds. After a while, all his books start to sound the same...Which is not to say they aren't good, but it's easy to get too much of a good thing with Green.[return][return]Beyond the Blue Moon is a great example of this - once again Green is tying up plots and themes of multiple works and having them all come together. This book is a nice ending to both the Blue Moon books and the Hawk and Fisher books, but there is little here that is new. I still recommmend Green and this book, just not all at one go."
I've been a fan of the Eddie Drood books by Simon R. Green for several years but never read the Hawk and Fisher series. This was quite good even though I read the 7th book first. Now I'm going back to read the 1st book.
Worthy end of a long series. We finally find out the secret behind the castle and the problems on beginning of the series. Well written, worth reading, I just enjoyed the first volume much more.
Possibly a little higher than a 4 - not quite as high as God Killer / Bones of Haven for me, but still pretty strong book. (As an aside, I tried rereading Blue Moon Rising but just couldn't, I think Harald is just too dislikeable a character for me to be able to easily read that one again, even if sets the stage for a lot of later events). I really liked the idea of the Inverted Cathedral and Reverie, were both really well presented as something Other and strange and horrific, making all the passages there quite tense reading. Overall story is an interesting one, with a bit of whodunnit and also a bit of a sequel to Blue Moon Rising, with a number of characters we knew already, plus some new ones, that lead to some quite interesting and varied interactions, and Hawk and Fisher as usual are great here, the ultimate team. It just didn't quite reach the heights of emotion or tension as some of the other books, and there was one bit I still find a hard time really believing - the idea that all the characters at the end apparently knew something all along, when both internal and external dialogue really suggested that at most only a couple knew it, but felt like it was presented as true. Whereas if it had come out that they had only just recently realised it due to something, it would be a lot more understandable. Nonetheless, another enjoyable tale in this overall series.
Simon R Green returns Hawk & Fisher (Prince Rupert & Julia) to the Forest Kingdom they left after saving it in Blue Moon Rising, now in their persona as city guards (cops) to find out who killed Rupert's brother, King Harald. Really nice finish to the series and interesting to see the genre bending of returning what had started as high-ish fantasy, morphing to urban medieval-ish fiction back to high fantasy. I've enjoyed both the Blue Moon books with Hawk & Fisher (in whatever guise) more than any other of Green's work, and I do like his work generally. These seem a little less calculated than his other series. There's nothing wrong with commercial and calculated writing, it just feels these have had the fetters taken off a little. An excellent read. Worth reading the first of the Forest Kingdom books, and the other Hawk & Fisher series first.
This was a great read but totally different than every previous Hawk and Fisher novel. Based on how big the physical book was I should have known something was up. The story starts out like any other Hawk and Fisher novel, with the two guard captains dealing with issues in the scuzzy city of Haven, but after a bombshell revelation the story leaves the city and essentially goes into epic fantasy territory, which is not something I expected for our two established streetwise heroes. The story even takes on a scope that often leaves Hawk and Fisher in the background as it establishes itself and other characters develop and interact. None of this is bad - just very different from the first six short, street-level novels.
A fitting end to the Hawk & Fisher series as they end up saving the world one last time. The usual mixture of unrestrained violence and humour that they normally bring to the table.
Some of the chapters are overly long and long winded as they get given massive explanations of the movers and shakers involved and a history lesson to bring them up to speed. This may help if you haven't read other books in the series.
The characters are all well written and have their place in the story. A good book to wrap up their adventures with.
It was good. At first I thought it might be difficult since I had never read the Forest series.
I also was put off at first by all the references to Christianity which feels really weird in a fantasy book that presumably takes place in a different universe. But at least this is the one fantasy book where I actually understand the religious references. Normally I can't follow the religious stuff at all.
2.5* Schwächer als der Vorgänger und konnte mich einfach nicht richtig packen. Es gab genug Potenzial in dem Buch, um Spannung aufzubauen, aber das ging alles unter in belanglosen Gesprächen und platten Sprüchen. Als es dann am Ende spannend wurde, war bei mir einfach schon lägst die Luft raus. Ich denke, ich werde die Reihe nicht fortsetzen.
Rupert and Julia are back to save the Forest Kingdom, as their alter egos Hawk and Fisher. Really liked the glimpse of their life in Haven (as I've not read that series) but it didn't grip me quite as much as their first book did
Retour au royaume de la Forêt pour Hawk et Fisher. Pendant que la Lune Bleue revient et que le roi Harald est assassiné, Hawk remet sa vie en question. Très bon tome. J’ai adoré la double intrigue, les complots politiques, la remise en question de la royauté et de la religion.
Rounds off the Hawk & Fisher Haven sequence nicely, and explains a good bit about the background of the Forest Kingdom. There are also a couple of throwaway mentions of the name of the MC from Blood & Honour which lines up the chronology.
The final book in the "Hawk & Fisher" series concludes "The Forest Kingdom" saga as well and does it with style. Hawk and Fisher, city guards in the corrupt city of Haven are finally revealed to be prince Rupert and princess Julia from "Blue Moon Rising", the heroes of the long night, the people, who defeated the Demon Prince and his ghastly minions. Now they are summoned again, as the skies above the Forest Kingdom darken again. King Harald is killed, slayed by an unknown assassins and Hawk and Fisher seem to be the best people for the case. Unfortunately, the death of the king is only the tip of the iceberg. Magic-users and witches are scared as their visions show them the return of the Blue Moon and the Walking Man, Wrath of God in the world of men, is heading to the Forest Castle, in order to punish the guilty. So the battle won't be just another crime case for Hawk & Fisher. This time, Rupert and Julia will have to save the world again and the face their most horrible enemy, who plots a terrible vengeance for them... "Beyond the Blue Moon" is a superb fantasy novel, full of mystery, magic and mayhem. The story in unpredictable, the characters - strong and interesting and the action endless. Simon R. Green is one of the best fantasy authors there and this book is another proof of that.
Simon Green doesn't always do endings well, but this one was outstanding - up there with the end of the Nightside series. Technically, the Hawk & Fisher series ended with the Bones of Haven; Beyond the Blue Moon takes them back to the Forest Kingdom, and Green moves from urban fantasy back to something more like high fantasy. And he does it well - the novel has a great cast of characters, and Hawk and Fisher are ... Hawk and Fisher. It was fun to see them in this world (I haven't read the first Forest Kingdom book yet, where it all begins); it was also good to see that their characters remain true to themselves in a whole different world. The ending was also quite powerful, and Green is playing with interesting and complex philosophical questions here, much the way he does in the Nightside. Sure, the book has its characteristic Green weaknesses (passages repeated wholesale book to book, etc.), but overall, this is my favorite Hawk and Fisher so far. Exceptionally satisfying.
I was so excited to read about the return of Julia and Rupert and even more excited to learn that they were the hardy characters known as Hawk and Fisher (I had a secret suspicion)! Truth be told, I did not like this novel as much as I thought I would. What I really enjoyed in the first novel was the mix of humor and seriousness. It was an excellent mix of satire and epic fantasy. This novel I thought was too heavily mixed in magic and cynicism; it missed the things I loved about Blue Moon Rising. I wanted to love it, but only find myself liking it.
Good for a fan of Green or Hawk and Fisher, but not a novel I would start with.
This was a very good conclusion to Hawk and Fisher's saga in Haven.
Spoilers ahead
although I didn't personally liked their brutal goodbye party, they made their mark on Haven pretty much the only way it could have worked. I love the concepts that Green uses in his books. Pocket dimensions, gods, wild magic, high magic, transient beings... . I just love these ideas. This time, it was the Inverted Cathedral that was the main supernatural place. It was great. I wouldn't mind if they spend another 100 pages inside Inverted Cathedral. Too bad it seems Hawk & Fisher stories would end by the next book. I hope Green's other series would be like Nightside and Hawk and Fisher.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I wish Goodreads had a half-star system, because this is technically four and a half stars for me, but I have to round it up to 5 because 4 stars is too low.
My favorite thing about this book is the characters. They're so real and interesting. Usually this kind of fantasy world is not my thing - it's a little dark and somewhat less magical in some ways than my preference - but the characters I absolutely love, so I was happy to read it.
I read this once in high school and once in college, before ever reading the others, and I have to say, this book is so good it can even stand on its own, without any of the books before it.
c2000. I should have known to steer clear of this one as SFX reviewed as "A skilful pulp fiction writer". Ugh. One of the ones I have to admit that I just did not manage to finish. Started off well enough and then the writing just became, well, too deliberate - I don't know how else to describe it. Will stay away from this author. Not recommended at all. "You could find anything at all in Haven, if you were willing to pay the price that was sometimes gold and sometimes, lives, but nearly always, eventually, your soul."