The Left Hand of God

A novel by Paul Hoffman and the start of a trilogy of a same name. Raised by the zealous and militant Redeemers, Thomas Cale has been subjected to a life of brutal hardships and Training from Hell. When he finally gets an opportunity to escape, he flees to the city of Memphis, where he must survive political intrigue and the rigours of a new life. However, the Redeemers are unnaturally interested in getting him back. And their purpose might spell doom for the whole world...

The books are:

1. The Left Hand of God (2010)
2. The Last Four Things (2011)
3. The Beating of His Wings (2013)

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Tropes used in The Left Hand of God include:

• Aerith and Bob: Say, Arbell and Jane, fine young ladies from the city of Memphis.
• As the Good Book Says...: The characters quote their own version of the Bible, or what they think is in it anyway. Reading the book is banned from anyone but the highest church officials on penalty of death.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: The story makes repeated points about how the Redeemers lack the capacity for original thought in all but some exceptional individuals.
• Cool Sword: The Edge. Unusually, only appears to get broken.
• Corrupt Church: The Church of the Hanged Redeemer turns out to not only to be evil but also corrupt in the high places.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Redeemers are blatantly like Christianity while obviously not the same religion, the subtlety of which analogy is perfectly captured by the fact that their object of worship is a Son of God who was hanged. The briefly touched details of their schism with the Antagonists makes it further clear that the Redeemers correspond to Roman Catholicism and the Antagonists to Protestantism. The Redeemers are also a distillation and exaggeration of everything that was ever wrong about the church. A Jesus of Nazareth is actually mentioned in the novel, but the most we hear is that someone at least thinks he played the role of Jonah in the story about being swallowed by a fish.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Hoffman throws in real world names of people and places with deliberate illogic and disregard for real-world geography. There are some direct and specific cultural parallels, but those are confused by things that do not fit. For example, the Laconics are blatantly Spartans but, among a few other things, do cavalry charges instead of phalanxes and follow a king called Jeremy Stuart-Clarke. For another example, the center of the Church of the Hanged Redeemer, with its Pope, cardinals, and Sistine Chapel, is located in Chartres, a few days of travel from the Golan Heights and very far from the Middle East. Then there are some "Jews" who sound to be in about the same situation as they would have been in the real world at a similar historical era.
• The Fundamentalist: The only approved Redeemer mindset.
• The Heretic: The Church of the Hanged Redeemer considers great many things heresies punishable by death. Other people get falsely accused because of political reasons.
• Kill All Humans: Bosco thinks God wants this because of how depraved humanity has become.
• Knight Templar: Just about every Redeemer, which is just the way they like it. Anything else would be heresy.
• Low Fantasy: So low it's not even certain there is anything fantastic in the whole book. Only a couple of things suggest it. Another thing entirely are the various coincidences that suggest that a higher power could be at work influencing the events.
• Mission from God: What the Redeemers think they are on. Also what Bosco thinks Cale is on.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: The Redeemer equivalent is being sent to the Middle East to minister to a leper colony.
• Seven Deadly Sins: The Church of the Hanged Redeemer has 28 Deadly Sins.
• Sinister Minister: The Church of the Hanged Redeemer is rife with these.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: The dead Pope turns out to have been a woman. This in a church where it is theologically unsettled whether women have souls.
• Visionary Villain: Redeemer Bosco has great plans. These involve becoming the Pope and with Cale's talents killing every human in the world.