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Chronicles of Hawklan #3
The Waking of Orthlund
The third book in the thrilling epic fantasy "The Chronicles of Hawklan" 177000 words.
Fyorlund has fallen. The City of Vakloss has felt the terrifying Power that lies behind the evil Lord Dan-Tor and King Rgoric lies dead, murdered by Dan-Tor who is now master of Fyorlund and ready to unleash the Dark Lord Sumeral's dread power over all the lands.
Yet Dan-Tor has been grievously wounded by Hawklan's arrow, and, against impossible odds, not all hope has been swallowed by the Darkness. Sylvriss, Rgoric's Queen, has escaped the blighted City to rally the Lords in Exile. In peaceful Orthlund the arts of war are painfully relearned. In the East, ancient foes of Sumeral are at last remembering their vows.
All look to the healer Hawklan for leadership. But he has lain in a coma since his confrontation with Dan-Tor, walking in a world from which none can call him back.
And in the mountains an ancient race stirs, but its allegiance is as yet unknown...
Fyorlund has fallen. The City of Vakloss has felt the terrifying Power that lies behind the evil Lord Dan-Tor and King Rgoric lies dead, murdered by Dan-Tor who is now master of Fyorlund and ready to unleash the Dark Lord Sumeral's dread power over all the lands.
Yet Dan-Tor has been grievously wounded by Hawklan's arrow, and, against impossible odds, not all hope has been swallowed by the Darkness. Sylvriss, Rgoric's Queen, has escaped the blighted City to rally the Lords in Exile. In peaceful Orthlund the arts of war are painfully relearned. In the East, ancient foes of Sumeral are at last remembering their vows.
All look to the healer Hawklan for leadership. But he has lain in a coma since his confrontation with Dan-Tor, walking in a world from which none can call him back.
And in the mountains an ancient race stirs, but its allegiance is as yet unknown...
498 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1989
6 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Roger Taylor
16 books22 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Roger Taylor was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, instructor/student in aikido, and an enthusiastic and loud but bone-jarringly inaccurate piano player.
He wrote four books between 1983 and 1986 and built up a handsome rejection file before the third was accepted by Headline to become the first two books of the Chronicles of Hawklan.
Roger Taylor was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, instructor/student in aikido, and an enthusiastic and loud but bone-jarringly inaccurate piano player.
He wrote four books between 1983 and 1986 and built up a handsome rejection file before the third was accepted by Headline to become the first two books of the Chronicles of Hawklan.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 15, 2026
Another great read, I'm really enjoying how all these moving parts are starting to cross over one another and influence each other. The authors habit to set up a "guess who just walked in" is one of my favourites and made me smile on a few occasions.
I like to follow along with Hawklan and the mystery that is him as well as Gavor, and this book understandably doesn't focus too much on him as he's in a magical coma for the first half and really isn't present in the second half at all. Thankfully the other characters are interesting and engaging.
Two things held this book back for me though. Firstly, it's far too padded. The whole encounter with the Alphraan goes on WAY too long. It's back and forth, thinking, meetings, thinking about meetings, more meetings (the Alphraan are hypocrites btw) . Secondly, the author really needs a better editor, there's blatant errors and clunkily worded sentences all over the place. Likewise -esp towards the end- there's vast walls of text with a lot of talking and not much being said.
You may have noticed that I still gave this book a 4/5 even though I mention these two things that bothered me, well, they weren't enough of a bother for me to deny that this book was great. Continues to be an underrated classic example of Fantasy. If you like the epic/high styles, you'll like these books.
The Orthlund people give me Two River's peoples (WoT) vibes. Go fight those trollocs to defend your people!
I like to follow along with Hawklan and the mystery that is him as well as Gavor, and this book understandably doesn't focus too much on him as he's in a magical coma for the first half and really isn't present in the second half at all. Thankfully the other characters are interesting and engaging.
Two things held this book back for me though. Firstly, it's far too padded. The whole encounter with the Alphraan goes on WAY too long. It's back and forth, thinking, meetings, thinking about meetings, more meetings (the Alphraan are hypocrites btw) . Secondly, the author really needs a better editor, there's blatant errors and clunkily worded sentences all over the place. Likewise -esp towards the end- there's vast walls of text with a lot of talking and not much being said.
You may have noticed that I still gave this book a 4/5 even though I mention these two things that bothered me, well, they weren't enough of a bother for me to deny that this book was great. Continues to be an underrated classic example of Fantasy. If you like the epic/high styles, you'll like these books.
The Orthlund people give me Two River's peoples (WoT) vibes. Go fight those trollocs to defend your people!
August 24, 2019
Just okay. The story is coming together and the author has some decent ideas. But overall, I feel the books would do better if they had a better editor. The dialogue through out the books really needs a lot of improvement.
May 18, 2020
A lot of meandering before a rather swift conclusion. However, the story still flows mostly nice.
Looking forward to book 4
Looking forward to book 4
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews