Of Battles Past

Amgalant #1.1

by Bryn Hammond

Hoelun was never ashamed or embarrassed by their hardships. When Jochi wore a dog’s pelt for a cloak, because they had no fleeces and no felt and had to trade for hides and dog was cheap, none of the children felt a sense of indignity. Indignity was alien to her.

The Mongols are a people of orphans. A disastrous battle with China has left wives without husbands, children without fathers. Temujin is one of these children, impoverished by the heavy tribute China has punished them with, in danger of forgetting what a Mongol stands for. Worse, Temujin's the subject of a prophecy: that he is to fight that terrible battle over again, except this time with victory.

Temujin doesn't believe in prophecies – not when they have to do with him. He's only an ordinary Mongol. But ordinary Mongols have to step up these days, or give in to a grim future. What young Temujin does believe in is his people. While there are Mongols to remember the past there is hope.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical

298 pages, ebook

First published September 8, 2012

About the author

Bryn Hammond lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. She grew up on ancient and medieval epics, the Arthur cycle original and modern, nineteenth-century novelists, particularly Russian and French, and out-of-fashion poets, namely Algernon Swinburne.

Always a writer – to the neglect of other paths in life that might have been more sensible – she found the perfect story in The Secret History of the Mongols, a thirteenth-century prose and verse account of Chinggis Khan. Her Amgalant series is a version and interpretation of this original. Voices from the Twelfth-Century Steppe is her craft essay, a case study of creative engagement with a primary source.

Other work in The Knot Wound Round Your Finger (Bell Press), Ergot., Queer Weird West Tales (LIBRAtiger), New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine.

Reviews

[Richard Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Of Battles Past' is the first part of Bryn Hammond's long epic about the life of Genghis Khan, and the associated rise to supremacy of the Mongols. This book traces events from before his birth to the point where he is leaving youth behind. It is a long book, and since it is only the first in a series, there is a sense of embarking on a very long journey. I really liked the sense of expansive space to explore the theme, and it faithfully mirrored something of the steppes themselves. Perhaps, though, some readers might become impatient once the typical modern story length has been exceeded.

I have to confess to mixed feelings about this book. Regardless of that, I would recommend it to others to read, and I do feel that it has a lot going for it. Quite possibly, the things I was unsure about might well be the very ones that others enjoy.

First, the things I very much appreciated. First and foremost, I liked Bryn's choice of subject matter. It was great to come across a rather unusual place and time for a work of historical fiction, and I was fascinated by the opportunity to delve into a world about which I knew very little beforehand. The nomadic life of the steppes of Asia is brought to life, and I came away thoroughly convinced by the individuals and the society described. Temujin, Hoelun and the others became vivid and real people to me, and their choices and actions seem thoroughly consistent with the supreme freedom yet rigid constraints of the nomad. I had no problem believing the depiction of everyday life.

The extent and scope of Bryn's research, and the care she has taken over this book, are quite evident, and thoroughly engaging. I particularly liked the integration of occasional pieces of poetry, along with the (much later) explanation of how and why these were selected, and where they originally came from. Her source material has been used creatively and carefully, though never slavishly or at the cost of a clear storyline.

So what did I not like? Well, above all, the vocabulary that Bryn has chosen kept wrenching me out of the inner world of the book. She consistently keeps the same style and phrasing throughout, except for a few places where a narrator's explanation interjects. I don't mind these at all, and the occasional change of perspective fits well with the overall design of a historical epic tale. But the dominant style is laconic and casual - I was continually reminded of how elite commando units are portrayed in films, with a mix of tight discipline, bantering humour, and total trust in one another. That could well be a fair analogy with Mongols of the time. But the likeness extended to modern words - for example "guesstimate" appears quite early on. Now, I suppose that the Mongols had a word for something between guess and estimate, but the intrusion of this modern coinage threw me quite out of the story flow into my present-day location. This kept happening to me - whilst I could easily believe in the people and their society, I couldn't believe in the way they talked to each other, or were talked about. Now, others might find this just right, and prospective readers must decide for themselves. For me, it was a barrier that detracted from the work.

I would have liked a map. I am a sucker for maps in almost any situation, but I think here it would have been really helpful. Places are important in the book, in both a geographical and symbolic sense, but they are left for the reader to try to piece together. Sometimes there is a sense of huge sweeps of territory, from the Turks at one end of the region to the Chinese at the other via the Himalayas in between. But at other times the distances seem small and localised. A visual sense of the scales of movement would gave helped make sense of this.

On a purely technical note, while the editing has been carefully and thoroughly done, the Kindle navigation system is not fully implemented so navigation is not as smooth as it could be. This is no problem of what you want to do is read the book straight through, but impedes the process of going back and forth to find a particular chapter.

So all in all I was left a little unsure of 'Of Battles Past'. I am very glad to have read it, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a serious and well thought-out view into a place and time often overlooked. But there were features that, for me at least, detracted from the whole. Four stars, on balance.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose that reads thoughtfully, like Shakespeare.

A story of much psychological insight underlined by the author's unique and stylish expression. Bryn Hammond's writing is one that paints rather than tells. You get a sense of meaning from understatements and symbolisms; it befits the Mongol setting perfectly. I would probably read this book again.

I was fully immersed into the story world and understood, despite having previously savored Conn Iggulden's novels, how little I knew of Mongol culture. Bryn Hammond is intimate with this world. It shows.

There are authors that break from convention and bring new voices to the world of literature. I think Bryn Hammond is one of those. I felt as though as were discovering something new and life-changing when reading this book. The writing is highly creative with fascinating introspective passages - I could see the Dostoyevski influence on the author.

I've not cried upon reading a book since Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Marina. With Of Battles Past, I found the poisoning scene and its aftermath so well written. Given that it came after several 'bonding' passages between Temujin and his father, I felt that it functioned as an effective and powerful emotional climax. It was my favorite part of the novel and really made me feel for the character.

The deepening cleavage between Temujin and his half-brother, Bagtor, was depicted with rare insight. It was a gripping, standout passage. I loved how the author conveyed the greyness and psychological complexity of each character, and how Temujin's fate and his future historical behavior was accounted for through his past deeds.

[P.J. O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes reading teaches you something you didn’t know, in an easy way. And sometimes, it teaches you things that you didn’t know that you didn’t know in a way that gives you a great sense of accomplishment afterward.

Bryn Hammond's Of Battles Past is the first book of her series about the steppe people of the 13th century. More specifically, it’s about the parents and early life of the man most of us know as Genghis Kahn. I am very grateful to have read this book for many reasons, but not least is that it taught me how profoundly ignorant I was about a person and culture who shaped the world.

Until I read this book, if you said Genghis Khan to me, I’d remember translated snippets from Chinese and European history books, and otherwise conjure up the buffoonish character in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I don’t remember learning much about any other peoples of the steppes either, despite its prominence in geography and human history. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to define what a steppe was or to recognize it as such if I were suddenly transported to one. “It’s like the Great Plains,” I’d guess if asked to describe it, “only drier, and would maybe have yaks and sheep instead of bison. And there’d be yurts instead of tipis. Or maybe it would look like what I imagine the Australian Outback looks like (if movies have taught me anything), except without the kangaroos and wallabies and ladies waltzing.”

I’d put Of Battles Past in my To-Read list because Bryn Hammond was kind and welcoming to me, a Goodreads newbie, a couple of months ago. As I do with anyone who is kind and welcoming, I look over their profile, and if they are authors, I look at the blurbs of their books and their blog postings. And so I did with Bryn, and saw that her writing was devoted to Mongolians and the steppes. Acknowledging my ignorance and resolving to address it, I put the book in my queue and went on to other things.

It came to the top of my To-Read list just as I’d reread her very intriguing blog post on regret and self-criticism in the centuries-old manuscript that she based her books upon. I’ve always had a fascination for how people and cultures – real and imagined – evolve in their thinking about their actions, so Hammond’s very thoughtful posting made me even more excited to begin my reading.

I was ok at first, but soon my ignorance caught up with me. “Wait, who is he? How does he relate?” I kept needing to ask. I had to run to look names up (and by run, I mean that my fingers tapped out to Wikipedia) and then try to decipher the various name-spelling variations among the sources, jumping from one article to the next on the Khans, the Steppes, the various tribes, and to various maps. Then, I’d go back and try again. I honestly don’t think it would help much for Hammond to include a clickable guide to the names since it became far easier to have it all in front of me on a different device and just glance back and forth.

Over time, things got faster. I’d studied Chinese history, so just needed some refreshing and un-biasing on that. I could mentally map the Turks and recall a bit of their history. I had to keep maps in front of me of the various Mongolian tribes, clans, and families to keep track of relationships. But then came mention of the Jurchens and curiosity sent me to look them up. Ah, the maps put them in Manchuria; that made sense. Then came the Tartars, and they’re in the news even now because of the events between Russia and Ukraine in Crimea… what’s their story, then and now? For some reason, I could only conjure up vague images of weird headgear, tartar sauce, cream of tartar, tartaric acid and beef tartar. Off I went to do background reading again.

As a rule, I avoid reading other people’s reviews before embarking on an unfamiliar work. It’s a quirk I have, like not wanting to read a book that someone else has marked up with highlights, or avoiding a museum’s description of a particular work of art before I have a chance to look at it for myself. But about one third way into Of Battles Past, I needed the reassurance of other readers, so I did read some reviews. Those, along with a little more background reading and bad winter weather that forced me to stay indoors, were just what I needed. As another reviewer mentioned, there came a point when things just started clicking for me and I was able to fall into the world and stay there.

I sincerely regret some of my background reading; history doesn't come with spoiler alerts and learning about some of the events in advance took away some of the impact of the narrative I would have gotten had I not learned them from outside reading. As a literary form, Hammond's book is equally lyrical and powerful, and still manages to convey a certain realism in casual dialog among people who didn't view themselves as historical figures. I had to remind myself that the book was based on actual historical events and was not a fictional work where key dramatic points are unknown until they happen. But appreciating those key points, despite the knowledge of them, was made easier by again rereading Hammond’s blog posting on the apparent sense of regret and self-critique in the actual manuscript that her series is based upon.

By the time I’d finished the book, I had a sense of loss at leaving a place and time. I thought about its themes of honor, resentment, revenge, regret, remorse, reconciliation, identity with place and peoples, family ties, and the necessary making or breaking of alliances. I thought about the similarities of themes with other books that I’d been reading, along with contrasts in how each handled those themes. They are themes that come up again and again in human interactions, and it made me marvel at how the Mongols, a nomadic rural people, managed to build and maintain an empire for such a long time. Then I added Hammond’s next book in the series to my reading queue, bookmarked my maps, and listened to the news.

[Paddy O'callaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very well researched and scholarly, though not in any way dry, novel set in or around the time of Genghis Khan is written in a very unusual and captivating style which makes it absolutely un-put-down-able.

[C.P. Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A window onto the lives and customs of the Mongols, before and during the empire of Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan. The author has done a great deal of research, and it shows—but in the best way, the kind of research that informs the plot and characters without inundating them or stopping the story cold. She relies heavily, as she notes in the prologue, on The Secret History of the Mongols, a collection of folktales and traditions about Genghis and his ancestors and descendants written down at some time during the Middle Ages.

This reliance gives the book an epic feel, such as you might find in an ancient chronicle. Hence there is no single protagonist whose point of view we follow throughout the story, although both male and female characters are clearly portrayed and the mentality of the times, which often seems foreign to a modern mindset, comes across in all its glorious complexity.

Highly recommended for its historical accuracy and its insights into the under-studied peoples of the Eurasian steppe.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll admit I had a lot of trouble getting through the first 100 or so pages of this book, one of the few times I considered not finishing a book. The writing style was difficult to follow, drifting in and out of flashbacks, wandering off on tangents, and at times devolving into what felt like a stream of consciousness. You'd have formal literary writing, that was in keeping with a telling of an epic tale, interspersed with modern colloquialisms. I also struggled a bit with people's names and keeping the characters straight but that is not the fault of the author.

However, for whatever reason, I kept on reading, and somehow, around the time Temujin was born the book started to flow more easily for me. Was it that the writing style changed a bit? Did I just get used to it? I'm not sure, but I found myself actually starting to enjoy it, in fact I enjoyed it enough to go ahead and download the next book of the series.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, with considerable insight into her history has really attempted to bring herself into the minds of her characters. As a character study, I found this engaging, as a historical fiction, not so much. The novel flowed badly for me. Too much concentration was needed to fix me as a reader in place in the story. And strangely with so much excellent prose setting the environment, I found the inclusion of modern colloquialism very misplaced.

Yet I want to read more... This is a first book on a captivating subject... I liked it only... I hope to read the second book

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book. The author's mistakes did not bother me because the storyline was so good. The book starts with Temugin's birth and takes us to age 15 or so. Had he known he was destined for greatness, every trial he endured might have been marked as a lesson learned. I cannot see that he expected so great a future. In this book, he got engaged to Borte, his father was poisoned, his family fell off their pedestal, he killed his brother and was hunted, he made friends with a boy which forever changed him. His clan was a stickler about crime. How he eluded every entity out for his blood is something great. Most boys, I think, would have given up and died. There is so much in this book. I encourage people to read it.

Thank you, Ms. Hammond, for a good read.

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Bryn Hammond is to be commended on the first book in her Amgalant series about Tchingis Khan, a monumental undertaking not only involving obviously painstaking research into The Secret History of the Mongols, but also into other "barbarian" cultures. (Tongue-in-cheek: When some of the characters say "blimey" or "bloody hell" is Ms. Hammond including the English in the barbarian cultures? I do admit that coming across those gave me pause.)

Ms. Hammond does a wonderful job of keeping the reader geographically oriented - no small feat in such an unfamiliar territory. Her changing of character emphasis half-way through from Yesegui to Temujin (the future Tchingis) is very much a passing of the torch, smoothly done.

[Kathleen Garlock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story as sweeping and grand as the steppes upon which the Mongol forces rode; this epic tale brings to life the exuberance and the vitality of the Mongol tribes and their legendary leader, whom we in the west call Genghis Khan. Yet it is less the story of Temujin, as the young leader was first known, than of his family. Who were legendary in their own right.

The scholarship is evident in every word of this grand novel; yet it's not dry or boring in the least. There's plenty of humor and vitality on every page. Although I came to the work lacking even a basic knowledge of the Mongol people, their history and their great leader; I was swept into the story by the author's understanding and love of subject.

It was a very good read indeed.

[David Wilusz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice piece of historical fiction, loosely based on "The Secret History of the Mongols", which takes us through the origins of Temujin, the child who would become Genghis Kahn. It is well-written and contains some interesting insights into Mongol history and culture, which is not a topic one comes across every day (at least I don't). I thought it was good, but not at the level of James Michener's work, whom I consider to be a master of historical fiction. Keeping track of all the Mongol names and places - especially in the beginning - was slightly challenging.