Hooded Man: An Omnibus of Post-Apocalyptic Novels

The Afterblight Chronicles #5,8,10

by Paul Kane

When nine-tenths of the world died horrifically, Robert Stokes lost everything, including his wife and his son. The world about him gradually descended into a second Dark Age, and the former policeman retreated into the woods near Nottingham, becoming a hunter, living off the land and avoiding any form of human contact... until now.

When nine-tenths of the world died horrifically, Robert Stokes lost everything, including his wife and his son. The world about him gradually descended into a second Dark Age, and the former policeman retreated into the woods near Nottingham, becoming a hunter, living off the land and avoiding any form of human contact... until now. A new foreign despot, De Falaise, has looked on England and found it ripe for conquest. He leads an army of mercenaries through the Channel Tunnel and works his way up the country, pillaging as he goes. When De Falaise arrives at Nottingham and sets up his new dominion, Robert finds himself drawn reluctantly into the resistance, and assumes the mantle of the famous legend of Robin Hood, in a guerrilla war that will take him and his followers to the limits of endurance and beyond. This omnibus collects the novels Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland. This standalone omnibus is taken from The Afterblight Chronicles series. Other volumes include School's Out Forever by Scott K. Andrews and The Afterblight Chronciles: America by Simon Spurrier, Rebecca Levene and Al Ewing.

Genres: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Fiction

ebook

First published June 10, 2013

About the author

Paul Kane has been writing professionally for almost fifteen years. His genre journalism has appeared in such magazines as Fangoria, SFX and Rue Morgue, and his non-fiction books are the critically acclaimed The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic (as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 2), and has been collected in Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Peripheral Visions, Shadow Writer, The Butterfly Man and Other Stories, The Spaces Between and GHOSTS. His novella Signs of Life reached the shortlist of the British Fantasy Awards 2006, The Lazarus Condition was introduced by Mick Garris - creator of Masters of Horror - RED featured artwork from Dave (The Graveyard Book) McKean and Pain Cages was introduced by Stephen Volk (The Awakening).

As Special Publications Editor of the British Fantasy Society he worked with authors like Brian Aldiss, Ramsey Campbell, Muriel Gray and Robert Silverberg, he is the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts for Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster), an anthology of original stories inspired by Clive Barker's mythos - featuring contributions from the likes of Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola, Kelley Armstrong and Richard Christian Matheson - The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Constable & Robinson) - featuring Stephen King, James Herbert and Robert Bloch - and the Poe-inspired Beyond Rue Morgue (for Titan).

In 2008 his zombie story 'Dead Time' was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC TV series Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). He also scripted The Opportunity which premiered at Cannes in 2009, The Weeping Woman - starring Fright Night's Stephen Jeffreys - and Wind Chimes (directed by Brad '7th Dimension' Watson. He is the author of the novels Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland), a post-apocalyptic reworking of the Robin Hood mythology gathered together as the sell-out Hooded Man omnibus. His latest novels are Lunar (which is set to be turned into a feature film) and the short Y.A. book The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane). He currently lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife - the author Marie O'Regan - his family, and a black cat called Mina. You can find out more at his website www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, John Connolly and Guillermo del Toro.

Reviews

[Lanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hooray! I'm so excited, this is my first fictional Robin Hood book review in a while! :D time to return to my most favorites legendary character ever! So! "hooded man"! what to say? It's Robin Hood. In the future. Like the back of the book says "after the world dies, the legend is reborn."

It's Robin Hood with machine guns and bombs and helicopters and fighter planes. lots of gunfire and explosions. crazy cultists and crazier trauma victims. Our author get's extra points for the creativeness of the whole story. I've only read one other Hood books so far that didn't take place way back in the dark ages: "The Sherwood Game." and that was a kids' book compared to this.

so after a terrible virus kills most of the world's population, a bunch of messed up crazy people keep popping up all over the British Isles and the rest of Europe, even Russian. and there is but one person fated to stop them and return order to the world: Robert Stokes . . . . . .the Hooded Man, Robin Hood reborn!

Poor guy. he lost his family, just wanted to be left alone in Sherwood to die. but the damned universe just loves messing with people, doesn't it? and he gets sucked into fighting against the madmen and women who want to take over the world.

"Hooded Man" was full of plenty of action and some interesting characters. I think the one draw back was the author had a bit of trouble with the bad guys. he didn't characterize them or develop them so well. I liked the first baddie, the self appointed Sheriff of Nottingham, De Falaise, and the Dragon the best. De Falaise had a total William the Conqueror feel to him and I loved it. And the Dragon fellow? he was just sad. I felt kinda sorry for him. but not sorry enough to fee bad when he was defeated.

(and that is not a spoiler, by the way, it's a hood book, it's sort of required that they have to stop the crazies.)

but really, all the bad guys were pretty much these cookie cutter bad guys. and I just cant buy that only these people who had fucked up childhoods could rise to power and create their own little city-states. it would've been much more interesting to see a normal person trying to make the post apocalyptic world a little better than having the power go to their head, or have some horrible thing happen to their loved one and they get hellbent on revenge. that'd have been cooler.

but I'm not really complaining here. just stating facts. the main thing about the story is that the reader enjoyed it, right? and I DID enjoy it. :) very orginal.

and my most favorite part? picking out which characters were the future version of my beloved legendary outlaws. (please note, that this might not be accurate. it's just my guesswork, but I'm pretty confident it's right.)

Robert = Robin Hood
Mary = Maid Marian,
Mark = Much the Miller's son
Jack = Little John
Bill = Will Scarlet
Rev.Tate = Friar Tuck
Dale = Allan A Dale the wandering minstrel
Sain = Ellen Allan's lover
De Falaise = the Sheriff of Nottingham
The Widow= Mother maudlin, the Witch of Paplewick
Tanek = Sir Guy of Gisbounre, the Sheriff's henchmen

A good read, and a good choice for Hoodies and anyone who's a fan of dystopian novels.

[Alixendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far on my list of the greatest SciFi ever written!!! I absolutely loved the way Paul Kane twisted and recreated the legend of Robin Hood. Now that I'm done I may just re-read it all over again!
Better yet, I hope they make this into a movie trilogy! THAT would be epic (if they did it right)!!!!!!!! o.O

[Barrie Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable post apocalyptic romp of a pacing reminiscent of RE Howard and filled with similarly larger than life characters. Makes me want to get my own bow and arrow!

[Richard Willsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a gift, and I wasn’t really impressed. But it’s not really my preferred genre. It is was well written. But I hate to say, it’s really just another thin rehash of the Robin Hood story that we’ve seen 100 times. Meh...

[Jessica Horne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. It's three books in one and my review is for the first book. I will eventually finish the other two.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was very interesting from the beginning

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fun books

[Nathan Woll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 1 was ok but not compelling enough for me to read the rest.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arrowhead review:

If you could take the apocalypse, and infuse it with Robin Hood, Kane's novel is what you'd get. I was initially drawn to this omnibus because of not only the post-apocalyptic novel, but because of the fantastical elements that drive the story. This isn't just a PA novel. This is a PA novel that reverts to a medieval society. So much of what I wanted from my own novel stemmed from the premise that after a world ending event, mankind would be unable to sustain its technological prowess and resort to more medieval lifestyles. The fact that this revolves around, or mirrors Robin Hood is probably what forced this change. I suppose I hope in my own writing that I can create a medieval-post-apocalyptic society that is believable yet busy and still vivid. I'm interested in seeing Robert's next adventure. I know there are a few untied strands that may or may not play a role in the second and third installment, but either way, I'm looking forward to them. 4/5

Broken Arrow review:

I don't know if I'd say that I liked Broken Arrow more than Arrowhead. On one hand, it went on it's own direction with the Post-ap story, but on the other, it shared much of its focus (and there was not much to begin with... there cannot be in such a small book) with so many other main characters. It no longer just follows Robbie. It's one conflict/plot arc that happens to be dependent on Robbie, but it's not just his story. We see chapters from nearly any character that could be considered a major character. I'm not certain if this is a detraction, but I felt it worth noting. As this middle novel in the trilogy went off its own way (retreating to the Robin Hood story for namesake and reference alone) I did feel the story to be more enjoyable the second time around. It was less of a post-ap-retelling, and more of a new story. If I had one major criticism, it was of the frequent overuse of dreams (and their similarities). If you read one dream, you've likely read them all and can predict the next one with glaring accuracy. Granted it wasn't so bad that I ever wanted to skip over the sections, and I'm sure others found their frequency fine, but I just wanted to pen that thought. Looking forward to the concluding novel in this trilogy... To see how Kane ties up his loose ends. 4/5

Arrowland review:

Okay, so Arrowland took what I found intriguing (I call it thusly only because I was unsure as to whether I saw it as positive or negative) about Broken Arrow and expanded it. We see so little of Robert in his concluding tale. His was only one of four major plot paths. Despite its lack of following him around, I think the cast of characters is strong enough to make up for deviating from his path. We got to see so much from Dale, Jack, even Tate; more than in its two predecessors. And despite the seemingly copy and paste of dictatorial foes, I still think this brought something of value to the table. Additionally, I'm liking more and more the dabblings into of magic and the world beyond the senses. I think that if Kane ever expands his Hooded Man world, the magic will play a defining role in any conflicts. And it's not that he'd have to fish for a plot considering the potential villain who assumed control towards the end. And the motive is there. 4/5

Overall thoughts: There is too much reliance and dependence on dream for my tastes. Yes, they are my tastes, but I still felt the need to mention them. The dreams (thus far in: book 2) are almost always the same. I could've done without one or two of each of the copies. The only other mark I see against this trilogy is the scarce, yet still visible, presence of typographical errors. I think I spotted three in the third leg alone and another pair (if memory serves) in the middle novel. They're not such a detriment to worse the overall mark that I give this Omnibus, but it should still be noted.

Overall, I got what I anticipated. I wanted to see how another author tackled the pairing of: post-apocalypse, and medieval society. I learned quite a bit from it, despite the glaring differences between my own manuscript and Kane's. Even so, I got sucked into his tale and would certainly be on the lookout should Kane ever decide to don the hood again. Series rating: 4.5/5 (yes I know that is higher than the average 4, but I cannot help but rate the series higher for being of epic concept).

[Ben Mariner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is technically three books wrapped into one, and since I have so many other books to read, I'll be reading/reviewing one book at a time.

Arrowhead

This was a great reimagining of the Robin Hood legend. Set in a world ravaged by a mysterious plague that essentially kills you by making you vomit your guts out, the first book starts off with a very somber, gruesome few pages. The death of Robert's wife and child is bad, but the worst part was his dog being burned alive. Freaking depressing. It was really fun to see Robert go from recluse to savior of the people, and see his skills develope and get put to good use. There's some great action and a lot of intersting characters that keep the narrative moving at a decent pace. There were definitely some editing issues along the way, but nothing too obvious or horrible. And I'll never understand why the British spell things differently than us when we both technically speak the same language. Anyway, this was a fun read, but it wasn't really anything you should rush out an read. Good for when you can't think of what else to go to next. You probably won't be disappointed....Is that a compliment?

Broken Arrow

Alright, finally got around to reading/reviewing the second book int he Hooded Man trilogy. So the legend of the Hooded Man has grown since we last visted him in Sherwood Forest. Now he's holed up in Nottinghamn Castle as the ranks of his Rangers have grown substantially. Robert and his men now find himself up against a cult of Satanists as well as a Russian army led by a dictator know as the Czar who has Tanek (yes, he's still alive and still a bastard) whispering in his ear. I really like this second installment. Bigger battles which only served to turn Robert into a total badass. I, of course, refer to the part where he takes down an attack helicopter with a slighly bigger bolas and his trusty bow and arrow. The only thing I didn't like about this book was that it lacked the depth that it was hinting at. There was a lot of things going on right on the surface, but I felt like they never fully dipped below to get into the nitty gritty. It just kind of left me wanting more. Overall, it was a really good read with some excellent action and plot twists. In the end, however, it was still missing that little something to make it from pretty good to fantastic.

Arrowland

The final installment in the trilogy. So much happened so fast in this book, I felt like Kane had trouble keeping it all in line. It was too jumbled. Too many enemies from too many different angles with too few pages to make it all work. It wasn't awful, and most of it was pretty entertaining. It was just too much too quickly. The story dove right in with almost no set up whatsoever. I realize that, since it's the third book, there isn't a lot of set up needed, but still. I felt like it started in the middle of a book and went to the end, instead of starting at the beginning. Again, it wasn't awful, and it tied up some loose ends nicely, but overall it wasn't out of this world.

So, the trilogy overall? It was ok. I felt like Robert and Jack were the only two characters that actually had last names, and only Roberts was ever mention with semi-regularity. I felt like Kane was trying to make his characters (villains especially) more memorable than they really were by giving them cool sounding names like Shadow and Widow instead of giving them a real back story that made you actually think they were insane or memorable. I was just happy when each one of them was killed off so I could stop having to read De Falaise or Tsar or what have you. I think, in general, this would have been much better as one long story that kind of tied everything together (minus some things, obviously) instead of making it three short books that just fell a little short of being great.

[Eddie Jong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robin Hood revisited.

I would be too scared to revamp a classic tale into something modern.

Paul Kane has not only done it, but in my view, he has pulled it off.

One would think that the story would become predictable as it is based on a well-known tale, but this it not the case.

Plenty of twists and turns and unexpected action scenes kept me turning the pages, wanting to know what will happen next.

I bought the Omnibus edition and thoroughly enjoyed the first book. I could however not really get into the second one and stopped about a third of the way through. I might grab it again at some stage in the future, but I doubt it...

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting marriage of the Robin Hood legend and a post-apocalyptic tale. I think, like Eric Flint's 1632, the first novel was pretty decent. The middle novel fell off for me, while the third, which added that supernatural element back in with the arrival of the native American, was pretty decent. The major downfall was the battles after the first novel seemed exceptionally 1-sided in favor of the good guys. I got the bows and arrows against guns and jeeps and stuff in the first ... but battling attack helicopters and tanks? That stretched things a bit too much for me. If it had been kept simple, as in the first novel, I think things would have hung together quite nicely.

[Tom Gent · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book was amazing, I blitzed it in a day, but the second and third became ridiculously boring and repetitive. The first enemy, DeFalaise, was a classic bad guy with a modern twist, he slotted right into his place in the storyline and he made it worth reading. However, the protagonist, Robert Stokes, is an over dramatised and over written character with no resemblance to the man he used to be. In the second book, I already guessed the storyline of Tanek, that's all I will say so as to not spoil it, but it was the most obvious plot in literary history. That's when I put the book down, I'm afraid to say I didn't even read book 3 and I don't regret it.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting modernization of the Robin Hood myth set in a post apocalyptic dystopian version of England. There are three books included in this collection, the first one was quite good but books two and three are basically rehashes of the first and are fairly derivative. I found myself skipping entire chapters in the third book because I didn't care about the side characters.
Apparently these books are part of a larger shared universe, which may warrant exploring as the concept is interesting enough.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Omnibus is the first three of the Hooded Man series. It is a series within a series of Post-Apocalptic novels. The Hooded Man section takes place in England and is a retelling of the Robin Hood legend...or maybe a better way to describe it is a version of history repeating itself. Our main character finds himself reliving the story of Robin Hood and living up to his predecessor's legend. He protects first the people of Nottingham Shire and eventually branches out into helping restore order in the chaos that his now England.

[Kevincb · Rating 2 out of 5]

First book was ok. The 2nd and 3rd books were so bad as to be almost unreadable. The villains became so insanely evil as to become ludicrous caricatures of "EVIL". The authors descriptions of fights makes it obvious that his knowledge of fighting, and tactics, and what is even physically possible, is based entirely ( I suspect) on bad hollywood or hong kong B grade action flicks. This is not sci-fi. It's fantasy.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A re imagining of the Robin Hood legend in a post-apocalyptic world. A light read with few new ideas and written at a very elementary level more Michael Bay than Ingmar Bergman as it was. That being said, it was engaging and enjoyable and worth the minimal effort in reading. A light snack more than a main course but sometimes that all you need.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of it was good, but in my opinion it was ok.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great integration of Robin Hood mythology and apocalyptic literature. However, the last installment went in an unexpected and not entirely well incorporated direction.

[Jonathan LaRue · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing book so far

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but tends to drag.

[Thomas Pattinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool. Kinda like having the Hunger Games during a zombie apocalypse, only with extras from the set of King Arthur & a World War II movie rampaging periodically through the background.

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had its moments.

[Karen Chong · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on Robin Hood.