Bryn  Hammond

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Ramblin...
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Bryn Hammond

Goodreads Author


Born
in Chavey Down, The United Kingdom
May 23, 1964

Website

Twitter

Genre

Influences
Beowulf, T.H. White, Dostoyevsky, James Tiptree Jr.

Member Since
December 2011

URL


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 F
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Popular Answered Questions

Bryn Hammond Chosen for its cuteness. No story attached I'm afraid. Except that I did want to tell the world, 'how cute is this Mongol name?'

I am a serious name f…more
Chosen for its cuteness. No story attached I'm afraid. Except that I did want to tell the world, 'how cute is this Mongol name?'

I am a serious name fan. Names are such a thing with me I flick through novels to see whether the author & I have similar ideas on what's a great name, and if we don't... I figure I mightn't like the novel either.

Temujin, Jamuqa. Toqtoa, Tarqutai. Khabul, Daritai. Ambaghai, Bultachu. There was almost no name that turned up in his story, which I didn't have a strong urge to seize upon and use. Yes, this was a significant factor in my choice of story.

Cheers for the question. (less)
Bryn Hammond Thanks for the question, Mark.
I guess the three types of research material are the scholarly history, anthropology, and the primary sources. Not in th…more
Thanks for the question, Mark.
I guess the three types of research material are the scholarly history, anthropology, and the primary sources. Not in that order: the primary sources have the most to tell, about how people at the time thought of themselves, and anthropology might even come second, for the close study of culture. Still, I am addicted to getting those history books. I put them on my ‘steppe’ shelves here when I own them. You have to own them to consult them at the dead of night. And to scribble in them, which I’m afraid must be done or I’d never keep track of what’s where. The internet is a Godsend for access to academic work when you’re not in (institutional) academia. Digital resources – yay! Open access – even better! (less)
Average rating: 4.11 · 334 ratings · 127 reviews · 21 distinct worksSimilar authors
Against Walls

4.28 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions
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Of Battles Past

3.65 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2012 — 9 editions
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Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery

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4.25 avg rating — 24 ratings2 editions
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Imaginary Kings

4.73 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions
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Voices from the Twelfth-Cen...

4.36 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2016 — 3 editions
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Me and Atrocity

4.17 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2012 — 7 editions
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When I am King

4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions
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The Sheep from the Goats

4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2012 — 6 editions
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The Last Play

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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A Visit from the Scythians:...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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the Tuq 1.1

I’ve joined an APA for sword & sorcery and adjacent genres, where we contribute a 2-page zine monthly: Scribe & Sigil, whose home site you can find here: scribe-and-sigil

I thought I’d upload the pdfs

The Tuq 1.1 is mostly a review essay on ‘Old Hands in New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine’.

Scribe-Sigil_the Tuq 1.1 _Bryn Hammond

 

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Published on April 20, 2026 23:36
Against Walls Imaginary Kings
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4.16 avg rating — 99 ratings

Black Gods and Sc...
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The Odyssey of St...
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The Last Rendezvous
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Bryn’s Recent Updates

Bryn Hammond and 98 other people liked Paul's review of South Riding:
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
"This is Winifred Holtby’s last novel and she wrote knowing of her own imminent death. It is both vast and narrow in its scope at the same time. Its length and the varied and large array of characters reminded me of Victorian novelists like Eliot and " Read more of this review »
Bryn Hammond rated a book really liked it
Heiresses of Russ 2011 by JoSelle Vanderhooft
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Ranges from the superb to the terrible (with lesbian rep strangely unsatisfactory in one or two), but for $2 these days on Smashwords, well worth your time.

The story by Esther Garber, Tanith Lee's lesbian pseud or persona, I've read previously in th
...more
A Lear of the Steppes by Ivan Turgenev
"I loved this. There is no-one like Turgenev for delivering a thought-provoking, memorable, and pungent story. And in remarkably few pages. "
Bryn Hammond rated a book really liked it
Spring Torrents by Ivan Turgenev
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I'll bracket this with *Smoke* as a later novel about love, less about the clash of ideas in the manner of his early ones. The poetics of *Smoke* worked on me more sumptuously -- I remember I forgave that novel much pessimism for its enchantment: he ...more
The Price of Salt by Claire  Morgan
"I don't have time to say anything profound about this one, but it's a great read and it has me 100% signing on to the thesis that female same-sex relationships are much greater threat to the present order than male same-sex relationships.

The novel po" Read more of this review »
Bryn Hammond rated a book it was ok
Beast In View by Margaret Millar
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Notably well-written but I tired of the mental illness as culprit and the monstrous fat lesbian after the seedy gay man; tired, tired. Made me appreciate Dorothy B. Hughes even more.
Bryn Hammond is 11% done with Beast In View: So this is well-written.
Beast In View by Margaret Millar
Beast In View
by Margaret Millar
progress: 
 
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Beast In View by Margaret Millar
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Lesbian Pulp Fiction by Katherine V. Forrest
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A reader, with extracts between 12-28 pages on my ereader, along with the back copy on the originals, and the covers.

The covers, as the editor tells us, were pitched at straight men, but of course, not-straight women were the secondary readership,
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Bryn Hammond wants to read
The Dark Side of Venus by Shirley Verel
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Quotes by Bryn Hammond  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Our children aren't here to fix our mistakes, but to have lives, lives we can't guess at.”
Bryn Hammond, Against Walls

“If I laid a wager on which was to panic first, a block of granite or Jamuqa, I'd go the granite.”
Bryn Hammond, Imaginary Kings

“In steppe epic, a steed and a sister are your trustiest, most intelligent and indefatigable aid: the hero doesn't have to be heroic, but these do.”
Bryn Hammond, Against Walls

Polls

September 2013: Featured Author Read

 
  20 votes 44.4%

 
  19 votes 42.2%

 
  6 votes 13.3%

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Topics Mentioning This Author

“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
I am human, and think nothing human alien to me.”
Terence

“No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own;
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.

--Sonnet 121”
Shakespeare

“I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”
Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“They accuse me--Me--the present writer of
The present poem--of--I know not what,--
A tendency to under-rate and scoff
At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than has been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault;
By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so--
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.”
George Gordon Byron, Don Juan

“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.”
Howard Nemerov

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Comments (showing 1-4)    post a comment »
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message 4: by Bryn

Bryn Hammond Me too you. Right back. :)


message 3: by Bryn

Bryn Hammond Steve wrote: "...have you ever heard of this?

No... not until your blog. I'll go read about it there.


message 2: by Steve

Steve Evans Hey Bryn hope all is well in your world...have you ever heard of this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-env... aka the voynich document? What do you think?


Arkadagy Saparshy Thanks for Great Steppe's list :)


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