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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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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: 4.12 · 371 ratings · 140 reviews · 23 distinct works • Similar authors
Against Walls

4.28 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions
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Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery

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4.22 avg rating — 27 ratings — 2 editions
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Of Battles Past

3.65 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2012 — 9 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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What Rough Beast?

4.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — 2 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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crowdfund: Seas Afire, Stars Adrown


SEAS AFIRE STARS ADROWN

a cosmic wonder sword & sorcery adventure

queer is a miracle—chaos is our god

from Brackenbury Books

 

 

 

 

 

 


The 3rd Goatskin novella campaigns with 3 companions

back us here
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listen to chapter one
In which a demoted sacred goat, an ex-shaman who gave up practice decades ago, and the itchy-footed Goats

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Published on September 04, 2026 20:43
Against Walls Imaginary Kings
(2 books)
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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 rated a book it was amazing
Poonachi by Perumal Murugan
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Bryn Hammond is now following Scholar's Stage (Tanner Greer)'s reviews
191351868
Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories by Leigh Brackett
"It's an absolute travesty we do not talk about Leigh Brackett in the same way we talk about Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs or Michael Moorcock. Her planetary romances/sword and sorcery style SF are some of the best in the genre. Beautifully e" Read more of this review »
Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
"This book is wildly intimate, moving, and inspiring. Told through overlapping memoirs it has beautifully realized characters that are tragic, profound, complicated, radical, and deeply human. There isn’t really a plot, so to speak, but instead an inv" Read more of this review »
Sodomy Punish'd by Leondert Hussenlosch
"A fascinating historical diary of a queer dutch sailor who was marooned on Ascension Island in the 1700s for the "Crime" of being gay/"sodomy"! I read this via an internet archive scan after hearing about it via the non fiction book "queer as folklor" Read more of this review »
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Lena and Miss Cawkwell by Julie Bozza
Lena and Miss Cawkwell
by Julie Bozza (Goodreads Author)
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The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
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Disappointed. I thought I'd start at the start and do a George Smiley read--watched those BBC series with Alec Guinness a dozen times. His first novel, *Call for the Dead*, was immediately promising, with sensitive human portraits of odd people (Smil ...more
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Call for the Dead by John le Carré
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A Murder of Quality by John le Carré
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Bryn Hammond rated a book it was ok
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
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Disappointed. I thought I'd start at the start and do a George Smiley read--watched those BBC series with Alec Guinness a dozen times. His first novel, *Call for the Dead*, was immediately promising, with sensitive human portraits of odd people (Smil ...more
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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

June 2013: FA Read

 
  49 votes 54.4%

 
  28 votes 31.1%

 
  13 votes 14.4%

90 total votes
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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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