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The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree (The Outlaw King) Paperback – February 27, 2013

by S. A. Hunt (Author, Illustrator)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 580 ratings
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From award-winning author S. A. Hunt comes a blockbuster fantasy tale inspired by such old-school fantasy classics as Stephen King's The Dark Tower, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

After coming home from a stint in Afghanistan, veteran Ross Brigham learns that his father has passed away. Dearly departed Dad was a famous fantasy novelist, and the 300 fans that show up for the funeral demand that Ross finish E. R. Brigham's long-running magnum opus.

Ross and two of the author's devotees investigate his untimely death and discover that he might have been murdered...and the time-bending gunslingers of Dad's steampunk novels might be real.

As they try to acclimate to the arid deserts of the author's fantasy world, the three damaged heroes become pawns in a war for humanity's survival. The Muses have grown tired of immortality and now incite atrocities on Earth, trying to lure down a leviathan from the stars.

Can Ross and his new friends stop the scheming satyrs before both worlds are eaten?
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    488 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    February 27, 2013
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    148261555X
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1482615555
  7. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

  • "Highly recommend this book." - M. Hernandez, Amazon.com
  • "Superb... captivating." - M. Brown, Amazon.com
  • "Can easily become an epic for our time." - KMT, Amazon.com
  • "If you are a fan of the Dark Tower series, this is a must-read!" - Lynda, Amazon.com
  • "A quality that I only expect to see from upper-echelon, traditionally published authors." - Jefferson Smith, Amazon.com, Author of Strange Places
  • "Effortless and incredibly natural." - A. C. Wiles, Authonomy.com

About the Author

S. A. Hunt is a U.S. veteran with very little money and far too much free time, which is now spent telling lies about time-bending cowboys and brainwashing witches. He lives in a shack in the woods in Summerville, GA, where he writes books, drinks moonshine out of a clay jug, and plays music with spoons.

You might be able to pigeonhole him in the "fantasy" and "horror" genres, but really he just uses them as backdrops. His stories are mostly studies of the human condition and the power of love and friendship--and a character that's truly human can transcend the boundaries of its genre.

In high school he was named a "Mentor of Poetry, Prose, and Performance" by the National Creative Society and in 2014 he won Reddit.com/r/Fantasy's 2014 Self-Published Book of the Year.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (February 27, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 488 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 148261555X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1482615555
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.41 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 580 ratings

About the author

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S. A. Hunt

S. A. Hunt

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S. A. Hunt is the author of the Malus Domestica horror-action series from Tor Books, beginning with BURN THE DARK (Jan 2020). In 2014, Samara won Reddit's /r/Fantasy "Independent Novel of the Year" Stabby Award for her Outlaw King fantasy gunslinger series. She is an Afghanistan veteran (OEF 2010), a coffee enthusiast, a fervent bicyclist, and she currently lives in Petoskey, Michigan.

Find her at her website: www.sahuntbooks.com

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
580 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Readingrocks
5.0 out of 5 stars Adventure, visceral danger, twists galore, incredible writing
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2013
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The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree is quite a tale. It starts off on planet Earth but then it becomes an adventure. The mirror under the church was a stroke of genius that I totally loved, and from there the tale deposits you squarely in uncharted territory where nothing is what it seems.

It's a grueling journey, oft times harrowing, but you are curious to see where it goes. And it just gets weirder and weirder as the author throws you into an alien environment with a number of interesting twists. I'm not going to rehash the plot to you (read it yourself), but for me this book review is for the author. Your use of vocabulary is utterly glorious. You delved deep and wide to bring each and every paragraph just the right amount of finesse, writing for a cerebral reader who expects good writing AND a good plot. Your descriptions are utterly compelling, so vivid and real you brought to life every scene in 3D detail.

The scenes: wow, what's it like living in your head? What an imagination!! And yeah I'm totally a little envious because a premise like this is so utterly unique and wonderful that it stands alone, it's brilliant, it's etched so well and is so tangible, the adventures and encounters are sometimes so dark, your imagination is phenomenal!

The plot: The silen were definitely spiking your drinks because I don't know, I can't fathom, how you could come up with something so unusual, such a wild card, something so genuine and unique, it's legendary. There were a few places where I felt like you needed to write more (ie Ross not once having a heart to heart with mum over dad's death. He didn't even give her a hug of comfort at the funeral. And I do believe he drove there and then suddenly he doesn't have his own car any longer)... but aside from that flaw, you managed to make the plot work, it was visceral and totally strange, I think your readers will all find the mind warp happening to Ross they experience to a degree when they're reading it. Yet you bring to this fantastical amalgamation a good degree of sanity and mundane detail which keeps the reader from feeling overwhelmed by it all. My only complaint is you build the plot to a pinnacle and then end this installment before delivering any real resolution or finality to this part of the series.

Overall it's exceedingly well written and well edited (a few edits missed near the end) but considering the vast scope of this novel I think any reader can forgive that. This is a sweeping epic which no review can really do justice to. I think you did an incredible work of surreal art, you managed to use words to create a completely wild and scenic realm, the food, the people, the mysteries, codes, clues, danger, drama, adventure, the characters! (all so well rounded and described), all of it is outstanding. Well done!!

I don't really how you stayed sane through all of this, or if like Ross you wrote in order to stay sane, but the result is individual and epic. On a personal note I had an immediate dislike for Noreen because of her name, and found your first few chapters heart wrenching when you put it out there for your reader to see what it's like coming home from serving your country to an empty house. Your heart and soul went into this book and it shows.

Complex characters, a visceral discovering of a mind warping plot, incredible metaphors and creative writing, and all written with respect to a vocabulary too many modern authors shun, totally five stars!

And I love the cover!

This novel is of such a high caliber very few authors can be used as a comparison. Truly elite writing, original, and compelling.
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Mike Reeves-McMillan
4.0 out of 5 stars Above-average beginning to a promising series
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2013
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Let's start with the disclaimers. I know the author on Google+, which is why I read the book. I'd picked it up on a free promotion, and when I realised I didn't have the up-to-date version, he kindly sent me his latest build. We've corresponded about some questions I had (which he cleared up, so they won't appear in this review), and I'll be sending him some more notes too. Based on his response to me so far, many of the issues I identify may well be fixed soon, so there may be things I mention below that are no longer problems in the later version that you buy (because I hope you do buy it).

I actually started reading this book twice. The first time, I got through the part where the protagonist/narrator gets back from deployment in Afghanistan, and his wife has left him, and then the phone rings and his mother tells him his father's died... and I stopped, because I thought it was going to be too dark and tragic for my taste.

Then I kept reading Sam's posts on G+, and realised that he's a very accomplished writer, and decided that I did want to read it after all. And, in fact, after that second shoe drops, apart from the scene where people are being dragged down to be consumed by an evil god it's mostly not that distressing, despite the "dark fantasy" label.

When I say "very accomplished writer", I mean that he has a feel and a skill for language that's unusual in the indie writers I read. His prose is not without flaws, though. He's over-fond of the semicolon, his imagery can shade towards the purple and, sometimes, the incoherent, and he does the Steven Donaldson thing of dropping vocabulary words every few pages, which, taken all together, comes across to me as maybe trying too hard.

Unfortunately, too, the words don't always mean what he seems to think they mean, and occasionally mean the opposite. He describes two characters as having "reedy" voices, for example. From context, he means big, booming voices, but "reedy" means thin and weak. "Sojourn" is twice used to mean "journey", but it means staying in one place (that's a common error).

Then there are the florid descriptions which leave me unable to imagine what's being described, like "a black frock coat swarthy with curly pinstriping". If it's black, it's already swarthy, and what on earth would "curly pinstriping" look like?

Very few people have the vocabulary to pull this kind of writing off, and even those who do, I think probably shouldn't attempt it. I know it's a classic way of writing fantasy, but I find it distancing even when done well, and annoying when done badly. Here, it's not done terribly, but it could be done better. It's possible (though difficult) to write lucid, straightforward prose that's also beautiful and evocative. Emma Bull does it, Ursula Le Guin does it, and I wish more genre writers did.

When we come to characters, there's some good news. The protagonist/narrator is based on the author, but he is definitely not Gary Stu. He's in poor physical and emotional shape, he gets scared, he freaks out. Things don't fall into his lap; he struggles, he suffers. He makes meaningful decisions, he's loyal to his friends. I'm happy with him as a character.

The secondary characters are not as clearly drawn. In particular, the minor characters in the other world I found difficult to separate in some cases, or remember who was who, perhaps because a lot of them are introduced in a short span of time. I'm sure they'll gain depth in the second book.

The premise is interesting. The main character's father is a well-known fantasy author, and it turns out that he wasn't making up his other world; he'd lived there, and was more a biographer than a novelist. The protagonist goes to the other world and becomes involved in defending it, and by extension our world, from other-dimensional villains.

It's a good premise. Portal fantasy is out of fashion, for some odd reason, but I've always liked it, and of course the fictional-worlds-are-real trope is a popular one (see Jasper Fforde for perhaps the best-known of many examples). I think the author does it justice, though with a couple of reservations which I'll mention next. He also does a nice job of including quotations from the father's books, which are in a subtly different style, though I didn't always see the relevance of them to the chapters they preceded.

I wasn't that happy with the worldbuilding. The narrator says that "there are very few analogs between Earth and Destin when it comes to culture", but there totally are. Destin is basically a mashup of classic swords-and-sorcery fantasy with the Old West, and the two elements don't blend well. Shields and sixguns. Characters who wear doublets and jeans. Yes, those are actual examples. It didn't work that well for me, technologically or historically. Or linguistically; I have a degree in English language, so I know how contingent and random the development of the English language was, and having another world in which people speak a version of it is unlikely on the face of it (though I'm willing to give it the Trope Pass, reluctantly, so that we don't have to struggle with language learning and translation to the detriment of the story).

The big, all-too-common worldbuilding gaffe, though, is this. One of the characters, an Earth person who's familiar with the other world from reading the books, says at one point, "There's no Christ. No Bible. Why would there be a Christmas?" And then roughly a thousand words later there's a minor character called Joshua. I understand why authors don't want the Christian religion in their books, but if you're going to take it out, take it all out. (The thing is, it's so entwined in our culture, to a degree that most people are unconscious of, that unless you base your books on a non-Western culture, you can't take it all out. This is an enduring problem of fantasy worldbuilding.)

Anyway, so much for the world. What about the plot? This is the first of an epic fantasy series, and as is often the case with such series, it's not a complete story in itself but an introduction to the world and the characters and the situation. That's not to say that nothing happens, by any means, but there's more a sense of beginning at the end than there is a sense of ending, if that makes any sense. Thinking back on my experience of reading it, I remember more explanation and exploration than I do action, though there are certainly several well-written action sequences, spaced well throughout.

One of the important questions to ask, when talking about plot, is "What do the characters want? Do they strive for it?" What the characters want is reasonably clear. The main character, Ross, wants to investigate the mystery, possibly avenge his father's death, and rescue and defend his friends. His friends want to visit the world of the books they loved growing up - and this weaker motivation leaves them as weaker, less interesting characters in this book, though they'll no doubt strengthen in future books thanks to the revelations towards the end of this one. Stakes are both cosmic and personal, which is a strong combination, and shows promise for the series.

Overall, this is definitely an above-average first novel, though for me it has some (non-fatal) issues. With more discipline applied to the language, and better integration of the different elements of the worldbuilding, I can see this becoming a classic series in the future.
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Top reviews from other countries

Bryan C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and enthralling!!!
Reviewed in Canada on February 21, 2019
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I was looking for an adventure book to continue my love of books like Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series and fluked onto this book. It could not have been better luck. A little slow starting but necessary to introduce the characters. As the horned demon passed by the mirror, I became hooked and could not set this book down!!! S.A. Hunt's knack of describing scenes to a mind blowing detail has created a new world for me to lose myself in. WELL DONE!!!
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Geoffrey Harrison
5.0 out of 5 stars A well written and exciting story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2014
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This is probably one of the best books I've read this year.

Narration of the story is mostly in the first person, which is my favourite and what I tend to write in myself. There are a couple of sections where the narration slips into third person, but there is an explanation for this change given within the context of the story.

The story centres on a man who has just left the US Army and goes home. Things start very badly for him and only get worse. He is an aspiring author with some minor success. However, after his father's funeral, where he is coerced in to taking up finishing the latest book in his father's fantasy novel series events start to overtake him and he is dragged into the fantasy world created by his father. The fantasy world is actually real and seemingly at risk of destruction.

This was an excellent start to a very promising series. The writing is a breath of fresh air, and the characters are so believable. I was able to connect with all of the main characters and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.
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Cuddle
4.0 out of 5 stars Creative Masterpiece
Reviewed in Germany on March 4, 2014
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A action packed tale from start to finish, S.A. Hunt's "The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree" is a well written masterpiece of magnificent description. He has created a world of fantastical creatures and people, complete with an original creation story, unique customs, and religion. His characters are believable and witty, mixing a taste of modern charm with the old school, slow paced and rugged world his characters travel to. They undergo a wonderful journey, discovering who they truly are and their purpose in the fate of many others. This book is an epic adventure of unexpected twists and turns that propel the reader onward, and continue through the last chapter. It's not simply enough to finish reading. This reader desires to know what will happen next! Bravo Mr Hunt.
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Chantelle Griffin
4.0 out of 5 stars I was hooked from beginning to end.
Reviewed in Australia on May 31, 2014
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Initially I was not sure what to expect however the wonderful imagination of the author pulled me in with such delight that I finished the book in just over a day. The personalities of the characters kept me glued to the page and I cannot wait to read the second book in the series.

The story moves from the real world into the fantasy realm with a hint Narnia, only this time the characters are grown up and the consequences are harder to face. I was hooked from beginning to end.
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KATER
4.0 out of 5 stars A Whirlwind of a Book!
Reviewed in Canada on May 7, 2019
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My only problem with this book is my own personal quirk, and not necessarily a mark against the story. I hate not knowing, and this story plunks you right down into the middle of a fantasy epic. I suppose the nice thing is that the protagonist is as unknowing as the reader, which makes any exposition simply part of catching the protagonist up to speed. It's exciting to learn about the new world alongside the protagonist, but part of me was constantly scared we would frustratingly be transported back to Ross' regular life; a very real threat since it happened once already. I really like Hunt's writing style, and they have an amazing way with building action. The story ties up neatly enough at the end that I am not agonizing (should the next book not have been available yet) but it was left hanging so that I am also very eager to read on. Hunt's characters are easy to imagine as real, even as they bring to life characters that are not human. My one criticism there would be that Hunt uses food descriptions for different skin tones. The world building with this story was intense and overwhelming, but made for a more authentic feeling of being competely lost and out-of-this-world (which was good!) I am very excited to read the next one and would highly recommend this to any fan of JK Rowling's Harry Potter (as Hunt is able to reference our reality in their storytelling), or Garth Nix's Abhorsen series, as the worldbuilding is equally fantastic and compelling.
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