Against Walls (Amgalant One)

In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1166…

‘What is a Mongol? – As free as the geese in the air, as in unison. The flights of the geese promise us we don’t give up independence, to unite.’

The hundred tribes of the Mongols have come together with one aim: to push back against the walls that have crept onto the steppe – farther than China has ever extended its walls before. Walls are repugnant to a nomad. But can people on horses push them down, even with a united effort?

This story begins when nobody has heard of Mongols – not even most Chinese, who think the vast Northern Waste at its weakest and are right. A spectacular history starts obscurely…

Reception

'Total and instant immersion... thoroughly compelling and powerful.' - Asian Review of Books

'It is pure magic when one finds a book that travels that difficult path between fact and fiction but author Hammond has not failed us. Her characters are based on solid research and in-depth reading of the original historical documents: her facts are sound. They are the foundation upon which author Hammond has built a story that that is so realistic and so true that it literally pulls you into the Mongol world body and soul...
I haven't read such an enjoyable and intelligent historical fiction series since Colleen McCullough's works and I thought I would never find her equal. Now I have. This series deserves far more notice than it has been given.'
—Patricia Bjaaland Welch, author of Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery

'Hammond describes scenes that so perfectly illustrate the cultural norms, the habits, the landscape, the housing, the clothing and the rest that soon you are in, and deeply, this world of early Mongolia. It's a wild ride—there are horses and epic grandeur—yet you feel everything for all the characters and outcomes in a way that only small domestic stories can provide. How Hammond juggles this I do not know. But it's kind of like War and Peace set in the early days of Chengiz Khan.'
—Laury Silvers, author of The Sufi Mysteries

'Bryn Hammond has accomplished a feat seldom seen in literature: Retaining the very distinctive character of her historical source material while injecting it with her own narrative voice; and this feat is all the more remarkable when you consider that this is a long book. The enchanting quality of the voice stays consistent throughout.'
—Libbie Hawker, author of The She-King Saga and Tidewater

'With oral cultures like the Mongols, you really need to understand how they spoke about themselves to each other. Rather than simply taking the Secret History of the Mongols and regurgitating the story into modern English, Ms. Hammond has written her story as if the Mongols used English words while still utilizing their own thought and speech patterns. This brings to life the Mongols in a way most historical fictions or histories cannot and also adds a poetic aspect which enhances the story.'
—reader Pete

'By setting aside commonly recited assumptions about a giant of history, her effort grinds against the popular heroic/demonic image of imperial Mongol power, releasing Temujin as a breathing, bleeding person, full of desire and uncertainty—befriended and hated, feared and hunted by others. And the love-bond between Temujin and Jamuqa? It is so carefully explored that the relationship itself becomes a primary character of its own... Two months after closing the cover, each character still walks in my imagination as if through the backyard garden.'
—reader Chris O'Neill