Beyond Redemption
Paperback | Kindle Edition
Written by Michael R. Fletcher
Harper Voyager
Release Date: June 16, 2015
Cover Price: $15.99

What if the power of belief shaped the world? What if your mirrored reflection could become strong enough to plot against you?

The answers to these questions exist in a sad angry world. Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher is an apocalyptic fantasy world novel, because there’s no way this could ever be our Earth. Three murderous thieving companions travel together from job to job – maybe job isn’t the word. Maybe stealing, killing, and kidnapping are more appropriate words. These three should have no redeeming qualities, yet somehow Fletcher makes you like them. I think he is using the power of belief to do so. Their next job is to steal a god.

Excuse me?

The god in question, Morgen, is a lovely child being groomed by Konig, a Geistrekranken, a High Priest, who maintains tight control over his city, due to the belief of his followers. They believe Morgen will be a god, and so he shall. All Konig has to do is kill Morgen so he can Ascend, and then be controlled (Afterdeath rule – whomever you kill shall serve you), and control his own Doppels and reflections. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Definitely NOT for the YA set, as Fletcher’s novel, Beyond Redemption, is chock full of sex (not the loving kind), gore, violence, gore, death, gore… you get the picture. I absolutely could not put it down. But through it all, there was the underlying theme of friendship, that death couldn’t destroy. Don’t expect anything but darkness here though. There are varying shades of dark, but only darkness nonetheless.

If you don’t mind sentences like:

Limbs little more than sausagelike stumps protruded from greasy rolls of fat. Something sludgy and foul leaked from under copious breasts.

Then this is the book for you!

I thoroughly enjoyed Beyond Redemption, as I was surprised at every paragraph.

Harper Voyager release:

A darkly imaginative writer in the tradition of Joe Abercrombie, Peter V. Brett, and Neil Gaiman conjures a gritty mind-bending fantasy, set in a world where delusion becomes reality . . . and the fulfillment of humanity’s desires may well prove to be its undoing.

When belief defines reality, those with the strongest convictions””the crazy, the obsessive, the delusional””have the power to shape the world.

And someone is just mad enough to believe he can create a god . . .

Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geistrekranken””men and women whose delusions manifest. Sustained by their own belief””and the beliefs of those around them””they can manipulate their surroundings. For the High Priest Konig, that means creating order out of the chaos in his city-state, leading his believers to focus on one thing: helping a young man, Morgen, ascend to become a god. A god they can control.

Trouble is, there are many who would see a god in their thrall, including the High Priest’s own doppelgangers, a Slaver no one can resist, and three slaves led by possibly the only sane man left.
As these forces converge on the boy, there’s one more obstacle: time is running out. Because as the delusions become more powerful, the also become harder to control. The fate of the Geistrekranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath. The question, then, is:

Who will rule there?