About the Book
Thermopylae. Masada. Agincourt. And now, Haxan, New Mexico Territory, circa 1874. Through a sea of time and dust, in places that might never be, or can't become until something is set right, there are people destined to travel. Forever. Marshal John T. Marwood is one of these men.
About the Author :
Kenneth Mark Hoover is a professional writer living in Dallas, TX. He has sold over 60 short stories and is a member of SFWA and HWA. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Strange Horizons, and many others. You can read more at Kennethmarkhoover.com, or follow his blog at Kennethmarkhoover.me.
Review :
Praise for Kenneth Mark Hoover "It's the mid-1870s. The town of Haxan, in the New Mexico Territory, has a new marshal, John T. Marwood. But Haxan is no ordinary town; it's a focal point, a place where great historical events are poised to play out. And Marwood is no ordinary tough-guy lawman; he's a fighter of evil, a wanderer in time and place, who was summoned to Haxan by a dying man to protect the man's daughter--but protect her from what? . . . [T]onally it's a mixture of western and urban fantasy, with a cold, moody atmosphere that makes us want to put on a sweater. The author leaves the door open for a sequel, but, given the kind of life Marwood lives, it could be set anywhere, or anytime."
--Booklist
"The Old West wasn't all darkness and murder, unless your name is John Marwood, a man, by his own assessment, 'with a demon coiled like a watch spring in his marrow.' Simply put--He is a killer. Yet that isn't the half of him, and his true nature and his destiny alike remain a secret even to himself. Kenneth Mark Hoover tells the story of an immortal champion in an American West that never was, and so is all the truer for it."
--Richard Parks, author of Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate
"With Quaternity, Hoover paints a sparse and unflinching landscape, taking the reader down the dark trail his protagonist John Marwood rides while seeking what is lost and unremembered. As the gnawing hunger in his soul drives Marwood toward his ultimate destiny, the west as it was unfurls before the reader under Hoover's steady hand. If you love realistic westerns and dark fantasy, this is the book for you!"
--Michael Merriam, author of Last Car to Annwn Station and The Horror at Cold Springs
"With a voice both sparse and poetic, Hoover takes on the hoary cliches of Western fiction and dismantles them one by one. In Quaternity, Hoover's unflinching look at evil will challenge everything you know about yourself and the world we live in."
--Melissa Lenhardt, author of Stillwater
"Hoover does it again. Quaternity starts with a bang and doesn't quit until a satisfying conclusion. This is my kind of weird west. Love it!"
--Jennifer Brozek, author of Apocalypse Girl Dreaming and Never Let Me Sleep
"In Quaternity, his second outing in the richly evocative Haxan series, Kenneth Mark Hoover once again plunges us headlong into the bloody-minded fury of the Old West, mixing the raw violence of time and place with the eerie tenderness of a fantastical fever dream to gripping, visceral effect."
--Melia McClure, author of The Delphi Room
"Kenneth Mark Hoover's vivid prose delivers an unflinching look at the violent horrors and the stark beauty of the Old West."
--Amy Raby, author of Assassin's Gambit and The Fire Seer
"Twice as vicious as its predecessor, Quaternity is operatically mythological, a poetic, doom-laden Western soaked in blood and frenzy. This Cormac McCarthyesque terror fantasia of a prequel both frames and outstrips Hoover's Haxan, lending it the perfect amount of context, as Hoover's literally eternal protagonist Marshall John Marwood excavates his past in order to accept his future. Driven by philosophical musings both monstrous and humane, Marwood tracks an interlocking chain of massacres towards a lost city founded on 'the long blood of violence, ' the same dark current underlying almost everything in Hoover's lawless, ultra-violent frontier . . . yet certain spots of brightness still occur here and there, inevitable collisions between fate and free will, love and justice. This is a hard book to read, but you'll savour its bitter aftertaste."
--Gemma Files, author of the Hexslinger series, We Will All Go Down Together, and Experimental Film
