The Ingenious

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Pub Date 05 Feb 2019 | Archive Date 31 Dec 2018

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Description

Political exiles are desperate to escape from the impossible city that imprisons them, in this bloody and brilliant epic fantasy

Thousands of years ago, the city of Athanor was set adrift in time and space by alchemists, called "the Curious Men". Ever since, it has accumulated cultures, citizens and species into a vast, unmappable metropolis.

Isten and her gang of half-starved political exiles live off petty crime and gangland warfare in Athanor's seediest alleys. Though they dream of returning home to lead a glorious revolution, Isten's downward spiral drags them into a mire of addiction and violence. Isten must find a way to save the exiles and herself if they are ever to build a better, fairer world for the people of their distant homeland.

File Under: Fantasy [ Alchymical Exiles | Loathing and Fear | Manifest Revelation | City of Broken Spheres ]
Political exiles are desperate to escape from the impossible city that imprisons them, in this bloody and brilliant epic fantasy

Thousands of years ago, the city of Athanor was set adrift in time and...

Advance Praise

“Visceral and intense, The Ingenious creates a world that is rich, vivid and enticing.” – James Swallow, New York Times bestselling author of Nomad

“A deftly woven fantasy, rich in imagination and narrative flare and wrought in lyrical prose. Not to be missed.” – George Mann, Sunday Times bestselling author

“A compelling and richly characterful first step into an awesome new world. Athanor is a hell of a place to get lost. I hope Darius hurries up with the sequel…” – Aaron Dembski-Bowden, New York Times bestselling author

“Athanor joins the likes of New Crubuzon, Gormenghast and Ankh Morpork in the ranks of the incredible, crumbling, amazing and terrifying edifices of fantasy fiction. Every bit as rich and textured as the characters we follow through its shadowed and deadly streets, the city’s personality compels us through the book as much as the exploits of Isten and her companions. A plot that teases and intrigues as much as it investigates and explores makes The Ingenious a book that is both creative and fresh and yet resonates with genre familiarity. A lot of people are going to be Darius Hinks fans after reading this.” – Gav Thorpe, New York Times bestselling author, and winner of the 2017 David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy

“An intriguing tale of a wandering city. Hinks’ prose is pure poetry.” – Guy Haley, author of Champion of Mars

“Gritty and moving, with a healthy dose of horror – Hinks has woven a powerful and compelling fantasy – where worlds are at stake and entire cities will be laid to waste.” – Justin Hill, author of Viking Fire

“The Ingenious is a triumph of the imagination bursting with strange, terrifying sorcery and wondrous locations” – Cameron Johnston, author of The Traitor God

“A twisty, turny triumph of imagination, with a heroine you aren’t sure you should like, but soon grow to love.” – Mark A Latham, author of the Apollonian Case Files series

“Visceral and intense, The Ingenious creates a world that is rich, vivid and enticing.” – James Swallow, New York Times bestselling author of Nomad

“A deftly woven fantasy, rich in imagination and...


Marketing Plan

Available for UK-based book signings, conventions and interviews. 

Available for UK-based book signings, conventions and interviews. 


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780857667892
PRICE $12.99 (USD)
PAGES 400

Average rating from 33 members


Featured Reviews

Good god, what a book! The worldbuilding (actual building of worlds in this book!) took my breath away! And let me tell you, our kind author here pulls no punches! You think your book is throwing your readers in the deep end? Darius Hinks says "Hold my drink," takes you out to the Marianas Trench, hands you an anchor, and pushes you overboard.

And it's just an absolute delight.

Yes, it's a little hard to parse through at the beginning, but you know who else is? Ursula K. Le Guin. And she's a household name at this point because of the intricate nature of her worlds and storytelling. And let me tell you, this book can match her easily.

I absolutely adored this book, and can't wait to see more from this author!

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A wild, imaginative original fantasy story from Darius Hinks, The Ingenious is a tale of political exiles surviving in the slums of a grand, magic-imbued city and a reluctant figurehead struggling to come to terms with her fate. It’s a story about power – how it’s found and seized, and what it can do to someone – and control, about inequality and injustice, and about magic, drug abuse and gang warfare. It’s a book crammed full of bold ideas, and it’s the sort of story which requires the reader to jump in and trust that it’ll all make sense in the end.

The city of Athanor travels between realms by the power of the Curious Men and their alchymia, collecting new lives and adding them to its mind-boggling melting pot of characters, cultures, races and rivalries. One such group calls themselves the Exiles, having long ago fled to Athanor from their homeland to escape its political turmoil. They’re led (sort of) by Isten – when she’s not drunk, high or otherwise engaged in dubious recreational pursuits – as they scrape a living in Athanor’s shadier districts, all the while dreaming of somehow returning home one day. When Isten returns to the Exiles after having sunk to her lowest ebb yet, a chance encounter offers her the opportunity to at least lead the Exiles to a position of relative power within Athanor’s criminal underworld.

Athanor is the sort of setting that sprawls in the imagination, populated by a seemingly endless range of ne’er-do-wells and offering a wild variety of locations and challenges for the story. The plot echoes that, rambling from scene to scene as Hinks slowly teases out the narrative; the focus is on Isten and to a lesser extent Phrater Alzen – one of the Curious Men – but Athanor itself has a powerful presence, from squalid slums to glorious palaces. It’s a story which definitely rewards readers who are happy to sit back and watch as things gradually start to make sense, but there’s so much to enjoy in exploring the city that even if things are going a little slowly for you there should be enough to keep you entertained along the way.

If the plot is a little dense, it’s rich and rewarding once things click, and Isten proves to be a fascinating protagonist. There aren’t really any traditionally ‘good’ characters here, and Isten exemplifies that – in many respects, she’s weak and self-serving, willing to use and manipulate people to get what she needs, but she’s also painfully self-aware and capable of great things despite how far she falls. The plot takes full advantage of her tortured past and dubious nature, and while some of the arcs are perhaps not fully worked through (one strand featuring a tangible link to the Exiles’ past doesn’t really go anywhere), overall it comes together into a powerful and thoroughly entertaining whole.

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I really enjoyed this book! The world building was very good and the magic system was very interesting!

Will definitely be checking out some of the authors other books

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I was NOT expecting the book to end like that ! And I absolutely loved it !! This book dealt with a lot of difficult topics, and even though I think the rendering could have been different, I absolutely loved how the storyline progressed! I was a little confused when I started reading because there was no introduction or context, but it built itself very quickly and I enjoyed my time with this book ! I am just a little sad that I didn't get to read more about Brast 😪

Detailed review coming soon !

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A really intriguing novel from Hinks. I've read quite a few of the author's other novels (for Black Library), and enjoyed them all. I particularly like the way he writes and develops his characters and the worlds in which they operate. The story moves along nicely, is well-plotted and executed. If you're looking for something a bit different, then I'd definitely recommend THE INGENIOUS.

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