This excerpt is from In Her Name, chapter 1:

The sky was black as pitch, black as death, as the priestess walked alone over the arena this planet had become. Her sandaled feet touched the earth but left no sound, no footprint. She looked up toward where the stars should be, yearning for the great moon that shone over the Homeworld. But the only sight to be had was the glowing red smears of the fires that were reflected by the wafting smoke and dust.

As she made her way across the field of carnage, she touched the bodies of the fallen children to honor them as they had honored their Empress. They had sacrificed their lives to show their love for Her. She grieved for them all, that they had died this day, never again to feel the flame that drove them to battle, the thrill of sword and claw, never again to serve the Empress through their flesh. Now they basked in the quiet sunset of the Afterlife, someday perhaps to join the ranks of the Ancient Ones, the warriors of the spirit.

She moved on toward her destination. It had once been a human dwelling, but now was a mound of ashen rubble. It squatted impetuously in the wasteland created by weapons the Kreela disdained to use. The humans had never realized that the destruction of their worlds was caused by their own predilection for such weaponry, to which the Kreela sometimes had to respond in kind. The warriors of the Empress sought battles of the mind, body, and spirit, of sword and claw, and not of brute destruction.

Watching the battles rage here for several cycles of the sun across the sky, she had become increasingly curious about these particular humans who fought so well, and at last had decided that perhaps they were worthy of her personal attention. She bade the young warriors to rest, to wait for her return, before setting out on her own journey of discovery.

She paused when she reached the back of the crumbled structure that hid the humans that had piqued her curiosity. She listened for their heartbeats, smelled their pungent body odor, felt for their strange, alien spirit with her mind. After a moment she had a picture of them, where they sat and stood within.

Silent as the dead around her, she moved to a specific point along the wall. Her breathing and heart stilled, she concealed everything about herself that made her presence real. Unless one of them looked directly at her, she would be utterly invisible.

Then she stepped through the wall, her flesh and armor melding with the essence of the barrier as she passed through without so much as a whisper.

Learn more about In Her Name…

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I submitted In Her Name to GenreReviews not because I expected an easy review, but because I was looking for a trial by fire. If you visit their site and read some of their other reviews, they don’t pull any punches if they don’t like something, and just about every novel gets at least one “snarky” comment in passing (particularly on the cover art – be prepared to be lampooned!).

But after reading through their site, I figured that if In Her Name survived without a major snark-fest, it would be a good confidence-builder!

As it turned out, I thought the review came out really well, with only some modest snarkiness that was – inevitably – aimed at the cover, but which I personally found very entertaining! But I thought Anna Lauder (a.k.a. Ocelott) did a great job of describing the book without givingout any spoilers.

As for her opinions of the book and its author, here are a few excerpts:

In Her Name is an ambitious story, epic in scope with a huge cast of characters.The Kreelans are a wonderfully imaginative race, original and pretty much exactly the sort of thing I like to see explored. Their world and society is fascinating, and I loved that we saw both sides of them, both as the bloodthirsty warmongers from the human perspective and from a more sympathetic angle in their own eyes.

Hicks has a knack for writing protagonists you can root for. I was particularly fond of Eustus, Reza’s right hand from the Marines, and Jodi, a sarcastic and passionate pilot (she’s also a gay black woman,which makes her super awesome). The antagonists weren’t quite as fully formed, but there was certainly enough there to want to see them get their villainous come-uppance.

Given the war setting, there are a good number of battle sequences, all of which are well written and fun to read. There’s a good variety in the weapons and types of encounters, Hicks changing things up just enoughto keep it interesting. The use of sling and stone was especially neat, and something I don’t think I’ve seen used in a novel before.

[In Her Name is]…an intense story by a promising writer. Fans of epic fantasy as well as science fiction lovers will find an enjoyable read here, particularly those who love to visit unique worlds with some seriously beautiful worldbuilding.

So please feel free to stop by and check out the entire review of In Her Name from GenreReviews!

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