'After a brutal war between the gods, Hessa – High Priestess of the Eangen – has brokered a fragile peace. Through great sacrifice, she has forged an alliance between warring tribes and introduced her people to the true god.
'But a new threat is growing across the southern border. In the remnants of the once-great Arpa Empire, three factions are vying for the imperial throne, and the vast well of raw magical power only accessible to the Arpa Emperor. Already beating back former Arpa legionaries at her borders, Hessa knows she cannot let this chance slip by. She must intervene, for the safety of her people.
'With the peace she has sacrificed so much for at stake, Hessa must venture into the heart of enemy territory, where warring Arpa factions are not the only danger she must face. A sinister new cult is on the rise, one with the power to suck the life from everything it touches. With enemies on every side and her fragile alliance beginning to waver, Hessa must decide who to trust – no matter what it may cost her…'
Temple of No God is the the continuation of last year's Hall of Smoke, a fantasy book that I really enjoyed. Picking up several years after the events of the first book Hessa, once a priestess of the war god Eang, she has now become the high priestess of Thvynder, an ancient god that came from a time before Eang. With the last book ending with the destruction of almost all of the gods at the hands of Thvynder, and Hessa's old life gone, there was always a sense that more could be told with these characters, that we could one day return to this world and find out what happens next. Temple of No God delivers on those hopes.
The book begins with Hessa leading her people into battle against the Arpa, the empire to the south of her homeland who have threatened her nation for years. During the fight we, and Hessa, learn that despite losing their pantheon of gods when Thvynder returned some of the Arpa warriors have powers, powers that none of them have ever seen before.
Years later, Hessa is approached by an Arpa faction. It turns out that there is a power struggle going on for the throne, with three factions all fighting to put their own Emperor in power. The catch is, to be crowned as an Emperor they will need someone able to enter the realm of the gods to perform the ceremony; someone like Hessa. Hessa is offered a deal, bring her people into Arpa territory, have them raid and pillage in the places where the other two factions hold sway as Hessa travels to the capital and crowns the new Emperor. In return, the Eangen people will be left alone, and their territory will never again come under threat from the Empire.
Knowing that this is the best way to secure a future for her nation, and curious to find out more about the strange new warrior priests allied with one of the rival factions, Hessa agrees to the terms, taking her people into war.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about Temple of No God is how different it feels from Hall of Smoke due in large part to how different the lead character is now. In the first book she was a fierce warrior priestess, but one who felt a little short sighted in some ways. She seemed like the kind of person who didn't think too far ahead, who concentrated on herself, and thought of the world in ways in which it directly effected her. Here, having been the leader of her people for almost a decade, Hessa has grown, becoming almost the opposite of who she was. She carefully weighs her decisions, she thinks about the larger impact, and she puts others before herself. And none of it feels unexpected or out of character, rather, it feels like the natural progression of what we've already seen.
The book also opens up in the sense of scope too, even though it also feels like a smaller scale story in some ways. There isn't the huge, world changing revelations of the first book, there's no huge battle with multiple gods at the end, but it still manages to feel like a bigger book because we explore more of the world H.M. Long has created, as well as getting to know more of the people who inhabit it. Much of the first book centred on Hessa, and the journey that she took. For most of that she was on her own, though occasionally joined by another person. As such, the story felt very focused on her; but here there's a much larger group around Hessa, and I came away from the book feeling like I'd gotten to know a lot more characters than I did in the first volume. So even if the events of the book didn't have as big an impact as the first it felt broader in scope thanks to the places we're taken to and the people we get to know along the way.
Temple of No God also felt like it could be read on its own too, as something of a stand-alone sequel; due in large part to the time gap between the two books and the changes in Hessa. Whilst there were times where I felt a little left behind because I'd forgotten small elements from the first book, I was never lost, and Long was able to catch up new and forgetful readers really well. Obviously, it would be best reading both books, and preferably both books together, but I'm sure that if you came to this book completely new without any previous knowledge you'd find a lot to enjoy here.
Temple of No God is the kind of sequel that I really love, one that takes what the first book did and does something that feels connected, but doesn't retread the same ground. It has allowed the characters to grow in believable ways, it's changed the world and had things evolve, and it's introduced a lot of new elements, yet it's still that world that I enjoyed in the first book. If Long continues to revisit this world and these characters I hope that they do so in the same way, popping in every decade or so to see how things have changed, and giving us unexpected new adventures.
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