The last boy of an extinct people hunts for his stolen memories to determine if he’s meant to bring back rain.
BOOKS
Lost among the dune-swept ruins of ancient glass towers, 14-year-old Spiric hunts for his stolen memories. Guided by the exiled scholar that found him, he embarks on a perilous journey across the Droughtlands to uncover his origins.
He’s told his red eyes mark him as a Hytharo, one of the long-extinct storm callers that sealed all water into the air itself before they were erased from history. In the thousand years since, thirst has been quenched simply by breathing, but that hasn’t stopped the surviving runic peoples from wanting water any less.
For without it, there’s no ink, no runes, no magic, and in the vast desert wastes of the Droughtlands, magic means power.
To Spiric, the mantra is eerily familiar.
Word of his presence ripples across the Droughtlands and pressure mounts on him to reverse the Hytharo’s final, sacrificial act. It’s only as his memories begin to return that he realises the true reason his people were wiped out.
With the fragments of Spiric’s memories growing bloodier and more desperate, he must determine whether carrying out his supposed fate will cause history to repeat, or if he can forge a new destiny, both for himself and the Droughtlands.
Buried beneath the dunes of the Droughtlands are the remnants of those-of-glass, the marked by the spires of steel and glass built by a people long extinct, wiped out by a fusion of unbound magic and unfathomable technology. The scavengers that brave their depths rarely come back alive. Rarer still do they bring back anything that won't end up killing them.
All the books set in the Droughtlands can be read in almost any order. In fact, that’s the intention!
A key part of the philosophy in the setting is that one’s preconceived notions and bits of prior knowledge change how events are approached and interpreted.
As you read through the series, you will gain this knowledge and be unable to let it go, a core conundrum that lies deep at the heart of this setting, forcing you, the reader, to become a part of this world.
Do you begin at the earliest point you can, blindly watching events unfolding?
Or do you glimpse the future first, and use it to reinterpret the past?
In essence, there is no one true reading order, as long as you start with Book One of any of my series and progress through them ascendingly.
I read a lot of dystopia novels, it’s one of my favourite genres, but I have to say, none of them up to now have had quite the same effect or gripped me like The Hytharo Redux. I absolutely love this book and flew through it in two sittings.
- Goodreads Reviewer
If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Weiss mark his name down and check out his books ASAP. If you like gritty, dystopian, sandpunk stories – hell even if you don’t – these may be perfect for you. They’re Sci-Fantasy and they’re hellishly good!
-Amazon Reviewer
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OUT OF CORPSES
What do you do when you run out of corpses?
In the clanging factory tunnels of Kyrea, the question is one that's rarely heard, let alone answered.
Those who hear it know what is said next, why their friends and family are disappearing, and what is behind the sprawling machines that fuel the economy of the Droughtlands.
Kestra, having grown up in the dark reaches of Kyrea, still doesn't know the answer, but the opportunity to work as a smelter under one of the most prolific flux traders is an offer she can't turn down.
She just has to answer the question.
What do you do when you run out of corpses?
Meet The Author
Get to know the man behind the manuscripts.
Hey! My name’s Jonathan and I’m an independent Australian sci-fi and fantasy author!
My books are all about deserts, ruined skyscrapers, forgotten magic and even more forgotten technology. There’s plenty of gritty action, scrap metal machines, mind-bending plot twists and secrets that span across multiple series.