2007 Novel of the Year (CSPA retailer poll)

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Product Description

HOPE AND LOVE - PRIDE AND HONOR. Monsters wander the world of Mikon. Caught in the aftermath of a vicious international war, thousands of refugees have fled the Coastal States, bringing their dangers with them into the wilderness near the untamed Middlelands. Castaways from an imploding civilization- fighting to find and to understand the most dangerous of treasures ... Portunista: innovative, ambitious, intemperate; a maga seeking her path to Imperial glory ... Seifas: dark and lethal, alienating, poetic; a hunter whose words are his tears ... Gaekwar: lanky, laconic, sardonic; 'only a cowherd', yet wielding exotic weaponry ... Othon: the Implacable One; a quiet, quick-thinking giant of a man ... Dagon: arrogant, insecure, buffoonish; a miserable commander with a knack for solving puzzles ... Pooralay: ruthless and compassionate, loud and brusque- when he wants to be; a thug on a mystical quest ... Bomas: renegade killer planning a subtle genocide; Artabanus: self-proclaimed Arbiter, drawing every power to himself; Praxiteles: incompetent madman, possessing and possessed by the Roguent Gamin ... In their increasingly desperate struggles- for food, for knowledge, for life itself- what will make the difference between brigades and bands of brigands?
2007 Novel of the Year (CSPA retailer poll)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1221086 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 444 pages

Review
An interesting, evocative tale. A powerful story of rebuilding and finding oneself when the world has gone topsy-turvy. Brutal and harsh at times, Pratt creates a real, hard, dirty world that is somehow still fantastical and full of magic and mystery. This is not a beach read. Daunting, but worthwhile. --Vanessa Lee for Front Street

Imagine reading the diary of a being from a different world, a different time. In Cry of Justice, readers meet several characters who stretch the concept of storytelling.Take the challenge this story presents. Dive into the hearts and minds of its people. Savor each page. Rest assured when you finish that the end isn t truly the end. Woven into the those final pages are hints of stories to come, which is a relief. Hurry, Mr. Pratt, for I do not know how long I will be able to wait. --Tonia R Montgomery, Curled Up With a Good Book

Once I got into the story, I was hooked. Pratt gets into the characters' souls and lets you know what drives them. The different magical elements are a refreshing change of pace. Cry of Justice is a great book for fantasy fans. --Paige Lovitt for Reader Views

About the Author
Jason Pratt is a native of West Tennessee and the systems manager for Dyer Fiberglass, Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Communications degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is also a freelance editor and writes philosophical analyses as a guest on various Internet sites. He also instructs, judges, and competes in fencing and writes cinematic epic fantasies. Cry of Justice is the first book of an initial trilogy, the third book of which he is currently composing.

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Customer Reviews

Brave new world!
The first few chapters of this book worried me, frankly. The author is intelligent, well-read, and imaginative, but does not always edit sharply, and the beginning of the book seemed to threaten too much melodrama and introspection for my taste. In retrospect, I wonder if those chapters are intended as a challenge . . . they are meant to tease, but for me at least, they also demanded a certain commitment.

Pratt ultimately rewards that commitment. His world is richly imagined and intelligently patterned, both internally and (as what Tolkien called a "sub-creation") with our own tribal and magical past. There is some humor, irony, and clever changes of perspective. More dispassion might improve the prose at times. Some of the characters seem irritating at first -- I wanted to smack Jian on the head a few times -- but they grow on you. (What may be irritating about his relationship with the Amazon in charge is the lack of mutuality -- is this masochism? -- but things become more nuanced and interesting later on, and she less of an Amazon.)

Probably the simplest and most honest thing I can say about this book is that I enjoyed it. I was doing a lot of other reading at the time -- research, mostly -- and I was overseas, in a dorm room a long ways from home. Mikon -- if that's what the world is called, Pratt doesn't often give lectures on the geography, fauna or history, he lets you try to figure things out as you go along -- became a comfortable place to refresh the mind.

Like The Golden Compass, this is a novel of ideas, though of course quite different ideas. (And also, of course, it's not intended for children.) I recognized "the Eye" as a (rather spooky, with Sauron in the back of our minds) tribal appelation for God right away. I'll be interested to see how Pratt develops his demonology and supra-mundane levels of reality in later novels. One of the good things about this book is that the author doesn't make things too explicit.

The strong survive, the weak perish
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (12/07)

Welcome to the world of Mikon. "Cry of Justice" is the first book in a forthcoming trilogy. The tale takes place after the Culling War had begun. There was fighting among the Cadrists. Magical people of different paths, such as the healing Klerosa have been disappearing. The disappearances tend to be magical in origin.

Portunista is a maga and a commander of soldiers. She leads a very interesting group of men. She has to use a great deal of personal strength to maintain control of this group. Throughout this journey, she goes through a great deal of emotional growth. She finds herself drawn to the mysterious, affable Jian, who seems unable to die.

Then there is Seifa, who is the last born of the Guacu-ara people. Guacu-ara means "Hunting Cry." Not only have his people been destroyed, but he also discovers that he was the last born. He is excited to discover another man of his kind during his journey in this story. This is where he starts learning some truths.

"Cry of Justice" is a fun, fantastical adventure. In the beginning, I had some difficulties getting into the story. It started out mentioning people and places, without really explaining who they are. I almost felt like I was reading a second book in a trilogy and was trying to catch up with the story. A glossary and a map would really have helped with this. There were also some grammatical errors that could be corrected

Once I got into the story, I was hooked. I loved the magical elements that were incorporated into the story. The people themselves had interesting talents. There were also magical birds and beasts. Pratt does a great job of coming up with some different magical elements that make his fantasy different from others. This is a refreshing change of pace. He also gets into the characters souls and lets you know what drives them. "Cry of Justice" is a great book for fantasy fans.

No sparks for me
Cry of Justice is the story of a fictional world called Mikon. Right away from the beginning the story picks up instantly after a horrible international war that has left thousands of refugees fleeing from the Coastal States. They make their way into the vast dangerous wilderness of the Middlelands.

A small group of the survivors are lead be Commander Portunista. She is an innovative thinker and a maga. She dreams of seeking imperial glory for herself. Then there is Seifas, a hunter who's best weapon is his poetry. Also thrown into the mix is Gaekwar, Othon, Dagon, Pooralay, and Bornas.

Portunista will try and lead them across the Middlelands safely, while trying to get to know her charges better. Though all of these people are different, there is one thing they have in common... that is the need to hunt for food, the increasing hunger to understand their new wealth of knowledge and mayhap the most important of all... the will to live.

Cry of Justice is the first book in this trilogy by author, Jason Pratt. While I found the premise for this book to be very intriguing, I found I had a hard time getting into it. It started out very chaotic. Right away there were all these different characters for me to identify very quickly. Even though there was a brief description of each of the main characters in the book, it did not really help me to understand what was happening. The storyline started with poetry then jumped to someone talking and finally the story seemed to start to reveal itself for me.

The story is really toward through journal entries made by each character, which I thought was a nice way to tell the story as it helped me get more personal with everyone. Except on the other hand I had an issue with the small print that was done for the journal entries. It was much smaller print than when the story was moving along. I am sure this was to help separate the storyline from the entries but it made it a little hard to read.

For anyone who enjoys a good fantasy, this is the book for you. What Mr. Pratt did reveal to me with Cry of Justice is that he is a good storyteller. I would try another one of his books down the road.