The Heretic Kings
core novel 1996 The Monarchies of God
Record
| First published | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.93 (1,153 ratings, collected 2026-08-26) |
| Page count | 384 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780575601864 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
The second Monarchies of God novel follows the deepening split within Normannia between three of the western kingdoms' rival monarchs and the Ramusian Church, a schism that pushes the fractured realms further toward open conflict even as the Merduk threat from the east continues to loom. Corfe Cear-Inaf, the sole officer to have survived the fall of Aekir, begins to rebuild both his fortunes and his sense of purpose amid the political chaos, while the sea captain Richard Hawkwood's ocean voyage continues to unfold on a separate front far to the west. Structured around parallel storylines set across Normannia and the distant western lands Hawkwood's expedition is exploring, the novel advances the series' central crisis of faith, war, and survival on multiple fronts at once.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Monarchies of God
- Series: The Monarchies of God core; position 2 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Paul Kearney
Notes
- From the series record (The Monarchies of God): A five-novel epic fantasy sequence set in a continent modelled loosely on Renaissance-era Europe, following a sea captain, kings, and a religious purge across a sustained secondary-world war.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Monarchies of God: position 2 of 5: previous Hawkwood's Voyage (1995) · next The Iron Wars (1999)
Sources
- The Monarchies of God series bibliography (specialised genre-fiction site)
- https://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Paul-Kearney/The-Heretic-Kings.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchies_of_God
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