Paul Hoffman read English at New College, Oxford. After graduating he worked in many varied jobs, including as a senior film censor at the British Board of Film Classification. His first novel, The Wisdom of Crocodiles was made into a film starring Jude Law and Timothy Spall. His second novel, The Golden Age of Censorship, was a black comedy based on his experiences as a film censor. As a screenwriter he has written or co-written three films and worked with, among others, Francis Ford Coppola.
The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman
If Paul Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God were a movie, its audience would have lots of reasons to walk out well before the credits. It’s a big mess of a book with major flaws in nearly all aspects: plot, character, world building, and pace, to name a few. Yet somehow, and I have yet to figure out how, it kept me marching through it, and damn if I wasn’t a bit curious about what would happen in the sequel. The Left Hand of God was such a mixed bag, though, that I confess that feeling of curiosity was a bit disappointing. I’d thought I could be done with this story and move on to better written material.
The Left Hand of God centers on Thomas Cale, a 14-yr-old boy living in the Sanctuary of the Redeemers, a huge fortress whose lords brutalize their captives to train them in the name of the One Tru... Read More
