The Vagrant (The Vagrant Trilogy)

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The Vagrant is his name. He has no other.

Years have passed since humanity’s destruction emerged from the Breach.

Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape.

As each day passes the world tumbles further into depravity, bent and twisted by the new order, corrupted by the Usurper, the enemy, and his infernal horde.

His purpose is to reach the Shining City, last bastion of the human race, and deliver the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war.

What little hope remains is dying. Abandoned by its leader, The Seven, and its heroes, The Seraph Knights, the last defences of a once great civilisation are crumbling into dust.

But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: R. Guerin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: though not easy, writing style
Review: The five stars are to reward the author for an original, though not easy, writing style. As other reviews have pointed out, this is not for everyone, but it holds a certain poetic dimension that makes for a relatively unique read. It does contribute to making the storyline a little more challenging to follow, and the problem is somewhat magnified by the fact that the quality of the writing is to some extent at the cost of limited character development (the only character that eventually builds up much of a personality is the baby Vesper rather than the main character, the Vagrant, or his “sidekick”, Harm). Nevertheless, after you are finished reading the book, it is likely one you will remember and that will stand out.Now, coming back to the storyline (spoler alert, some may view this as disclosing too much of the book’s content), it has somewhat of a post-apocalyptic flavor to it, but holds its own when it comes to bringing an original twist to the theme. The main character, the Vagrant, is on a mission to bring an infant, Vesper, to the safety of one of the few places that have not (yet) suffered from the side-effect of the “plague” that has taken over part of the world. This plague is not amorphous but has a sentience of its own that allows it to infect and affect humans it takes over, and furthermore multiple factions exist within it that ultimately will fight for dominance. The Vagrant is armed with a special sword whose story is developed as a sub-plot in the book, and that is imbued with the power to defeat the plague when it encounters it. The book is mostly the story of the Vagrant’s journey with Vesper from danger to ultimately “safety”, during which he eventually encounters Harm, a hybrid character that remains human but with some features derived from the plague. The writing is in the third person and the book’s main appeal is again not so much in the storyline or the characters, but in the writing itself. The book ends on what is a relatively clear plug for the next book, but it is not one of these annoying open-ended conclusion that leaves you in suspense. This first volume is a complete story in its own right and can be read without the next volume.So again, this is not beach reading as the writing takes some time getting used to and does make it harder to tease out the story itself. But the quality and originality of the writing make this a worthy read.

Reviewer: Out of this World Reviews
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Bold, dismal, groundbreaking, and genre defying all at once
Review: “Starlight gives way to bolder neon. Signs muscle in on all sides, brightly welcoming each arrival to New Horizon. The Vagrant does not notice; his gaze fixes on the ground ahead.”So begins The Vagrant by Peter Newman, a literary work that is bold, dismal, groundbreaking, and genre defying all at once. It’s concisely written yet full of beautiful prose, and features a menagerie of characters, some good, some evil, and many who fall somewhere between. The central figure is, as the title suggests, the man known only as the Vagrant. Beyond him and a pair of ever present companions (a baby and a goat, of all things), there is little consistency to the cast of personas; the Vagrant is on a mission which necessitates that he remain on the move and, in doing so, hardly won alliances are often shattered as the Vagrant does what he must do to keep himself and the baby he protects alive.The world the Vagrant walks is a dark, dismal one, made so by the horde of monsters that emerged from the Breach to enslave and otherwise make ill use of humanity. In this ongoing struggle, few can stand against the monsters. The Vagrant is, not surprisingly, one of them, but only because of the sword he wields, a relic of an order that has been laid low by the monsters and their infernal leader, the Usurper. The Vagrant’s story unfolds over the course of the novel as we are treated to glimpses of his past, how he acquired a Seraph Knight’s sword, and how he came to travel with a baby and a goat. The baby actually influences many of the Vagrant’s decisions. The goat, not so much, though he does view the goat as a companion of sorts and looks out for him as such. The last thing I will say about the Vagrant is that he is a mute. This isn’t immediately obvious; while he doesn’t speak early on in the book, the prose is such that the reader is left to wonder if this is merely a tact the author means to explore for as long as he can. Later it is revealed, however, that he cannot speak. It’s an interesting aspect of the character which allows the author to explore situations in entirely different ways since the Vagrant cannot simply explain himself or his intentions verbally.The writing is somber and dark in the vein of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, yet leavened at times by the presence of the Vagrant’s companions. The goat is flat out hilarious at times, often inserting himself into the middle of situations (especially if there is food to be had), and the baby brings with her a sense of hope that only a baby can bring. Yet the world as a whole is a dark, dismal place, where seemingly well intentioned characters can and will change allegiances to suit their own needs. Yet even in the darkest places there can be light as we find with a certain abomination-like character.I’m giving The Vagrant four rockets. It very nearly received five, but there was a point in which I felt the story dragged somewhat. Still, this first installment in The Vagrant Series is a must-read if only because of the uniqueness of the main character and genre-blending aspects of the world he walks. There are aspects of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and dystopia, all blended together in a way that is both horrible to experience yet refreshing from a non-traditionalist’s point of view. The Vagrant has much more story in him, I feel, so I will be purchasing the next two books in the series soon.

Reviewer: CyningaDena
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A D&D dm built an awesome world but the plot is on you
Review: Not sure what happened here. Protagonist is mute, narrator is third-person limited omniscient, world-building context is dribbled out through infrequent flashbacks, and it feels like a D&D campaign setup. You don’t even know the protagonist’s goal for the first third of the story and you’re just carried along by curiosity and voice. That seems to be the driving momentum all the way through rather than the plot line. Interesting as a concept, and I love new ways of storytelling, so 5 stars for that, but the ending fell flat. Like the author is very experienced at creating a world and setting a conflict, but relies on other D&D players to drive the plot. The story just stopped at the end and subbed in a resolution to the vague secondary romance for an actual resolution. Maybe I’m just jaded from decades of TV dramas, but two people finding love and raising a child is not a compelling resolution to demonic invasion. I loved the author’s creative world-building and sentence-level voice to tackle the challenge of a mute protagonist, though, and props to Newman for trying something fresh. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for other books from him.

Reviewer: christelle
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Where is he? where does he come from? where is he going?All those questions travelled my mind during the vagrant’s journey and its unexpected conclusion.What I liked most is that the author does not explain everything. It might sound silly but it’s nice to be able to imagine parts of the story and just immerse yourself in this weird and twisted kingdom.Through very nicely handled flashbacks you can see his history and what brought him there.I won’t go through a detailed summary of the book but I strongly recommend it and in fact I bought the second one right after I finished it.

Reviewer: Mahesh
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Print Review:Do Not Pay more than 300 Rupees for Paperback. The print is like pirated book, the pages are almost yellow. And the book is not the big.

Reviewer: Andrew Wallace
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Most SFF writers expend phenomenal creative energies creating alternative worlds for their protagonists to explore. Peter Newman doesn’t bother with any of that; he is far more intent on destroying the world and makes a viscerally good job of doing so.This novel takes place in ‘the present’ (whenever that may be) and eight years previously, in which the eyes of those meant to protect us from the horrific, disembodied entities of the Breach are directed elsewhere due to a bracingly contemporary combination of laziness, decadence and stupidity. This collective failure of authority enables the most loathsome infernal invasion I’ve read since Peter F Hamilton’s ‘The Reality Dysfunction’.As in that classic SF/horror/fantasy hybrid, the protean demons in ‘The Vagrant’ are unstoppable creatures of dark instinct whose essence is beyond the comprehension of their victims. Even the gloriously named demigod Gamma of the Seven and her flying fortress are unable to stop the devilish tide. She falls in battle against the demonic Usurper, who uses Gamma’s body to become a physical entity, twisting and mutating the angelic host until it is unrecognisable. Only Gamma’s sword, known to the infernals as ‘The Malice’ escapes the carnage, to be wielded on a haunting journey across the blighted land by a silent knight called the Vagrant.With his long coat, amber eyes and refusal or inability to speak, the Vagrant brings to mind the scavenger who appears at the beginning of 90s SF film ‘Hardware’, played by the singer from ‘Fields of the Nephilim’. He has the same battered, worldly cool and sense of general badassery. However, although those who mess with the Vagrant tend to regret it, he makes a series of moral judgements on his journey that mark him out as a rare force for good. It is these, as much as the intriguingly sound-operated, semi-conscious sword that make the Vagrant an unlikely hero.As if he hasn’t got enough to contend with in getting the Malice back to the Shining City, which turns out to be less shiny that he is led to believe, the Vagrant also travels with a baby, a scene-stealing goat and a crook called Harm. As in ‘The Road’, it is the vulnerability of the child companion and the unlikeliness of their survival beyond an hour or so that raises ‘The Vagrant’ above the usual post-apocalyptic fare. You really don’t expect any of them to get far and every time they do there is a satisfying sense of triumph.The villains are great as well; not just simply evil, they operate primarily at a level of curiosity, as untroubled by moral concerns as they are physical ones. The Usurper dispatches one of his followers, the Uncivil, whose oddly restrained moniker implies burping at the dinner table rather than using living bodies to create a hybrid form of her own, to track down the Malice in order to dispose of it. Once out of reach of the Usurper, however, the Uncivil gets ideas of her own and the Vagrant and his companions subsequently find themselves in the midst of an infernal civil war.The novel’s lilting, often poetic language successfully conveys both the weary humanity of the protagonist and also the dispassionate hunger of his infernal pursuers. Bleakly vivid yet lively; deadpan but heartfelt, ‘The Vagrant’ is an unusual and compelling read.

Reviewer: kalina
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Ação e aventura em mundo pós-apocalíptico! narrativa inovadora e personagens incríveis! O melhor livro de fantasia\ficção que li esse ano.

Reviewer: John Ross
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a great read. Original and very readable.

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