Hearts, Hands and Voices (1992)

The Land is the last remaining province of a decaying Empire, separated from it by a vast river. For millennia the Land has been blessed by biotechnology - everything, from housing to transportation, is organically grown, while the dead, absorbed in Ancestor Trees, form a vast information net, the Dreaming.

Such a place should be a paradise, but the Land is troubled, divided by religious conflict between Proclaimer and Confessor, and by political conflict between the forces of the Emperor and those, like the warriors of Destiny, who would see the land free of the technocratic Imperial yoke.

When conflict comes to the small town of Chepsenyt, Mathembe Fileli and her family are made refugees. In her teens, Mathembe has never spoken, by choice. Now she finds herself embarking on a journey into the unknown with her parents, her rebellious brother and the head of her irascible Grandfather, as vociferous in death as he had been in life. One by one, the family is split up and Mathembe is finally alone. She sets out to find them, a small mute girl in a world of glory, squalor and terror. Her journey through countryside and teeming city, through refugee camps and down the great River forms a compulsive story, atmosperic, lyrical and moving.

Cover blurb of Gollancz edition

This is set in a world where trux and houses are grown and the heads of dead people are put on special trees where they grow and are able to communicate. The main plot in this novel concerns the fighting between two groups with different religions. Ian McDonald says that even though there is a lot of Northern Ireland in the book, there is also a lot things from other areas. Hearts, Hands and Voices was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1993. The American edition is published as The Broken Land.

Editions

• Gollancz (hardcover)

  1992

  320 pages. £14.99. Cover by Jim Burns.
  ISBN 0-575-05061-6.

• Bantam Spectra (as The Broken Land; trade paperback)

  1992

  322 pages. $11.00. Cover by Stephen Youll.
  ISBN 0-553-37054-5.

• Gollancz (paperback)

  1993

  320 pages. £4.99. Cover by Jim Burns.
  ISBN 0-575-05373-9.

• Bantam Spectra (as The Broken Land; paperback)

  1993

  360 pages. $5.99. Cover by Stephen Youll.
  ISBN 0-553-56324-6.

Translations

• German Herzen, Hände und Stimmen, translated by Peter Robert.

  1993

  Heyne SF & F, 5009. 463 pages, ISBN 3-453-06588-3. DM 14:90. Cover art by Jim Burns.

• Romanian Inimi, maini, glasuri.

  Pygmalion Publishing House.

Reviews

• John Clute in Interzone #59, May 1992, page 63
• Faren Miller in Locus #376, May 1992
• Gary K. Wolfe in Locus #378, July 1992
• John Clute in Look at the Evidence: Essays and Reviews by John Clute, Liverpool University Press, 1996, pages 367-370 (reprint of the Interzone review above)

I'm very interested in cover scans of the Romanian translation.