Horde of the Counterwind: An Epic Voyage to the Upper Reaches

Summary

France’s defining fantasy/science-fiction odyssey of the twenty-first century, basis of the award-winning video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and now published in English for the first time, celebrates twenty-three brave warriors of the wind.

Twenty-three adventurers—each with a precise duty and a unique personality, some trained since birth, some joining over the course of a long journey—climb endlessly against the wind that plagues their desolate homeland. Their only purpose: to make it to the Upper Reaches and identify the wind’s mysterious source. Over the course of eight hundred years, thirty-three hordes before them have tried and failed.

In this masterwork whose epic scope and visionary world-building are commonly compared to the universe of Dune, author Alain Damasio moves among narrators, alternating between breathtaking descriptions of the unique and bewildering world he has invented—ruled by seven types of wind, classified by their forces and gripping, rhythmic dialogue.

Horde of the Counterwind has ignited the imaginations of more than a million French fans and was voted the best book of the twenty-first century by readers of SensCritique and the twelfth-greatest book of all time by Le Monde’s subscribers. At last, English-speaking audiences will get the chance to shoulder their packs and join the adventure.

“There comes from time to time, in imaginative fiction, a book totally outside the norm, one that occupies a world all its own and constitutes an extraordinarily singular literary object. Such is the case with this striking novel, which grips you from the first page and never lets go, even long after the final page … Horde of the Counterwind is a masterpiece.”—Le Monde