And thanks to that universe, you follow an adventure you will not find anywhere else. But it is well-built, and a few very important elements (guess what: yes, the wind) make it come to life, and take over all the rest. At the end, you realize the universe might not be as unique, or mind-blowing, as those of Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter maybe. Because if you do, I promise you are in for a treat. Hopefully, however, you will be able to get past that. And because the book starts in the middle of an action, in a world you don’t know, in a situation you have never heard of, with many, maaaaany characters (twenty-three!), and the story-telling point of view changing every few lines, it is at first hard to get into and to grasp what is happening. The vocabulary is unique and entirely made-up by Damasio, and unless the concept is altogether new to one character, and that character is asking for an explanation, you won’t get one, and you will have to understand by yourself what is each thing. The Horde of Counterwind took me about twelve hours for seven hundred pages, so almost the double time. I read often, and usually quite fast: about a hundred pages in an hour in my mother tongue. But since I am writing a review, I have to be honest: it is one of the most difficult books I have read.

Not to worry though! With the book comes a bookmark listing each symbol and the character owning it, as well as their title/function in the Horde (though I am not sure we should thank Folio or Damasio).Īs you might have guessed already, I loved the book. Which is, you know, something really enjoyable in a book !

That makes the pace fast, and intriguing, because you only have the thoughts of the character, none of their knowledge, and thus, despite seeing things from some who have more answers than others, you’re kept guessing till the very end. You jump from character to character in a matter of lines. No name to tell you who’s telling the story, no. It is because Alain Damasio wrote the story from many points-of-views: each member of the Horde has their symbol – and not just at the beginning of each paragraph. Then, you will notice a first sentence made only of punctuation, and that each paragraph starts with a symbol. The first thing you will notice as you start the book is that, just like the characters, you are going upward a stream, and thus, you start at page 700 and go down till page 1. The Horde of Counterwind is a unique story in many ways.

La Horde du Contrevent by Alain Damasio