The novel “The Iron Thorn”, also known as “The Amsirs And The Iron Thorn” by Algis Budrys was published for the first time in 1967 serialized in the magazine “If” and later as a book.

Honor White Jackson is young human hunter who has to kill a Amsir, a humanoid bird, for the first time. The success in that trial leads him to be initiated within the caste of the Honors, as human hunters are called, and to discover various secrets of the Iron Thorn.

The revelations allow Jackson to understand that his entire world is very different from what he had known until then. That’s just the beginning of an journey which is also an inner one to the discovery of a much larger truth but to obtain it he’s forced to leave his people and take many risks.