James Hilton (novelist) picked "Lost Horizon" as its first title in 1939. For that reason, the novel is frequently called the book that began the "paperback revolution." Hilton is said to have been inspired to write "Lost Horizon", and to invent "Shangri-La" by reading the "National Geographic Magazine" articles of Joseph Rock, an Austrian-American botanist and ethnologist exploring the southwestern Chinese provinces and Tibetan borderlands. Still living in Britain at the time, Hilton was perhaps influenced by the Tibetan travel articles of early travellers in Tibet whose writings were found in the British Library. Christian Zeeman, the Danish father of the mathematician Christopher
The Heart of What Was Lost leader, Duke Isgrimnur, leads his army in pursuit, determined to destroy the Norns and their ancient Queen Utuk'ku once and for all. The book is told from three points of view: Duke Isgrimnur of Rimmersgard; a Norn leader, Viyeki; and Porto, a Perdruinese mercenary. Jason Heller, a book reviewer for NPR, reviewed the book, stating the novel balances "warmth with grimness, and gentle bits of humor with violence and vengeance. Williams has tapped back into the dynamic that made "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" so absorbing." Aiden Moher at Barnes & Noble's fantasy blog called "The Heart of What Was Lost"