This is a review request for Ryan Carriere.
NOTE: Between when I received this book and now when I am publishing my review, I think the author changed the book's title and perhaps other information. So the factual contents of my review are accurate according to the copy that I have and not the copy that you might find these days on Amazon.
This story has a fantastic opening. It shows our young hero-protagonist dropped off on a beach, and resolving not to cry from homesickness on her first mission. It is an attention-grabbing opening that springboards into the main action. But more importantly, for this reader at least, it sounds like the plot hook for a D&D campaign.
Seriously, that is what it comes off to me and that is what hooked my interest. The hero-protagonist, Stephanie, is a musician who comes from a family of merchants. She is drafted to join the Crystal Hunters, quickly trained as a crystal hunter, and sent to join her new team in the field. This is a concise way to establish who the hero-protagonist is and what she is doing here, on this adventure, given her background and personality. It justifies things like "why is a merchant bard on a team with two fighters?" It gets better.
What follows is like a prologue mission from a video game. It is an immediate dungeon with traps and monsters and puzzles and treasure. We see what Stephanie is immediately capable of, and we see some foreshadowing for later. This is a great set up for the rest of her adventure.
See, after this first mission, which establishes the core cast in a quick action sequence, we get to see the wider world. It's like an opening sandbox. More world building, more exposition, and the establishment of the main mission.
It's all well-executed and interesting. The set-up of Atlantean society and all the ominous splendor that the leader of the Crystal Hunters sets up around himself both count as interesting. The guy's name is "Sin". So, yes, he is ominous.
While she adventures, Stephanie draws in her sketchbook. She is an artist in addition to a musician, and so she makes sketches of the landscapes, people, and creatures that she meets. The end of each of her chapters is marked by actual pages in her journal. The pages of the book itself are stylized to look like brown leather-y pages from the journal, complete with sketches and Stephanie's notes. I really like those.
Now, did you notice that I wrote "her chapters", just now? Yeah, Stephanie is not the only hero-protagonist in this book. There is another one. His name is Roeg Stoneholder, and his narrative is completely separate from Stephanie's.
It is related to Stephanie's narrative, taking place in the same society and general area, but they never meet up. It's teased at one point, but it never happens. The two narratives are only tangentially related, and it takes several chapters before even that develops. At first, I was like 'why is Roeg's narrative included'?
I think that is why I didn't like this book as much as I was expecting to, based on the start of Stephanie's narrative. It is why it took so long for me to finish reading this book. Every chapter of this cool, interesting, exciting, D&D-style adventure was interrupted by this slice-of-life style narrative in a totally other place. Even after Roeg starts on his own adventure, it doesn't really feel like an adventure. It feels more like a field-trip with his grandfather.
That is seriously what it feels like. For reasons, Roeg isn't allowed to go on this special hunting trip with the other villagers, which is a huge deal in his hunter/gatherer society. So his de-facto grandfather, the village shaman, takes him on this special trip for a spiritual/supernatural purpose. What happens is walking through the wilderness, gathering water, avoiding wild animals, and not much of substance about the special purpose of this trip until much later.
This double narrative, in my opinion, harms the story because it bogs both narratives down. Any momentum built up by either is broken by the switch. As I said, they are only tangentially related. Whenever I was reading Stephanie's narrative, I would look forward to what happened next for her. Roeg's narrative was boring. It was a distraction from what I wanted to read about, but I didn't skip over it because I felt that something important would happen. It did happen.
Eventually, the reader comes to learn that Roeg's adventure is actually more important than Stephanie's. In fact, Stephanie's group is subjected to dramatic irony. The reader knows that her group is working towards something that is going to make everything worse for everyone, but she and her group have no idea.
Roeg's adventure becomes interesting towards the end. I'd say the time when his de-facto grandfather leaves is when the change begins, which is a pity, because I found him to be the most developed character at the time. Roeg learns of his journey's purpose, and so the adventure feels more like an adventure instead of a field trip. His two companions stop looking like the same character due to divergent growth. It took a while to get there, and it doesn't really feel worth it.
I don't understand how Roeg resolved his adventure's climax at the end. It feels like a plot contrivance. There could be a lore-based reason, but there isn't sufficient exposition present to make this clear. It feels like it comes out of nowhere, and so it falls flat, at least for me.
Now Stephanie's climax! That climax is fantastic. It is a true consequence of all of the build-up that has taken place in her adventure, and so there is a satisfying pay-off at the end of the book. It shows great development of her character. It shows the growth of her skills, and how she uses those skills to accomplish her goals.
The book looks good. I don't recall many, if any, technical mistakes.
Stephanie's sketches add a lot of character to her and her quest. It's not something you see in many novels. This isn't, you know, "polished" real-life artwork but the rough sketches of someone who was drawing a harpie while they were ridding a boat and actually watching a harpy fly on nearby cliffs.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "A Tale to the Eternal Stones: Firestone" a B+
This has been a free review request. The author asked for my honest opinion in exchange for a free copy of their book.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
