A Cast of Stones

I really wanted to like this book. Seriously, just look at the cover. I was actually first exposed to this series through finding the cover of the third book in the trilogy. It sounded awesome and I will admit to being very curious when I heard that this series was marketed as Christian fantasy.

Up to this point, my exposure to Christian fiction has been limited to romance novels. Considering that fantasy is my favorite genre, I wanted to give this book a shot.

I made it to page 94 before I couldn't stand it anymore and slammed the book shut.

The book starts off by throwing you into a fight in the first handful of pages without telling you why you should be rooting for either combatant. Then, sometime after the fight when the main character finally started developing a personality, I discovered that I hated him.

Errol is a young man (at least I assume so, in the part that I read, no indication had been given to his age other than the fact that he was over fourteen) that loves to wallow in his own misery and (for bonus points) has an unpleasant ‘secret' in his past. (Secret from the reader, anyway.)

So, how does Errol choose to while away his days? By getting totally and completely pickled, of course! That's right, this young man decided that he could not face the world without looking at it through the bottom of an empty ale mug - or, more preferably, several emplty ale mugs.

You've got to understand, I've never been able to tolerate people that use alcohol as a crutch. In fact, I have to deal with someone like that in my day to day life and it sets my teeth on edge sometimes. I surely do not want to read about someone like that that has absolutely no redeeming or endearing traits when the story starts. (I will give Errol the benefit of the doubt and assume that he becomes more likable - I just cannot stick around to see it happen.)

I hate secrets. If you've seen some of my other reviews, I bet you could have guessed that. For me, a book that tries to hold everything as a mystery - whether from the reader and/or from the characters - will quickly make me loose interest. I think it has something to do with the fact that I feel authors that do this would struggle otherwise to keep my attention and they use this to build tension. That and I hate people that keep secrets from those they profess to care about.

Well, nearly every conversation in this book was cryptic - mostly two old men almost talking in riddles to keep Errol, and thereby the reader, from understanding...well, anything. In fact, there were several times that Errol knew far less than he should have about the world that he lives in. Of course, I couldn't tell if this was only to give the author an easy way to info dump through monolog or because Errol's brain is preserved from all that liquor.

I will say, some things were finally getting revealed by the time I got irredeemably ticked-off at Errol, so maybe people start keeping fewer secrets - but, honestly, by that point I didn't care anymore.

I finally had enough after the umpteenth moment of Errol wanting to disappear back into his ale barrel so he didn't have to face this cruel world sober.

Finally, I'd like to add that, if you can get past all the problems I personally had with this book, you might enjoy this book more if you've never read much fantasy, because this story seemed to be shaping up as very formulistic.

You can find some of my other reviews at my blog: Pages of Starlight.