Customer Reviews

Spirit of the Stone

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Furey continues the story she began in THE HEART OF MYRIAL, chronicling the split within the Shadowleague as the League struggles to deal with the disintegration of the barriers that separate incompatible species on their home planet. It's a modern revision of the myth of Prometheus, and at its heart are questions about the nature of God, and the responsibility and danger that comes with too much power.

Like its predecessor, this is an absorbing tale. But the second volume of a series is the hardest to sustain, and Furey's excellent character portrayals are marred by the fact that she is juggling too many characters, too many perspectives, and too many sub-plots. Instead of rich insight into a manageable number of characters, the reader is constantly pulled out of one tale and into another. Though they doubtless all tie up in the next volume, the middle of this apparent trilogy is a bridge spun too thin. The Aurian quartet hung together far better, and I wish she'd written about the equally fascinating Shadowleague as a six-book series instead of as what looks like it's going to be a trilogy.

I particularly value Furey for the strength and insight of her female characters who, though all quite different in personality, convey together the full range of female experience and feeling. She has an amazing knack for humanizing villains (male and female) as well. If you're already a Furey fan, you won't want to pass this up, if only to get to the next book in the series. If you haven't read Furey before, definitely start with the first book in either this series or the Aurian saga.

Let this review cover both SPIRIT OF THE STONE and THE HEART OF MYRIAL, since I will not find the time to review both separately.

This is a very good fantasy series. It reminds me a bit of the Rosemary Kirstein series of Steerswoman novels in that it is fantasy with a science-fiction world for a backdrop. It appears that the world of the novels was set up in a perfect balance countless ages before by some super race. Climate was perfect, and various different races and peoples were set on different islands with barriers between them called "curtain walls.' Now the balance of this world has gone way out of kilter and the world is headed for destruction. Even now the weather is so bad crops cannot be grown and starvation stalks some of the lands.

In this setting, we have several most interesting characters on a dire mission, related to an effort by the "Shadowleague" to save the world. Naturally, there's a quest element -- the world cannot be saved if the heroes of the Shadowleague cannot come to a greater understanding of how the world got the way it is, and how it is controlled. Ironically, there is a scientific, central control center for the world which is totally misunderstood by the superstitious and ignorant peasants who now run everything. So this science center is NOW used as a magical temple for the priest class. I mean, sometimes you just want to THROTTLE these fools.

The character that is SO MUCH FUN and really steals the show is Kaz, the firedrake. This character is a pint-sized dragon. Bright red, covered with scales, and with the toothy dragon's jaws and head. HOWEVER, the firedrake is only about the size of a rhinoceros. Big, yes. But not huge, if you get my drift. The firedrake is an intelligent character in the story who communicates with telepathy. He is also a magical creature and a fire creature -- he can launch jets of intense flame for 25 or thirty feet -- the heat is enough to even melt metal. He also has quite a personality, always sneaking off to eat a sheep or two. I mean, this firedrake is a big guy, and those fires need to be stoked, you know?

Just for the record, the books have a few REAL dragons -- and I mean, these guys are really huge. Like about the size of a small freight train. Fortunately, to avoid going too far overboard on dragons and their firedrake cousins, the real dragons take something of a background role in the novels.

Great fun, fast moving, very imaginative -- and Ms. Furey writes VERY well. Some of the other reviewers have complained there's not enough action, but action is a trade-off against characters. To build interesting characters you need lots of dialog, and to supply this the endless action occasionally has to be put on hold. For my part, I think the balance between action and characters is pretty well maintained in the book.

I recommend both Heart of Myrial and Spirit in the Stone. Am looking forward to reading the third one ASAP.

This is a good continuation of the first episode. Some interesting characters are introduced that I found are worth caring about. There are intriguing plot twists and tensions between characters that obviously aren't going to be solved in the scope of this book.

Wow! Furey is so real in her stories. The Aurian series was so colorful and epic. The characters she creates are all realistic, with very human personalities, instead of the typical idea of a heroin. Even the animals crack me up. Everytime she describes something, it makes me see and feel the magic. Often, writers describe something, and you can see it but not feel it. In the Heart of Myrial, Kaz is my favorite character, Followed closely by Shree. I love how she described Aethon's voice inside Zavahl's head. I don't remember her exact wording, but it was something to the effect of "honeyed music interlaced with flashes of metallic colored lights." Who would have thought about putting the word "metallic" into a description of a Dragon's voice? My advice to first time readers: If nothing else, read it because of the Firedrake Kaz! He's hilarious!

Myrial is a place like no other; the ancients created this world as a refuge for species in danger of extinction. Impenetrable barriers known as the curtain walls separate the different realms from each other. The Shadow League led by Cergorn is the keeper of all knowledge both magical and mundane.

Amarun a Loremaster in the Shadow League is branded a traitor and flees the land, traveling through the curtain into the realm of Callisora. There in the capital city of Tiarond, he builds up a power base with his ultimate goal to march into Gendival and take control of his former associates, the Shadow League.

Through his machinations, the curtain is lowered and vicious flying creatures attack Tiarond, destroying the local army. Amarun travels back to his homeland intending to use whatever means necessary to take control of the Shadow League but to his surprise he finds unexpected allies who don't approve of Cergorn's rule.

Fans of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy will definitely enjoy Book 2 of the Shadowleague, SPIRIT OF THE STONE, an epic sword and sorcery fantasy novel. Told from the viewpoint of many different characters, both human and magical, readers feel at all times as if they are in the middle of the action in spite of some problems keeping track of whose whom. Maggie Furey is a talented storyteller who captures and keeps the attention of her audience.

Harriet Klausner

"Spirit of the Stone" is the second novel in the Shadowleague series. It picks up exactly where the last novel led off and is just as action and character packed as the first book was.

When we left them Veldan, Elion, Kaz, the Hierarch of Callisoria (who has the memories and spirit of Aethon, seer of the dragons in his head) and Toulac a telepathic middle aged female warrior that Kaz and Veldan stumbled upon where crossing the border back into the lands of the Shadowleague. The Humans in Callisoria's capital city Tiarond are besieged by flying blood suckers who came through the failing curtain walls-while some flee to the lowlands for safety. Lord Blade, now revealed as the reneged Loremaster Amaurn is also on his way back to the Shadowleague to try and take over to solve the crisis he is essentially responsible for. And in Tiarond a band of young thieves are trying to sneak their way into the only safety left-the great temple of Myrial.

All the while the curtain walls are crumbling, the ring needed to control the calamity has been stolen by one of the winged abominations and the weather is getting worse. Every species on the planet is having their little world disrupted by predators or terrible weather-and the only real hope of stopping it is to get to the knowledge of Aethon inside the Hierach's head.

But the head of the Shadowleague is resistant to believe such a thing could be possible-and grieving over his lost partner, a being that was supposedly impervious to harm. It just may come down to the strangest of partners-and the luckiest finds beneath the city of Tiarond, that gives any hope of saving this unique world.

Like the first book this novel takes place over the course of maybe two or three days-but those days are packed. There are at least five storylines at any given time, so it does get complicated. If you found the first book hard to follow, don't even try this one.

Furey struggles with the same over described emotion in this book and there's a new problem-role reversal. Some characters, for no reason at all, seem to have had total changes of heart about things that they had set in stone beliefs about. The good guys become bad, the bad guys become good. It's a little annoying.

But when it comes right down to it, this is a fun book to read. I'm allready started on the last book in the series and I'm starting to think that this series and Furey's other "Aurian" saga are connected-so maybe I'll check those out too.

Three stars.

I love Maggie Furey's work and this book doesn't fall into the usual "middle book" morass. The story is great, the characters are well-presented, and the writing is wonderful. Furey deserves a lot of credit for her work and this series shows it.

Book two falls into teh same hole that many second books do. It is a bridge, bad stuff happens a lot, everyone is unhappy, everything is confusing, and you, the reading, have not a clue what is going on because the ends are still hanging and its quite fuzzy.

I did not dislike the book, but when I put it down I debated if I would get the third one because I felt lost. The book just started, and it just ended, in the middle of what was gonig on. I found no satasfaction, just more questions without answers.

Do not think that it is not worth reading, but I advise that you have the third book on hand and just open and start reading it as soon as you finish the second.

This book is great. I would suggest it for people who liked the
Wheel of Time and other similar tales. My favorite part about the book is that the main character is female. This book is great and filled with lots of laughs.