Customer Reviews

The Stoneholding (Legacy of the Stone Harp: Book One)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I think mostly everyone's already said it - pass this one up. If you're a lover of high fantasy, "The Stoneholding" is just going to make you cry (and not in a good way). Wordy, characters that are dull and not engaging, and a plot that's bogged down by bad writing. If you want to read this one... just don't. Get it from the library if you must waste your time on it.

This is teen wish-fulfillment fantasy that might perhaps be enjoyed by easily amused adolescent boys. I can't imagine anyone else actually liking this book. (Warning: spoilers follow, though actually there's very little to spoil here.)

The plot is simple to the point of being almost nonexistent. It consists of the Hero and his Buddy running around a small mountain valley, trying to dodge a mass of battle-hardened invaders led by a fearful tyrant while at the same time saving as many inhabitants as possible. The adults mostly stand around inertly while they do this. There are many valuable things to learn here about how to act while being chased around the countryside, such as 1) take a nap during full daylight on the side of a scree slope; 2) when you wake up from your nap, descend the slope and then yell at the top of your lungs to rouse your still-sleeping buddy; no one will see or hear you while you engage in this behavior; 3) dawdle around to watch a rat fight an otter; 4) let a guy who you know is working for the tyrant follow the refugees to your hiding place, and then act surprised when he hits someone important over the head with a rock, steals a vital magical artifact, and runs off; 5) let the guy back in afterward, ignore him when he starts jostling you for no reason, and then act surprised once more when he steals said artifact *again.* I could go on, but I won't.

In fairness, the bad guys aren't any smarter. Which is too bad, really, because if they had been, the book would be a lot shorter. A lot of page space is taken up by descriptions of every plant, bird, and rock formation our idiot heroes run across, as well as by tediously long-winded attempts at dialogue. It's less dialogue than it is a series of alternating monologues, a situation which makes the reader appreciate the precocious mute kid all the more. And as for female characters, on those rare occasions when you're actually able to spot one, she will be cooking, scolding, holding a baby, or wailing in grief. Like I said, dismal.

I would recommend this book only to my enemies. If you simply must read it, don't spend any money on it.

The Prologue for this book is excellent. Full of adventure, sword-fighting, double-dealing, and interesting characters, I had high hopes for the entire book. Then I got to Chapter 1, and everything went downhill. New (less interesting) characters are introduced, a new (more formulaic) evil is descending upon the protagonists, and all the quick-witted action from the Prologue is replaced with (bland) build-up and (really long) expositions on the scenery. And the history of the scenery. And the protagonist's interaction with the scenery. Seriously.

At one point, when the hero is supposed to be running for his life from some bad guys who are chasing him, the authors let the hero ramble for a couple pages about all the fun times he had as a boy running up and down that very same trail and how he had no idea the danger he would be in mere years later.

Later in the book, one entire chapter is spent in dialogue between two characters on a lake as they read a map, one character telling the other where they are going; then reiterating where they are going; then asking if the hero has any questions about where they are going; then explaining why they are not going some other way and the dangers involved in going the way they're going; and, just for good measure, making sure the hero understands where they're going.

There is enough action and suspense in this book to fill a book about half its size. The rest of the book is spent with long descriptions and dialogue that could make a Renaissance Festival writer chuckle ("Come now, oldling, come gently now, and there'll be no harm done" p. 150; "What do you think, Fry? He's a sly hog-grubbing kind of fellow, ain't he? As flustered as a fly in a tar-box, couldn't you just feel it?" p. 291; "If you want me to do your work, if you want me to be the guardian of your Howe, you've got to save me. Why make me Hordanu if I'm to perish here in this rotten hole?" p. 344).

More imaginative use of characters, a little less reliance on Tolkein for inspiration, and a whole lot more editing would have done this book well.

The Stoneholding is really long, but not that much actually happens. The plot is simplistic and characters lack believable motivation. You have to "take it for granted" every time a character does anything. Instead, the author spends an abnormal amount of time talking about geography. He describes every hill, rock, grove of trees, etc in painfully lengthy detail. Somehow, in spite of this, you're still not left with a coherent sense of setting. These passages feel more like hearing a laundry list of the landscape's various features.

Worse, these verbose wastes of time tend to interrupt the plot whenever it comes even close to moving. For instance, in one scene: Old Wise Man sees assorted symbols of doom. He feels a sure sense that something terrible is about to happen. !! So he... spends the next 12 pages musing about the various landmarks around his house.

And no, the landmarks don't become relevant once the terrible thing actually happens, nor are they relevant at any time during this book. So it's not "immersive", it's just really boring.

Also, the author has a bad case of thesaurusitis. Thesaurusitis happens when an writer, afraid of using simple vocabulary, or of using the same word twice in one paragraph, uses a thesaurus to find some synonym - any synonym! - with which to replace the offending words. The substitute words may be big and fancy, but often sound unnatural and sometimes don't even make sense in context. The result is very awkward writing.

This book was really bad. Avoid.

I want to like this book better than I do. The story is engaging, the characters interesting, the writing occasionally superb. The problem lies in that "occasionally", however. There seems to be a wide discrepancy in writing style between the 2 writers of this book. To be honest, I'm not sure which author wrote which passages, but there are definitely 2 styles vying for attention here. One seems to be more descriptive, but tends to get carried away. These sections of the book spiral off point, leaving me wondering "Wait...what? Huh?" and thankful when the other author takes over. Under all this confusion, however, is an excellent fantasy book which I am confident many will enjoy, as long as they don't get easily dizzy.

Wow. I'm honestly surprised to see so many negative reviews for this book! It has been many years since I enjoyed a fantasy book as much as I've enjoyed The Stoneholding - it's held up to a second reading, and I'm getting ready to read it aloud to my younger brother again. I find myself turning the characters and events over and over in my mind, savoring the richness of the story so far and wondering what's coming next (in the rest of the series).

In many ways The Stoneholding reminds me of another fantasy series that I first read as a teenager and LOATHED...for many of the same reasons that readers listed here...lengthy descriptions of scenery, miscellaneous characters introduced who never quite seem to matter to the overall plot, random musings on ancient history and legends, etc. It wasn't until years later when I heard The Fellowship of the Ring read aloud that I actually came to appreciate the lyric beauty of such an epic work, whose purpose isn't merely to pull the reader through an exciting plot as quickly as possible, but also to fully live the journey along the way. In many ways both The Lord of the Rings and The Stoneholding remind me of the type of epic tales that would have been recited by a bard beside a roaring fire in the hall of some medieval lord on a winter's night...before television, internet, and iPods, the vivid word pictures painted by such tales would have entranced and delighted any listener. It is a bit harder to silently read your way through such lengthy descriptions (I can recommend reading it aloud!) but I have found the landscape of my imagination enriched by the beauty of Lammermorn, and my sense of wonder piqued by the mythological underpinnings of the story.

For anyone who enjoys this type of work, as well as charming characters and adventurous quests, I highly recommend The Stoneholding! Enjoy!

I actually had high hopes for this fantasy, but sadly enough it was very disappointing. Certainly nothing like the level of David Eddings, Robert Jordan, Mercedes Lacky, Terry Goodkind, Stephen R. Donaldson, or so many other notable fantasy authors.

The prologue started some what interesting, but after the prologue the rest of the book was about prologue's hero's son. From beginning to end, I didn't get any connection to the main character. I really could care less what happened to him or what was going on.

There wasn't a clearly defined villain or evil side that most fantasy plots have, causing the storyline to sort of meander with very minimal action.

To be honest, for someone who usually reads these sized books in 3-4 hours, I really struggled to finish this book. In fact, if I had not been waiting for jury duty I would never have finished this book.

It's not that the book was completely distasteful, but it really was not interesting at all. Neither the characters, the plot, the details, or the dialogue were able to capture my desire to know more about either the world or the characters. I wouldn't even say that this story is more geared towards the Junior section either, but it certainly lacked alot of violent action and lacked any romance altogether.

I would not recommend this series at all.

This book is very difficult to read in that it is clumsily executed. Many parts of it are overly descriptive while leaving the reader with a vague outline of what the land looks like. The dialogue is the worst part of it. People just don't talk in lengthy paragraphs back and forth like that. My advice would be to avoid this one as it is a total waste of time and paper.

I have read 2 references (one a short snapshot review on the book itself, and one a letter of introduction from the publishers) which try to allude that this book is Tolkien-esque. There is only one aspect that is similar - the authors' desire to describe in detail every passing flower, tree, bush and blade of grass. Had they invested as much time in character and plot development, perhaps the book would have been worth reading. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel that investing the time in reading the book has been a colossal waste of time.

I read The Lord Of The Rings when I was younger, and found the going slow halfway through The Two Towers. That being said, I can't recall a single time when I actually dreaded picking up the book nor having to will myself to continue reading it...the same cannot be said of The Stoneholding.

I used to teach English, but I wouldn't imagine trying to use some of the words the authors put in this book. For example "The feasting folk were all busy wassailing with this pleasant liquor...". Seriously? Wassailing? Pleasant liquor? This is but a small taste of what you'd be subjecting yourself to should you decide to read this book. Believe me, the authors have tried to use the heaviest language (read: incomprehensible) possible. Further, the dialogue between characters is unnaturally heavy, making it unbelievable.

Another odd part about the book is the authors' decision to use elements from different languages - double l's reminiscent of Welsh, the French ö, etc. As someone who speaks several languages, I find this mix unbelievable, if not impossible. At the very least, I personally found it irritating.

On the subject of bards, I think they would have done well to take a leaf out of Janny Wurts' books...at least she has some understanding of music, and tries to make her bard wreak magic through music.

There are many other things I could find fault with in this book but I don't want to bore you. I will be avoiding these authors like the plague in future, and cannot urge you enough not to get/read this book. This comes from someone who's been avidly reading fantasy for around 30 years, so I should know a little bit about it!

"The Stoneholding" by James Anderson & Mark Sebanc

It is just another day in the Stoneholding for Kal as he makes his way to the great glence (not really sure what that is) to take up his task as helper to the Hordanu the high bard. It turns out not to be just another day however as there are strangers lurking about and the sacred fire has been extinguished. The all mighty Hordanu isn't looking too vigilant in his leadership. But this is nothing compared to the small army that has slipped in through the only entrance to the Stoneholding with plans of destruction on their mind. Now Kal, his friend Galli and the all mighty Hordanu Willum must lead the survivors to safety, of course they don't know where that is...

Anderson and Sebanc may be lovers of the English language but they are severely lacking in their ability to create a serviceable plot or characters that are likeable or that have any depth.

The Good: The authors aren't bad at describing landscapes and certainly don't short the reader with their descriptions of them.

The Bad: There never seemed to be a cohesive description of the political structure of the world that these characters inhabit. Willum the Hordanu (Not really sure what that is) seems to be somewhat in charge however is vastly incompetent. He seems to have no army, no personal security and no security guarding the important things in which he deals such as the Sacred Fire. All through the book Willum states that as long as the Hordanu lives that there is hope however he seems to wield almost no power and drive forward with almost no plan. You are constantly told about the evil Gawmage but I never got who he was or why he was important. We also hear about the Mindal but I'm not sure who that is. We know that Ferabek is the invader but how does he relate to the other evil doers? So much time is spent describing the landscape and almost none giving you the political structure leaving most of the book incoherent.

The characters all seem vastly ignorant and are always making weird decisions. Through much of the book they are running for their lives however this never stops them from just plopping down and engaging in small talk which includes some out loud laughter or the spectating of animals fighting. Are you kidding me? When you are running for your life you don't stop and have a chat. These types of "what the?" moments run rampant through the book and it is compounded by the fact that they are exemplified by the main characters.

There are way too many convenient plot turns and devices. I can't go into details without giving spoilers but at every turn some freak thing happens that makes little to no sense and either serves our heroes or serves to insert an action beat into the plot.

Overall: So many things in this book left me shaking my head. Pass on this one.