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A review by marpesea
The Stone Fey by Robin McKinley, John Clapp
2.0
The world building was interesting and I really liked where it was going, but the narrative could have used some fleshing out and the main conflict... never really seemed to amount to much of anything. There was a thing, slowly it proved to be a problem, things got interesting, but then it wasn’t a problem because it was fixed. I would have loved more insight into Maddy’s struggle, instead a bad dream and avoiding the hills seemed to solve everything.
The most well-rounded character in this is our main character’s sheep dog, followed closely by her scholar brother.
I hoped for another story about Damar, but these don’t feel like the hills from either The Hero and the Crown or The Blue Sword (seems to be somewhere between the two, chronologically). I don’t remember any mention of fey in the previous books and it felt like a very different world, aside from a few nods to her other books (Aerin is mentioned by name and someone mentions that farmers are beginning to plant orange groves in the south). The art is lovely, but doesn’t add enough to make up for what I found to be an unsatisfying story.
The most well-rounded character in this is our main character’s sheep dog, followed closely by her scholar brother.
I hoped for another story about Damar, but these don’t feel like the hills from either The Hero and the Crown or The Blue Sword (seems to be somewhere between the two, chronologically). I don’t remember any mention of fey in the previous books and it felt like a very different world, aside from a few nods to her other books (Aerin is mentioned by name and someone mentions that farmers are beginning to plant orange groves in the south). The art is lovely, but doesn’t add enough to make up for what I found to be an unsatisfying story.