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punkhazard 's review for:
Black Stone Heart
by Michael R. Fletcher
I loved the premise and the initial chapters. I’m realizing I’m a sucker for throwing me into a world where me and the protagonist knows nothing at all. The book Bastion by Phil Tucker did something similar and I loved that book. It made his journey of literal self discovery very captivating.
I’m also usually not a fan of generic magic systems where it describes the users as wizards or generic ideas like Demons and necromancy. I like more specific and unique magic system and ideas and naming conventions. But in this case it worked. If only for the sheer quantity of the different types. I’ve never read a story where demonology, sorcerers, battle mages, elementalist, wizards, and necromancy all exist at the same time but are very different from one another. It brought some life into the idea
The story itself was fun and interesting for the first 2/3rds of the book. I saw a couple of the twists coming in the end(I called the thing with Shalayne the instant that girl in the tavern said Tian had a sister) but I didn’t see the twist with Henka coming. So that was fun. I don’t know if I loved the road to get there though
My issues came in when Henka became a major character and with the protagonist himself.
Henka herself was a fine character. I did think she was too one note and her obsession with the protagonist bothered me until i got to the end. It just felt like she was forced into the story for some reason. Like at first she wasn’t supposed to be that important but the author changed his mind at some point. The ending twist with her even felt a little hand fisted. And the protagonist extreme love/desire for her felt weird, awkward and out of nowhere. Like At first I thought he was lying to get her to do what he wants but at some point i think he really fell in love with her for no reason at all.
The protagonist himself really really started getting on my nerves the closer to the end we got. At first I thought he was going to be a tutored soul always trying to do better but always finding himself in hard situations. Towards the end he just seemed like he was slowly degrading into a villain. Both are fine and I like aspects of both. The problem is that the protagonist himself didn’t know what he was. He would brutally murder an entire family then think to himself how bad he felt then proceed to brutally murder someone else then feels bad about it and so on and so forth. It was tedious and annoying. He never actually did anything to stop from being evil and doing evil stuff but would wallow in pity for himself after every evil deed. Either be evil or not. Or at least do something to fight against those instincts in a real way, don’t just talk about it for pages and pages. I would rather he be a full on psychopath then this pointless back and forth.
I’m also usually not a fan of generic magic systems where it describes the users as wizards or generic ideas like Demons and necromancy. I like more specific and unique magic system and ideas and naming conventions. But in this case it worked. If only for the sheer quantity of the different types. I’ve never read a story where demonology, sorcerers, battle mages, elementalist, wizards, and necromancy all exist at the same time but are very different from one another. It brought some life into the idea
The story itself was fun and interesting for the first 2/3rds of the book. I saw a couple of the twists coming in the end(I called the thing with Shalayne the instant that girl in the tavern said Tian had a sister) but I didn’t see the twist with Henka coming. So that was fun. I don’t know if I loved the road to get there though
My issues came in when Henka became a major character and with the protagonist himself.
Henka herself was a fine character. I did think she was too one note and her obsession with the protagonist bothered me until i got to the end. It just felt like she was forced into the story for some reason. Like at first she wasn’t supposed to be that important but the author changed his mind at some point. The ending twist with her even felt a little hand fisted. And the protagonist extreme love/desire for her felt weird, awkward and out of nowhere. Like At first I thought he was lying to get her to do what he wants but at some point i think he really fell in love with her for no reason at all.
The protagonist himself really really started getting on my nerves the closer to the end we got. At first I thought he was going to be a tutored soul always trying to do better but always finding himself in hard situations. Towards the end he just seemed like he was slowly degrading into a villain. Both are fine and I like aspects of both. The problem is that the protagonist himself didn’t know what he was. He would brutally murder an entire family then think to himself how bad he felt then proceed to brutally murder someone else then feels bad about it and so on and so forth. It was tedious and annoying. He never actually did anything to stop from being evil and doing evil stuff but would wallow in pity for himself after every evil deed. Either be evil or not. Or at least do something to fight against those instincts in a real way, don’t just talk about it for pages and pages. I would rather he be a full on psychopath then this pointless back and forth.