Dream Stone
by Glenna McReynolds
fantasy
follows The Chalice and the Blade
copyright 1998
read in December 2012
rating 8: really quite good
This book is "really quite good" if you like romantic fantasy! I just like adventure, nice characters and a satisfactory ending. This book has all of that.
Dream Stone is a dream of summer, with the richness of life glowing in the glorious sunshine. It's a dream of spring, with love bursting forth in all its heartfelt splendour. It is a dream of autumn, with everyday work to be done in preparation for winter.
And it's a dream of winter, with danger and the threat of death for the unwary.
Does that sound rather poetic? I hope so... because Dream Stone is an epic myth set in blank verse...
Well, not really. What I'm trying to say is, this is a book which reads like an epic poem. Flows and rhythms and images and imagination... Yet so very readable.
McReynolds has written -- it seems to me! -- from the heart. The result, is a story which glows.
Okay, it's not a genre-shattering classic. Yet it is a very enjoyable book.
Tolkien's hobbits are amazed to realise that Elves have lived through three Ages of the world. McReynolds' fairies have lived just as long, yet they are the everyday heroes of the story. It's a different -- and enjoyable -- point of view.
Their everyday lives are included in the story. Not in the sense of, look, I've created a complete world... It's just, life continues on, around the adventure.
The love scenes are over the top... Sex, in the forget-to-breathe style of Twilight. Yet with the reality of not-always-perfect first attempts.
Battle scenes are... vague. Raise the magic sword, charge ahead... then skip forward to counting the dead bodies. This is a fantasy romance, the battles are simply parts of the plot... Devices to provide threat -- and to add stress to the romantic relationships.
This is a simple story which is set in the middle of an enormously complex world history.
This story, is a lot of fun.
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