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- Sci-fi & fantasy - |
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Stone and Sea: Book II of the Stone Trilogy |
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 Stone and Sea: Book II of the Stone Trilogy byGraham Edwards Harper Collins (Voyager) 440 pages, 2000 ISBN 000651071X Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde Graham Edwards’ first trilogy concerned the doings of dragons. This second trilogy is about an immense wall and the creatures that live in it and on it, all set in a 19th century world. Krakatoa wasn’t the place to be on 12 May 1883, but that is where rootless wanderer Jonah Lightfoot and runaway battered wife Annie West find themselves. Jonah wants to find the true cradle of civilization, and Annie just wants to escape from her past life. Both Jonah and Annie escape into another dimension. Coming along for more than the ride is the ancient and evil Archan, the world’s last dragon who can remember a time when humans had wings and dragons ruled. The iceberg in which Archan was entombed has been melted by the volcano, and now she is loose again after the events of the first book. Meanwhile, Jonah and Annie are still in this strange vertical world which consists of a giant castle and an endless stone wall populated by stone-age humans, the insectile Tam, strange plants including a talking forest, a spherical ship and of course those dragons. This is highly reminiscent of what fantasy was like before Tolkien came along and reinvented the genre. Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, E R Burroughs and various other authors wrote similar adventures. However, they were more concerned with creating a sensational story packed with action and less fascinated by dragons and trilogies. Stone and Sea II puts Edwards in the post-Tolkien category, also making this highly inventive story somewhat overlong and wordy when compared to novels like The Lost World, Pellucidar and When the World Shook. Nevertheless, with more action and variety than in the first book, it's rewarding to see that the work of early fantasists has not been forgotten. A fascinating adventure in the grand old tradition. |
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