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"Black Stone Heart"
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“Was one man’s heaven another man’s hell?”
Crawling out from his grave, naked and filthy, Khraen is born again. He does not know who he is beyond a name, but fragments of a broken heart made of stone compel him to remember. As Khraen sets out to reconstruct his “Black Stone Heart”, he also begins to piece together his past and restore his days of former glory. Khraen is met with much apprehension along his journey for being “darker”, but a pale female warrior (Shalayn) shows him love, when others only have prejudice. Their entanglement leads to ensuing chaos when Shalayn seeks the magical aid of Tien to help them break into a wizard’s tower where a piece of Khraen’s stone heart is kept. Khraen is on “The Obsidian Path” to remembering his role in a great war that involved wizards, demonologists, and necromancers (OH MY!) as well as other mystical forces, in book one of this dark fantasy series from Michael R. Fletcher.
Crawling out from his grave, naked and filthy, Khraen is born again. He does not know who he is beyond a name, but fragments of a broken heart made of stone compel him to remember. As Khraen sets out to reconstruct his “Black Stone Heart”, he also begins to piece together his past and restore his days of former glory. Khraen is met with much apprehension along his journey for being “darker”, but a pale female warrior (Shalayn) shows him love, when others only have prejudice. Their entanglement leads to ensuing chaos when Shalayn seeks the magical aid of Tien to help them break into a wizard’s tower where a piece of Khraen’s stone heart is kept. Khraen is on “The Obsidian Path” to remembering his role in a great war that involved wizards, demonologists, and necromancers (OH MY!) as well as other mystical forces, in book one of this dark fantasy series from Michael R. Fletcher.
Readability
This book gives a clear glimpse of an overarching series plot, and it also provides a narrative building subplot that manages to piece together a few different character storylines. Not bad considering this first book from the fantasy series is under five hundred pages. However, even though the narrative isn’t overly convoluted, the pacing definitely feels rushed during some elements of the plot development. There were several key plot points in this book that I would have liked to have seen expanded upon and others less so. I didn’t find any critical errors in the writing or any significant plot holes that made the book unreadable for entire length of the novel.
Creativity
I have to say that having the main character piecing together his dark past via fragments of a black stone heart is some top notch symbolism. The prose in this story hits like an axe to the chest, it splits right to core without hesitation and saves on much of the details. I think the writing was graphic when it needed to be (the violent portrayals) and didn’t seem overdone, however occasionally it did come off as cringe (mostly with the sexual relations).
She sat with me out of choice. Or maybe pity. While grateful for the company, anger built in me. This was wrong. I was no one’s dog.
(Four chapters later…)
I kissed one ass cheek and bit the other. Then I shuffled downstairs, relying on the walls for support, and fetched us two whiskeys each.
I struggled with the internal monologue from the first person perspective. The constant (and sometimes illogical) rationalizations left much to be desired as the reader. I noticed that whenever Khraen found himself in a moral dilemma he would reveal way too much information about himself through his internal dialogue. I would have rather the author left it up to the reader to interpret what Khraen was thinking, through the character’s actions instead. I am not a fan of being told precisely how a character feels about this, that, or the other throughout a story, because it’s disengaging as the reader and I have found that it often leads to characterization discrepancies (i.e. the character explicitly feels a certain way about something, but then displays incongruent behavior – also known as acting out of character).
Delivery
The racially based themes struck me as rather daunting than they were provocative. Through use of repetitive examples and unvarying occurrences throughout the book, I felt like the author was beating a dead horse rather than making any additional points that were relevant for developing the plot/character. It was like a constant nagging reminder that the main character, btw just in case I forgot, is suffering the prejudice of strangers just because… HE BLACK! However this is only ever illustrated through “hateful looks” and muttered name-calling. Rude? I think so, but barely anything at all that could resemble actual discrimination ever happens to Khraen’s character. In fact, many of the characters that Khraen himself admittedly holds in contempt are actually the same type of characters that supply him with opportunities when he has none, or provide him with some amenities when he can’t even afford one, or straight up align with serving his will when they have no personal incentive to do so. I guess they just do it out of the kindness of their heart. Tien’s character had zero motivation for helping out with the wizard tower heist.
Khraen held so much disdain for being called a “stained-soul”, but if you ask me I think Khraen is more or less a soulless shit-stain, leaving a disgusting streak of chaos everywhere he drags his sorry ass across the land. Chaos is supposedly the concept he claims to despise, and is consistently giving the wizards so much shit over, but he’s clearly lacking in self-awareness to realize he stirs up more shit than any wizard in this book! Make no mistake about it, I can dig a good villain narrative, but I had a hard time following the main character. Maybe in the next book of this series, the young buck sprouts some pubic hair and stops acting like a whiny, hypocritical simp, and starts behaving like he is capable of becoming an emperor.
My opinions of the main character aside, I feel like the story itself digressed too much from the concepts I found most interesting about it, and instead focused too much on the trivial bullshit. I really enjoyed the flashback segments when I got to learn a little more about Khraen’s past as a badass, and all the different types of magic users involved in the Great War. I thought the whole YA love triangle, mixed with rudimentary elements of dark erotica, really didn’t help with building the type of grim atmosphere I was expecting out of this book going in.
This book gives a clear glimpse of an overarching series plot, and it also provides a narrative building subplot that manages to piece together a few different character storylines. Not bad considering this first book from the fantasy series is under five hundred pages. However, even though the narrative isn’t overly convoluted, the pacing definitely feels rushed during some elements of the plot development. There were several key plot points in this book that I would have liked to have seen expanded upon and others less so. I didn’t find any critical errors in the writing or any significant plot holes that made the book unreadable for entire length of the novel.
Creativity
I have to say that having the main character piecing together his dark past via fragments of a black stone heart is some top notch symbolism. The prose in this story hits like an axe to the chest, it splits right to core without hesitation and saves on much of the details. I think the writing was graphic when it needed to be (the violent portrayals) and didn’t seem overdone, however occasionally it did come off as cringe (mostly with the sexual relations).
She sat with me out of choice. Or maybe pity. While grateful for the company, anger built in me. This was wrong. I was no one’s dog.
(Four chapters later…)
I kissed one ass cheek and bit the other. Then I shuffled downstairs, relying on the walls for support, and fetched us two whiskeys each.
I struggled with the internal monologue from the first person perspective. The constant (and sometimes illogical) rationalizations left much to be desired as the reader. I noticed that whenever Khraen found himself in a moral dilemma he would reveal way too much information about himself through his internal dialogue. I would have rather the author left it up to the reader to interpret what Khraen was thinking, through the character’s actions instead. I am not a fan of being told precisely how a character feels about this, that, or the other throughout a story, because it’s disengaging as the reader and I have found that it often leads to characterization discrepancies (i.e. the character explicitly feels a certain way about something, but then displays incongruent behavior – also known as acting out of character).
Delivery
The racially based themes struck me as rather daunting than they were provocative. Through use of repetitive examples and unvarying occurrences throughout the book, I felt like the author was beating a dead horse rather than making any additional points that were relevant for developing the plot/character. It was like a constant nagging reminder that the main character, btw just in case I forgot, is suffering the prejudice of strangers just because… HE BLACK! However this is only ever illustrated through “hateful looks” and muttered name-calling. Rude? I think so, but barely anything at all that could resemble actual discrimination ever happens to Khraen’s character. In fact, many of the characters that Khraen himself admittedly holds in contempt are actually the same type of characters that supply him with opportunities when he has none, or provide him with some amenities when he can’t even afford one, or straight up align with serving his will when they have no personal incentive to do so. I guess they just do it out of the kindness of their heart. Tien’s character had zero motivation for helping out with the wizard tower heist.
Khraen held so much disdain for being called a “stained-soul”, but if you ask me I think Khraen is more or less a soulless shit-stain, leaving a disgusting streak of chaos everywhere he drags his sorry ass across the land. Chaos is supposedly the concept he claims to despise, and is consistently giving the wizards so much shit over, but he’s clearly lacking in self-awareness to realize he stirs up more shit than any wizard in this book! Make no mistake about it, I can dig a good villain narrative, but I had a hard time following the main character. Maybe in the next book of this series, the young buck sprouts some pubic hair and stops acting like a whiny, hypocritical simp, and starts behaving like he is capable of becoming an emperor.
My opinions of the main character aside, I feel like the story itself digressed too much from the concepts I found most interesting about it, and instead focused too much on the trivial bullshit. I really enjoyed the flashback segments when I got to learn a little more about Khraen’s past as a badass, and all the different types of magic users involved in the Great War. I thought the whole YA love triangle, mixed with rudimentary elements of dark erotica, really didn’t help with building the type of grim atmosphere I was expecting out of this book going in.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 5/10
I had no idea that this book was going to shoehorn the social justice warrior themes, but unless you’re really sensitive about that kind of subject matter then it’s not that big of a deal in “Black Stone Heart”. I actually see where Fletcher was trying to make the idea fit in metaphorically with the book’s main premise, but it just didn’t work for me. I would have liked this title better if it had less socially related issues and more high stakes conflict involving demons and wizards from this world of dark fantasy. “Black Stone Heart” is the first book from “The Obsidian Path” series. Michael R. Fletcher has another dark fantasy series entitled “The City of Sacrifice”. He has also written standalone novels and published a short story anthology.
I had no idea that this book was going to shoehorn the social justice warrior themes, but unless you’re really sensitive about that kind of subject matter then it’s not that big of a deal in “Black Stone Heart”. I actually see where Fletcher was trying to make the idea fit in metaphorically with the book’s main premise, but it just didn’t work for me. I would have liked this title better if it had less socially related issues and more high stakes conflict involving demons and wizards from this world of dark fantasy. “Black Stone Heart” is the first book from “The Obsidian Path” series. Michael R. Fletcher has another dark fantasy series entitled “The City of Sacrifice”. He has also written standalone novels and published a short story anthology.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
