The Fire’s Stone

Tanya Huff

Completed 3/9/2019, Reviewed 3/9/2019

3 stars

This was an okay book.  It’s very standard fantasy.  It’s about three young people on a quest to save a city.  There’s nothing that remarkable about the quest or the characters except that two are bisexual males, one is an asexual female and they all have baggage.  The most interesting thing about them is how they find each other.  There’s a fair amount of action in the book which keeps it moving, but nothing really kept me that interested except wondering if the two bisexuals ever get to admit that they love each other. 

The plot revolves pretty equally between the three characters.  Aaron was born a clan chief’s heir, but is on the outs with his father.  He ran away from home after his father beat his cousin to death.  He’s now an accomplished thief in the city of Ischia.  He decides to steal the emerald on the king’s staff, but is caught.  That is how he meets the next character.  Darvish is a prince, the third in line to the throne of Ischia.  Being third in line means he has nothing to do except drink, practice swordplay, and sleep around.  He’s been betrothed to Chandra, our third character, for political reasons though neither of them wants the marriage.  Chandra is a princess who is a very powerful wizard and wants to remain unmarried to hone her skills and retain her power.  She secretly travels to Ischia to try to convince Darvish not to marry her.

The city of Ischia sits on the edge of an active volcano.  There is a magical stone that took nine years to create by nine powerful wizards which keeps the volcano at bay.  Someone steals the stone and Darvish is assigned the task of finding and returning it.  Aaron and Chandra accompany him on the quest.  On the way, the are confronted by guards, pirates, and other wizards.

Even though the characters were fairly cardboard, the one that really stood out for me was Darvish.  He’s a terrible alcoholic.  On the quest, he is forced to sober up.  The description of the DTs he experiences is very vivid.  His battle against drinking afterwards is very realistic, because as one might assume from a standard fantasy, wine is everywhere.  He has to constantly struggle with the thought that he deserves a drink and the fight against that is torturous.

Aaron is the most wooden of the three.  He has completely closed off his feelings for Darvish because of the religious sexual oppression beaten into him from his childhood.  As a result, he is stoic, but tortured by the tapes of his father in his head.  This got very old after a while.  Chandra, on the other hand, is a little more three dimensional.  Her baggage is less traumatic and she doesn’t wallow in it.  She’s the most level headed of the team, and also the most insightful.  It’s fun to watch her roll her eyes every time Aaron and Darvish can’t bring themselves to express their love for each other.

I give this book three out of five stars.  I can’t think of a better adjective for this book than okay.  The plot is okay, the prose is okay, and the characters are okay.  Nothing is really remarkable about the book except the realistic account of Darvish’s alcoholism.  I have one more Tanya Huff book to read on my quest to finish the Worlds Without End LGBTQ reading list.  It’s another fantasy and gets higher ratings than this book.  I’m hoping it will have a little more substance than this one.