Synopsis:
When Aster Rutherford, the postmaster’s son and his childhood friend, Zinnia Hollyhock deliver a letter to the Pelware Mines, they are attacked by a birdlike monster that turns men to stone. Even worse, Buckwheat Village is plagued by an illness that’s incapacitating villagers, including Aster’s own father.
A chance encounter with Kara Reeves, the brash quartermaster of the Blue Skies, leads Aster to hitch a ride to the capital city in search of a doctor. Aster’s quest takes him from the dizzying spires of New Portsmith to the caves of Munayallpa and the forests of Tembour. Along the way Aster reconnects with his estranged mother and comes face-to-face with the god of a foreign land. Can Aster and the crew of the Blue Skies overcome pirates, politics, and monsters to cure Buckwheat Village before it’s too late?
Review:
The Odyllic Stone is an adventure story through and through, one that channels The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles while elevating some weirdness against the mundane. While the plot relies heavily on the ‘farmboy goes on an adventure trope’, the story does end up breathing new life in some unexpected ways that I found quite enjoyable.
The cast of TOS starts small in a tiny faraway village, but ends up expanding into far-reaching lands and a much larger group. Our main character is Aster Rutherford, and good ole Aster is a postmaster apprentice of sorts. He and his bff, Zinnia Hollyhock, have a run in with a cockatrice (seriously, why are there not more cockatrices in books???) and Aster’s simple life goes belly up in the most interesting and fun ways. His adventure to seek help leads him to become a sailor, a pathetic knife fighter, a failed petitioner, a smuggler, an explorer caught by simple booby traps, a big game hunter who lets the game go, and a champion (?). And all the while, Aster maintains his goal in trying to help those of his hometown. I just loved Aster.
The rest of the cast was not only diverse in character types but also incredibly well-balanced. Kara plays the role of love interest, brash young sailor turned captain, and all around capable human who gets wrongly fingered for some bad things. Chert is the reliable muscle and stoic buddy who has a deep-rooted history to the Odyllic Stone (the item of the title). Calantha was my favorite character. Not only was Calantha cool, calm, collected as a scientist but was also much more than meets the eye, but spilling that detail would be some spoilerific action. Zinnia had an interesting arc, though I do wish she had a bigger role earlier in the story to help build her up more because she did play a major part in the latter half of the book. Then there are a number of other side characters that range from excellent (Fletcher, Peter, Pat) to plot movers (Joss, Janna, Whitlock). All this to say, the cast is quite good.
Now here’s where things could become tricky, a looooooot of things happen. I mean a lot. You might have gleaned some hints of that from my description of Aster’s arc, but yes, this book has it all. Sailing becomes attacked by pirates and marooned. A follow-up journey to a secondary town that requires another journey to a third town, and in third town, Aster meets his long unmet mother who abandoned him as a child (sort of). Then we finally have Aster get the much needed doctor to save his village (after some politicking as a petitioner). Then we have a mystery to solve in the mines, which leads to a treasure hunt where the Odyllic Stone is discovered (this was my favorite subplot and really felt like reading Young Indiana Jones, very boobytrap thinking going on here). Then we have some assassination attempts. Then a heist before we end with a sweet rooftop battle with some weird creatures coming to life. There is so much that happens in this book that at times, it almost feels too much. Like there are moments when a slow down in the pace would have helped before jumping into the next obstacle. It wasn’t an issue, per se, but I would have preferred a few more scenes as breathers to allow the characters to have more reaction to everything that was happening.
One very cool structural bit was a letter between each of the chapters. Usually the letters were written to a specific character relating to the previous or upcoming chapter and had some plot details within (and I’m told the last few hint at where the rest of the series will go). I thought this idea was fun and neat, different and really fit the vibe of Aster being a postmaster’s son. It was also a great palate cleanser after the really long chapters (yes, there are fewer chapters that are longer than your normal length but there are plenty of scene breaks within each).
There was plenty of weird in this book too. Cockatrices are pretty normal despite their rarity of use (officially campaigning for more cockatrices in books!). But we also get giant cave-dwelling creatures that are godlike and proffer gemstone magic (sort of). We have mantis-like shapeshifters. There’s a magical chalice that takes you to the Null Realm where you meet an interesting being with your standard fantasy name with a random apostrophe in it. There’s mushroom beasties. Ballisks. Dragons of a sort. Even the Odyllic Stone has some weird to it. I thoroughly enjoyed all the weird, give me more of that!
The prose is pretty dynamic, not overly dramatic nor simplistic. The pace is hectic, as I mentioned, going from scene to scene to scene at a sprint. The tension is balanced nicely between action and drama, and the villain felt real once we learned who that was. There was a little bit of mustache twirling at parts but it wasn’t very over the top.
Ultimately, I had a grand time reading The Odyllic Stone. I never truly knew where it was going to go and I like that in a story full of adventure. And the plot twist at the end was satisfying, especially since I didn’t see it coming but should have guessed it with all the subtle hints. I can’t wait to see where Aster and co. go in book 2. Check out this book by a fellow Secret Scribe!
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