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“The Vision – Green Stone of Healing. Book One”Reviewed by John GrahamI admit from the start that this is not a book I would have picked up on a bookshop display. The cover suggests that it’s content is everything that I am not. Spiritual fantasy fiction is directly at odds with my male background of mathematics, logic, causality, Darwinism, and atheism. My review therefore tests the author’s own question: “Why would this fantasy series interest readers who might not usually be attracted to this genre?” I am also initially suspicious. This book is entitled ‘Book One’ and the author infers that no one dies a final death so the story can go on forever. Is this designed from the start to be a Harry-Potter series with all its associated films and marketing trinkets? Is it wise to declare from Book One that the author intends to trap you into buying Book Two, Three, and Four, and more? I have declared myself – reviewers are not unbiased. The tale is science fiction but not one of sci-fi victories over alien beings as one has come expect on the television, but something concerned with personal energy. Much takes place in dreams – in that sense the tale is occasionally ‘in the mind.’ The story is set in a world that is male dominated and female subverted, so the males in the tale are not given much intelligence. Nevertheless, the writer is good so each page demands that you turn to the next to see what happens despite the fact, not because of it, that the situation is placed in a time and location that are not ours. Azgard is a large island, the size of Australia, where inventors are known as ‘thoughtsmiths,’ paper is called ‘wordskin,’ a 'link' is a cell-phone connection, the ‘grid’ is the web, a ‘skimmer’ is a vehicle, and a 'rotor' inaccurately describes a helicopter. Other words describe doctors, bodily functions, cigarillos, and more so a Glossary is provided at the end of the book. Better turn to the end first. None of these substitutions are troublesome – they are simply labels to tell you that you are somewhere else than in our world, though in no more advanced a society. The story is a good one and it progresses at a very reasonable pace. A piece of jewelry links portions of the action but really does not play a significant part as the sub-title leads one to expect. Unfortunately, the story is artificially clothed in strangeness, for strangeness sake, which makes it difficult to keep track. There are two unfriendly factions but everyone seems to be a Consort, a Queen, a Lord, a Duke, a Prince, a Chancellor, a Steward, and more, so one is never quite sure on which side they stand. Moreover, many of these titles are interchangeable for the same individual so the reader tends to lose track of who is doing what to whom and why … the reader is hurried along by the action as if one had just got onto a water slide. The oddest thing is that one character, Judith, without explanation, becomes 'Snoopy' in the final pages, and I am left remembering this character as having a large nose and long droopy ears. I am not sure that is what was intended. The book is not literature. Words are not selected for themselves because the authoress devotes her time to making the story move along quickly. There is no time to appreciate the writing as one might with Dylan Thomas or Shaw. Nevertheless, the action would have benefited by letting the reader know more of its setting. Buildings and rooms are barely described and we are never told what the land looks like: mention is made only of snow and ice. Much more description is given to the flayed flesh of the back of one of the Lords. The name of the deity in this strange world is the god-king Kronos and all the action takes place among Toltecs and Tarturians. Now, in classical mythology Kronos was father of Zeus and sire of the Olympians. Zeus turns on his father and exiles him to Tartaros for a while. These stories are related amply in "The Iliad" and the "The Odyssey". The present book has a similarity with the older tales. The authoress is a talented and experienced writer and, as I have said, the basic story is good. However, the attempt to clothe it in science fiction or fantasy garb fails. Dreams are not fantasy and green jewelry is not magic. Moreover, the relationships are fairly superficial so spirituality is difficult to find. Maybe, others might read more into dreams but there is little to learn. The idea of writing successive books also fails because despite building to a crescendo of sexual violence just before the last chapter this book doesn't end at a significant juncture -- it ends when things are about to happen. I would have felt cheated if I had paid for this book and found the tale left untold. Most series at least tell a complete story in each book. However, I have a solution. The action of this book could ideally have taken place on Cyprus at the time of Archbishop Makarios in the early seventies. With a Cypriot background the story could have been set in relatively modern dress and the feuding of both the Greeks and the Turks retold according to ancient Greek mythology. The authoress is very capable of making that a fascinating and real book. However, that book would need a convincing conclusion because the turmoil on Cyprus is still not at an end. So: “Why would this fantasy series interest readers who might not usually be attracted to this genre?” Ms. Talmadge says, first because it is a compelling story, and second because people are hungering deeply for spirituality. I agree with her first contention but as I have said it would be far better set in a convincing and real setting. She may or may not be correct in her second contention but there is not much beyond a few dreams in the book that could be connected with spirituality. “The Vision – Green Stone of Healing. Book One" © 2005 John Graham |
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