The Sea of Storms

Lodestone Book One: Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway

This book peaked my interest right away. It has a prologue-I'm not sure it needs one- the author gave it one so I guess that's that.

This is the story of Shann - a young girl with a history that puts her at odds with the prophet and his religious order. As it turns out a lot of people don't like them, but she in particular has lost her parents to them. She lives with her relatives and helps them with their Inn. As the story opens we find Lyall trying to free the slaves being taken from Shann's village. Lyall is posing as a Keltar- one of the prophets enforcer guards. Lyall fights another Keltar and almost loses his life- Shann helps him to recover and escape.

This makes Shann a fugitive who will be pursued by many Keltar including Keris who throughout seems to be questioning what she and the other Keltar are doing for the prophet. Eventually Keris will join with Shann, Lyall and Alondo in the fight against oppression. Keris will have to first meet Boxx, a Chandara(bug like being about the size of a child), who will have the evidence she needs to persuade her to go against her beliefs and join the rebellion.

From here the five of them are on the run from the Keltar while trying to reach a tower that has a transporter that will take them to the other side of the Sea of Storms. Throughout we learn of how the lodestones are used to help the Keltar fight and to fly. Shann is trained to fight as a Keltar and though Lyall doesn't at first think he needs to learn he learns to fight better than he has in the past.

Alondo has a neat deadly musical instrument which seems to almost come out of one of those MMORPGs that are so popular these days. There's an ancient communicator that talks to the past.There are plenty of conflicts on the way to make things interesting. Eventually thing go such that there is a need to make a voyage across the Sea of Storms.

Many aspects of the world-building seemed to be sketchy. The lodestones take the forefront. What's missing is how the three suns sustain a world with life and whether the planet rotates on its axis and if not how that might effect the atmosphere which protects the planet's life from radiation.(ie; there might not be a field that blocks the solar radiation that would burn most the planet life away.)Those are not showstoppers for me but some people need to know these things. Also more emphasis on the fact that the Kalanni have tails might have been in order since it seems to be important to the story. Sometimes they all seemed just too human; though it's easy to see they are not on earth and the indigenous life is all quite new and strange.

The story is well told though sometimes there are terms that leak in from British English and take a moment to think about. There are some words who's usage might be indicative of the same situation, but struck me as a sort of word of the day - use this word in a sentence- type of usage. It seems almost to be a signature trait.If the whole novel had been filled with colorful and flowery language these few gems, which are now among common stones might have been less noticed.

There are more novel's to this series but it was quite satisfactory in itself, though somewhat cliffhanger -ish.

If you like fantasy with some heavy world building and science fiction with a bit less world building and romance and mystery and adventure, this series has a great start with a lot of potential.

J.L. Dobias

Lodestone Book One: Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway

This is a really good book with some outstanding characters and world building. There are some interesting though sometimes confusing elements about the Lodestones, which I’m no way going to try to be expert about. The important thing to this type of fiction is that the author try to maintain the rules he’s built into his system-or at least have good reasons for any deviations. I think,without going into real in-depth analysis of the working of the lodestones, the author does a fair job of keeping things real.

There is an prologue to story and it almost confused me. I at first thought the whole Kelanni religious order stuff might be based around Kal and had to read back to realize that it existed before. Then I wasn’t sure if they had the lodestones before him or after the Keltar obtained theirs- I’m thinking maybe after and he may have played a role in that but later there is mention of a Kel Stones almost as a separate thing- by a character in the real story so I’m still a bit confused. That might get cleared up for me later in this series of books.

The world of the Kelanni is one of a world with three suns- I don’t remember any moons. The actual orbits and movements of the suns and the planet are still muddled in my mind and an orbital diagram might have been helpful. It’s possible, since it seems that the large red sun never sets, that the Kelanni world is like the moon orbiting a sun instead of planet with only one side facing the big red sun, Ail-Mazzoth. There are two smaller sons that move around the sky and those are what confuse me the Ali-Gan yellow sun and Ali-Kar white sun. I don’t understand how they orbit and what the relationship is to the Kelanni world and Ail-Mazzoth.

My confusion asside:

This seems to be a story about Shann who is a young girl living in a small village where the Kelanni religious orders Keltar are extracting tribute in the form of slave labor. Her parents were taken some time in the past and she lives with relatives and has dim view of the religious leader and the Keltars. I would guess that explains why she tries to help someone who seems to be attempting to save the tribute slaves from being taken by the prophet’s Keltar’s. Her attempts lead to her having to go on the run from the Keltar.

We learn somewhere along the line that Kelanni have tails. It’s sort of almost in passing and not much time is dwelt upon the subject. Later it becomes a major plot point so it might have been useful to have the tails mentioned- as in having some purpose to remind us of their existence before the plot point arrives.

There are more major characters in the book with Keris a Keltar who initially assists in the pursuit of Shann. Alondo and Lyall are the rebels-Lyall is the one Shann helped. Then there is a large beetle like bug named Boxx; he’s a Chandara and they live very long lives. At some point it’s difficult to tell who’s story this is but since it starts with Shann and ends with Shann I will call it her story. They all eventually get together and begin a convoluted escape from the prophet and his Keltar.

As things unfold the escape route makes perfect sense as they work together in a mission to save all of the Kalanni from the Unan-Chinneroth, the one “without a tail”. Pretty important that tail everyone takes for granted. On the other hand it could have been the one without a nose; so, even without many mentions about the tail this does work.

The quest takes them to the other side of the planet- which may be freezing cold- or not- depending on those orbits of the other suns. This is a good fantasy and fair Science Fiction -I think it could use a bit more explanation in some of the science- a bit of romance with a strong female character. I recommend this to anyone except the few nitpickers who ‘have’ to know all the facts about how lodestones work (or shouldn’t) and orbits of planets and suns. It’s good for a couple nights entertainment and a good prelude to:

THE REST OF THE STORY- there is a volume containing books 1-3 available.

Sural