Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!*'s Reviews > Black Stone Heart

I'm retroactively adding a star after reading the rest of the trilogy. My original review stands below, but the next books redeemed the series for me. In truth, Fletcher gifted us with a wildly original dark fantasy concept and executed it with brutal flair. That might have been part of my initial dislike; it was just so different, standard epic fantasy expectations didn't properly apply. Anyway, it's an interesting ride and I highly recommend the series to grimdark fans.
 
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I expected better. I adored Fletcher's Beyond Redemption and sought out its self-published sequel The Mirror’s Truth, for which he employed the same array of editors and critiquers to produce a book of indistinguishable quality from the traditionally-published original. This book lacked the acknowledgements section that could have illuminated whether the same quality-enhancement steps were employed. I regret this, because my reaction throughout the book was that it just felt too self-published.

It's got a good concept, one that reminded me of the offbeat adventure gamebook Creature of Havoc: a blank slate of a man awakes, at first driven by instinct, then gradually learning more about his world and how he came to be where and what he was at the beginning. It seemed a cool way to worldbuild, letting the reader learn the very basics about the world along with the main character through a natural process. I liked his discovery process and need to disguise his ignorance when we and he learn that, say, mimes have ruled the world for the past 300 years (not a true fact from the book, don't worry), and where the hell have you been that you don't know this?

Sadly the story didn't live up to its potential. The main character barely seemed to develop except in his knowledge of things long lost. He has an ongoing internal ethical debate ("Am I the bad guy?") that doesn't progress; he merely recirculates the same thoughts ad nauseum. The plot progression has a certain litRPG quality to it, which is fine if that's your bag but it doesn't make for great epic fantasy. Technically it's a progression fantasy, a term some apply to stories featuring significant character power growth, but the character barely uses the knowledge and abilities that level him up from his original state. Overall the story arc felt very flat, with a couple of unsurprising twists near the end in place of a satisfying payoff. I can see potential in the sequels for exciting story, brutality, and mind-blowing magic, but I didn't have a good enough experience to push me forward.

I also did not care for the prose. It wasn't just the first-person narration, which is rarely my first choice but not a problem by itself (my beloved Assassin's Apprentice employs it, after all). In this case, I thought the writing was too plain. I'm not a fan of flowery description and generally prefer shorter, simpler sentences, but for this book the prose bored me, with a few isolated exceptions. I entertained the theory that it would mirror the protagonist's growth and become more evocative as he evolved, but this didn't pan out. I found myself fondly missing the Germanic terms that flavoured the author's Manifest Delusions series; this book could have used some of that linguistic flair.

Faith in author shaken but not shattered; maybe I'll try his other series someday. I wish I could give this one at least 3 stars but the "I liked it" designation would be dishonest.