The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

Reviewed by Coral

Three million years ago a meteorite crashed down to earth fusing into a sort of gemstone. Millions of years passed before it was first found. Now, as the years pass, we are given glimpses of the lives of the people who come to possess it.

Man, was this book boring. A bunch of short stories, connected by the flimsiest of plot. I like my stories with a little more meat on them. Okay, so the first two stories weren't horrible, just not all that gripping either. 

What I particularly didn't like in this book was that the author's always pulling us out of the past. "In the country that would be called Kenya." "The volcano that would be called Kilimanjaro." Way too much "omniscient-narrator" in an otherwise 3rd person point-of-view narration.

What turned me off this book completely was the bestiality - page 100, hardcover. Yeah, I know there was a mention of it in Furies of Calderon, but that was more slander/propaganda/ignorance on the part of the Alerans to enemies they saw as savages. I never took it as truth. But here, it's something that one of the characters actually does.

ICK!

Grade: F