The Stone Light

The Stone Light by Kai Meyer

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Ever since reading The Water Mirror, I’ve been eager to read the rest of the Dark Reflections series.  Luckily, a copy of the second book in the series trickled through the library a few weeks back, because this one was released without a whole lot of fanfare.

It’s really a shame that the likes of Harry Potter will overshadow a lot of the other fantasy books for children, because there are a lot of other great writers of children’s fiction, Kai Meyer being one of them.  His imagery and style are outstanding, and though it may be a bit dark in places, it’s vivid and compelling throughout the story.

The Stone Light picks up literally right where The Water Mirror left off, with the three main characters being split up to follow their own adventures (much like the fellowship of the ring, I should add).  Serafin is left to fight the Egyptians back in Venice; Merle has left with Vermithrax the stone lion to search for the ruler of Hell; and Junipa has disappeared from Arcimbolo’s lab.  The story focuses more on Merle this time around, and honestly, if you haven’t read The Water Mirror, you’re not going to find much to like here.  This is a transitory volume in the series, and sets up a lot of the exposition for the last book, so some parts of the story feel like they drag, while others don’t make much sense all by themselves.  But it sets up the rest of the story quite well, and anyone who’s already familiar with the characters will want to know what happens next.

The wait for the final volume shouldn’t be as long as the wait for The Stone Light; the back of the book says the last volume should be published by Fall, 2007.  Here’s to the wait!

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