Bound in Stone: Volume One [NOOK Book]

An brilliant and unprecedented tale!

I'm astonished that there are so few reviews of The Soulstone Chronicles. Maybe it's too big, too brilliant, and too over-the-top to discuss. It's certain that I've never read anything like it in over fifty years of reading science fiction and fantasy. It’s a tale that seems to be written jointly by Homer, Tolkien, Henry Miller, Kurt Vonnegut, the Marquis de Sade and Herman Hesse. I've just finished the eighth book, and K.M. Frontain continues to astound me with her inventiveness. She weaves myth and romance, sex and violence, vulgarity and passion, laugh-out-loud humor and absurdity, and doesn't stint on either horror or compassion.

It's quite a remarkable achievement, transcending any notion of genre. Yes, it has assassins, sorcerers, witches, gryphons, whores, elves, angels, gods, golems, dragons, and spiritual monks, along with a host of other characters. But this is a tale with a thoroughly 21st century sensibility, filled with wry comments and a cosmology that borrows from everywhere and everywhen, eventually explaining magic, gods and all sorts of mythical beasts as patterns of greater or lesser energy, bred from a primal tension between the male sun and female earth. This tension reverberates through all the varied sexual relationships, but Frontain cleverly slips in the notion that beings of greater energy are irresistible to beings of lesser energy, regardless of gender. And that merging into another being through sex is irresistible, period.

Some readers may not get past the often graphic sex or the incessant shouting, conflict and possessiveness of the characters to see just how well the author has poured her understanding of human nature and relationships into this tale. The relationships are all fraught with tension, and become so complicated that almost everyone is hiding something from even their most intimate lovers. Each book builds on the previous, developing a complexity few authors would attempt.

And it is a sheer delight to read! Fast-paced action and furious lovers predominate, but even what appear to be throw-away lines communicate Frontain's wry, funny, slapstick and deadly serious observations of human nature and society. The twists and turns are astounding. She is as good at twisting your understanding of the whole context as any author I have read. In a page or two, she can change your entire understanding of who is doing what to whom and why. And she does it several times in each book, from the perspectives of multiple characters.

The Soulstone Chronicles is a bravura performance! I was not expecting a work of this much sophistication. Like her main character, Kehfrey/Herfod, Frontain almost laughs at her readers while piling on the sex, absurdity and violence, working with themes of grand fantasy while thoroughly subverting them, and taking her readers to places they wouldn't otherwise have gone. It's a one-of-a-kind gem of a tale, glittering with passion, swords, sexual fluids, loneliness, confusion and observations on human nature and the nature of the divine. It's a remarkable achievement, filled with unexpected treasures. Where else can you find a main character who muses to himself that he will be known to history as "King Ufrid, the Third, the Great Patricidal Monk Buggerer"?

The Soulstone Chronicles is one of the most ambitious tales I have ever read. That K.M. Frontain not only handles it with aplomb but never takes her foot off the gas pedal is a source of wonder in itself.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Couldn't hold my attention

A family of thieves , male prostitues, and con men, contains a young boy destined for something. Between the sorcery,
M/m action which includes rape and slavery, this is a dark world. Drawn in initially by a charming 7 year old, I quickly lost interest as every character has not one redeeming characteristic. If you enjoy a dark, depressing world, where all are greedy, glutinous and motivated by self-interest, go for it. I will say it is well written, but not for me. This is evidently the first of something like 10 installments. This was 289 pages on the nook.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

?

I am interested to see where the rest of this story goes, well written, and good character development. While I am normally never bothered by dirt and grit, I found I was bothered by the pedophile bad guy. But that will just make it more satisfing when the good guy kills him.....

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