The Heart of Stone by Ben Galley – Book Review

This is an outtake from my booknest.eu review of Ben Galley’s Heart of Stone. Click here for the full post.

Ben Galley’s The Heart of Stone matters. It shows that chains can be broken, that stories have a profound effect on how we humans perceive the world and what actions we take, and it has something to say about vengeance, justice and mistaking one for the other.

I’m a sucker for exemplary, complex characters and Heart of Stone has them in spades. First and foremost, the owner of the eponymous heart of stone itself, our golem Task. After four hundred years of destruction and slaughter over hundreds of battlefields in dozens of wars, Task still has an untapped fount of compassion and empathy for these creatures of flesh and bone that he’s been forced to kill by the will of his many masters. He is no dumb brute but an intelligent creature, challenged continually by the purpose for which he was made – to be the perfectly obedient war machine, a harbinger of death. This is, to the surprise of no one who has taken even a cursory glance at the blurb, one of the leading conflicts in the novel.

Yet more complex is the character of Ellia. She is one of those characters who will remain with me a long time, like Peter F. Hamilton’s Angela Tramelo (Great North Road) or Ken Follett’s Augusta Pilaster (A Dangerous Fortune). Ellia is a noblewoman whose loyalties aren’t clear-cut to begin with and only get murkier as the plot progresses. Ellia is the architect (pun intended, for the knowing) of most of what happens during the novel, using her wits to gain the upper hand over generals, lords, councillors and religious fanatics. Fuelled by horrific events of her past, the path Ellia chooses to pursue is understandable.

Continued on booknest.eu. #Everythingiscontent #Evencontentoveronotherblogs