THE EMPIRE STONE by Chris Bunch

THE EMPIRE STONE by Chris Bunch
Orbit (Little, Brown) - 2001
ISBN 1841490334 - Paperback

Reviewed by Rachel Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Peirol is a dwarf with a mission. The mission is to find the mythical Empire Stone which nobody has seen for hundreds of years, is supposedly housed in a city that nobody seems to know the location of and is thought by many to be just a bard’s tale. But Peirol is working for a powerful wizard who doesn’t understand the word “no” and who has a beautiful granddaughter into the bargain. So Peirol sets off and gets a chance to do some rowing (rather a lot of this), plenty of hand-to-hand combat, try out his military skills, ply his trade as a jeweller and make love to a lot of women, most of whom seem to believe that being a dwarf is lucky and are anxious to try him out.

This is a truly enjoyable story that harks back to the days when the definition of a fantasy wasn’t a trilogy made up of wordy doorstops. It reminded me of Conan or even the great ERB in the sheer volume of adventures and variety of events that crowd into not very many pages of largish type. It made a pleasant change from the usual wordy tomes; a hammock slung in the branches of a jungle tree compared with a saggy old bed. It is possible that there will be more books in the series and if so they will be other adventures rather than a continuation of the same story. I look forward to reading them if this is the case.