Gods of Sand and Stone by Walt Shuler

I feel conflicted about Gods of Sand and Stone for several reasons, though there’s nothing wrong with the writing or the story. Conn Fuilteach is a warrior on a quest for revenge who discovers early in the story that’s he’s been tricked by Cernunnos, who has apparently gone insane. In his journey, he encounters several other gods, fights some possessed hunters and undead animals, and meets some new allies. Then the story ends quite abruptly, leaving most of the plot threads open for the next book in the series. This leaves me wanting more, and I don’t just mean a sequel.

Conn is a sympathetic character, and the same could be said of “rogue” fighter Aerlyn, while Mur’s introduction is at a point in the story that prevents him from having any back story. All that can be said of him is, he’s a mysterious mage.

The battle scenes are vivid and tense, and most locations and characters are described with good detail. The dialogue is good and flows well without ever feeling forced. The POV shifts are clearly split up without confusion or instances of head hopping, and the story does end at a place that feels natural, if a little rushed and anti-climatic.

So what’s the problem? Well, I have several. First off, Conn’s motivation for his quest is a trope that bothers me, the “woman in a refrigerator,” meaning his mother, wife, and daughter are brutally murdered long before the story’s intro, and show up only as bodies in a flashback. They exist solely as an explanation for the main character’s anger. I’d think most folks interested in this kind of dark fantasy won’t be bothered by it, but it bugged me that they didn’t even get a flashback or dream sequence to be developed in some meaningful way.

I’m also not convinced by the depictions of the gods. Part of this is a personal hang-up, because I’ve studied Cernunnos, and I understand him as The Green Man, a god of nature with a peaceful demeanor. Here, he’s presented as a psychopath who speaks in all caps, and even reminding myself that writers can exercise artistic license, this version of Cern rubs me the wrong way the same as Hollywood’s decision to make the Nordic gods aliens in the Thor movies did. Maybe if there was some background information on why Cernunnos went bonkers, this would be easier to accept. But the cause of his insanity is as much a mystery as his plans.

But the other gods are also bugging me because they’re…well, they’re useless.  None of them displays any powers aside from shapeshifting, they’re apparently not omnipotent, and despite Cernunnos plotting for years, they seem pretty clueless about his plans. They also seem to be so weak that they have to ask a human to stop Cernunnos, though no one explains why he’s so powerful and they’re all so weak and blind.

What I felt was lacking was not details on the fights, locations, or physical descriptions of the characters, but rather the history of this world and these gods. This is a fantasy that feels like an action movie script where the battles are fast and tense, but there’s not much context for why all this fighting is going on. Which is not to say it’s a bad story, and my issues with it were not so off-putting that I won’t buy the next book in the series, Into a Dark Land. I just find myself wishing for more information to put the action in context. Perhaps some of my questions will be addressed in the next book.

I give Gods of Sand and Stone 3 stars and would recommend it to fans of action fantasy tales like Tarzan and Conan. Conn’s a character with interesting potential, but it remains to be seen if the world he inhabits is as complex and deep as he seems to be.