The Howling Stones

I plan on writing a review a week. But I can't stand to see the blog so barren right now. So here is a review of the book I ended up reading instead of The Watch. It's called The Howling Stones by Alan Dean Foster.

Being a writer often does not pay well. So to make full living writing often requires an author to keep publishing a steady stream of books. The daily grind of the regular author has actually been somewhat romanticized in our culture. For example, consider The Beatles 'Paperback Writer' and Kurt Vonnegut's famous character Kilgore Trout. The point is there are some books that someone has obviously pored their heart and soul into. And there are books that were written because a man must eat. The Howling Stones is the latter. It isn't a bad book by any means but it is... workman-like. It is set in Foster's continuous galactic setting of the Humanx Commonwealth. I've never read any Humanx books but this novel is entirely standalone.

The cover is oddly entirely literal. The book is about weird aliens who use glowing green stones to open oval portals to other galaxies. Heck the two main characters are even on the cover in the background about to explore the portal. The jacket blurb actually describes the entire plot basically straight up to the end. It is an incredibly straight forward book. There are primitive aliens on a tropical planet whose world is slowly being allied to one of two galactic empires the Humanx and the AAn. One island group in particular is stalling and being uncommonly stubborn. They aren't interested in awesome space technology. They are fully committed to their complex culture and are avoid anything that could erode their culture like video games. The hilariously named protagonist Pulickel Tomochelor is a low level diplomat sent in to help sway them. It turns out the aliens aren't interested in Humanx culture because they possess stones that, among other things, can open portals to other universes. Pulickel must decide what to do- seizing the stones by force is horrible but they are too powerful to not reverse engineer.

Pulickel is an interesting character and I like that Alan Dean Foster decided to write a type of charcter who has basically never been a sci-fi hero: the mid-level bureaucrat. Pulickel is devoted to his career, officious, and entirely business. He is nicely contrasted by his fellow xeno-biologist on the island Fawn Seaworth. Fawn is a statuesque blonde who is as laid back as Pulickel is by the book. There isn't much chemistry between them but then there isn't much chemistry in anything in this book.

Which is the problem of course. While I'm delighted of the novelty of Pulickel he doesn't exactly jump off the page. Nor does Fawn. Or the aliens. Foster details the alien worlds flore and fauna but personally I just couldn't find them very compelling. The writing isn't bad per se. It simply doesn't excite. Only when hopping madly between universes does the book show real life. The book ends oddly too. It just sort of stops, leaving quite a few questions and basically every plot thread loose.

 The Howling Stones is a pleasant enough read. But don't expect too much from it's solid prose. I'm trying to come up with a fun rating system. Something sci-fi themed like... stars. Brilliant. Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before?!

3 out of 7 stars!