Jay Gordon (1)

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to stumble across book one of the Eldarn sequence, The Hickory Staff. Steven Taylor, Mark Jenkins, and Hannah Sorenson of Colorado fell through a hole in the universe to end up in Eldarn. This is the work of imaginative and gifted storytellers - which is even more surprising, as it is a collaboration from two first time authors.

In the first book, they breathed new life into the old "stranger in a strange land" scenario with the ingenuity of their plot show more development and the believability of their characters. Taking an old idea and making it fresh again can require just as much creativity as coming up with something brand new. A major difference was that as much attention was paid to the characters of the "strange land" as those from back home. Our heroes remain as a focal point, but are in a world populated by real people whose lives are every bit as important.

Equally refreshing was the lack of advantage the people from our world had despite being from a more technologically advanced world. Far too often these types of stories become the stranger arrives just in time to use his superior knowledge to save the brave but backward people from their evil overlord. While the latter does exist in this world, evil personified has taken over the world; it is Steven, Mark, and later Hannah who all need to be rescued by the people they meet.

At one time, Eldarn was five separate kingdoms, four of which were ruled by members of an extended family and the fifth by a collective of wizards known as the Larion Senate. It was through the Senate that evil came into the world, when one of their number, Nerek, went too far in his search for power and opened himself up for possession in exchange.

After wiping out all but two of his colleagues, he proceeded to eliminate everyone with any legitimate claim to a throne anywhere in Eldarn (he believed), save for the one he possessed, thus always preserving the illusion of proper succession. Once his control was complete, he took the source of his power, an inconsequential-looking piece of rock called Lessek's Key. It controlled the spell table built by Lessek, founder of the Senate, and one of two portals for crossing the boundaries between worlds, to the Colorado of the 1800s, where he secreted them in a safety deposit. This was at the very bank that Steven Taylor would work at in the 21st century.

In Lessek's Key, we pick up the action where we left off at the end of The Hickory Staff. Stephen has headed back to Colorado to retrieve the portal and key, which had been left in his and Mark's apartment. Mark and the rest of their companions, Garec and Gilmour (one of the surviving Larion Senators), attempt to recover from their fight with Nerek and place themselves in position to open the second portal to allow Steven a point of return. (To ensure you end up where you want to, both portals have to be open, otherwise you end up in a random spot, which is how Hannah landed in a separate part of the world from Steven and Mark)

For her part, Hannah, along with Hoyt and Churn, who rescued her in book one, had managed to meet up with the other survivor of Nerek's destruction of the Larion Senate, Kantu. (Something to keep in mind, there are no coincidences in Eldarn.) Kantu has agreed to try to help Hannah get back to Colorado, but in order to do so he thinks they have to break into Nerek's palace to retrieve the one portal remaining on Eldarn.

While the two groups of comrades are pursuing their goals, Brexan, the former soldier in Nerek's army, is on her own with only thoughts of vengeance to comfort and keep her going. With Versen dead and her heart broken, killing the man responsible for his death is all she can focus on. Once she establishes his whereabouts, the hunt is on.

It's hard enough for an author to split the focus of a book into two parts, let alone three, but to attempt four major ones, as well as some splinters off Brexan's adventures, for the first third of the book, as is the case in Lessek's Key is apparent literary suicide. How can they expect us to keep track of what's going on, and who's doing what?

By making each part so memorable that you can't forget it, even if you try, is a good starting place. Not once did I even have to stop to remind myself of who was who, and what had been happening to them when I last saw them, let alone flip pages back to where they had been seen last. It wasn't even a matter of ending every chapter with a cliff-hanger either, although there were those as well. It is the fact that the authors have an uncanny ability to be make scenes distinct and memorable enough that they linger long after you've done reading them.

Whenever I laid the book down, which was with great reluctance and infrequently, I found myself dwelling on the circumstances that I had last seen the characters in. There was always one strong note generated by at least one of the characters depicted in a scene that would stick with me and allowed for instant recall when their story continued.

The real secret of course is great character development. What the authors had started to build in The Hickory Staff is elaborated and expanded on in Lessek's Key. Events change them, circumstances cause them to grow in ways they didn't think possible, and fears are faced and conquered. Convictions are tested and as in reality are found wanting, forcing the forging of new ones that are stronger for their annealing by the fire of coming to terms with oneself.

It seems in this book that each character has a personal journey they must undergo while completing the physical one towards what they hope is their ultimate destination. Watching them struggle with the extraordinary circumstances that they find themselves in and dealing with the effect events have on their personalities and behaviour, makes them one of the most realistic groups of characters I have read about in ages.

Of course characters need things to do, and these people have plenty, considering the amount of territory they have to cover. Of course there are also any number of left hooks and plot twists that the authors include to keep both the reader and the characters honest. Nothing and no one is sacred and it is a war where people die and get injured, so you have to be prepared for anything.

There have been so many times when I've been reading a trilogy and been sorely disappointed by the second book. It is as if the author was just in a hurry to get through it so that he could finish and get on with the conclusion. Lessek's Key certainly doesn't suffer from this downside.

They have taken a fine introductory book, The Hickory Staff and expanded on what they started, making the sequel equal, if not better, then its predecessor.

These are two well-written, exciting, and intelligent books with only one problem - they end. But at least there is still book three to look forward to. show less

Well I've done it again. I've got myself hooked on a new series. Why is it that every time I discover a new author I like he, or in this case they, has to be working on at least a trilogy? And there is always such a long time between books. Not fair.

In The Hickory Staff the authors, Robert Scott and Jay Gordon, have got their hooks into me and unless they really screw up in the second book, I'm theirs until they've finished. It's not that they've discovered something new under the sun, it's show more the fact that they've been able to take a familiar theme and give it new life and depth that makes this book, and hopefully the series, such a good read.

It's the standard other world type story, where people from our world accidentally cross over, and find that they have a role to play in preventing a horrible evil from destroying all the worlds. Yep, been there, done that, bought one too many t-shirts and seen the movie in its special tenth anniversary boxed set, would be my reaction too if it wasn't for the fact that the authors have managed to make this a really captivating tale.

I was on a trawling expedition through my local large chain bookstore when I found The Hickory Staff. It was the cover that caught my eye and the title. Simple sepia toned background with a line drawing of a tree, and scripted characters for the title and the author's names: nothing flashy but evocative. I know that authors usually have no control over a book's cover art, but I couldn't help feeling that any work that felt secure enough to package itself plainly deserved a look.

The first thing you'll notice differing from other books of this type is that it diverges from the typical formula almost immediately. Instead of the action building on our world with the main characters sliding into the alternative one, the scene shifts continually between the earth and Eldarn.

The authors give us the details that the characters from earth are going to have to understand when they get to their eventual destination. The situation in Eldarn and the characters we will meet there are as familiar to us from the start as the people in our own world. While Steven Taylor and Mark Jenkins from Idaho Springs Colorado are still the main characters, they are only cogs in the larger story of the ongoing history of Eldarn.

Once we are in Eldarn and certain other facts come to life the idea of alternate worlds is ever so slightly turned on its head. Earth and Eldarn: which is the central world? There has been more traffic from Eldarn to Earth over the years than the other way round. With only Steven, Mark, and Steven's girl friend Hannah, ever having fallen into Eldarn, while planned trips in reverse seem to have happened more than a few times in the past, Earth becomes less the centre of the universe than is usual in these types of stories.

The differences between the two worlds lie in the fact that on Eldarn magic is a viable force, where as on earth technology has risen to the forefront. In fact it is the corrupted magic of one sorcerer that has retarded the growth of Eldarn. It's the usual story of power, corruption, and unspeakable evil, where one man Nerak, trying to tap an ancient source of power released an evil that drove him insane.

Using his newfound powers, he carefully eliminated the ruling families of all the countries of Eldarn, and all but two of his fellow wizards, until he was able to claim absolute dominion over the world. But the ultimate goal of the evil that possesses him is to obtain the "key" that will unlock the magic needed to release the power that will decimate all the worlds.

The key happened to end up in a safety deposit box in the bank where Steven Taylor is assistant manager. Steven is a ditherer, going nowhere. He lost out on all the good jobs when he graduated from college by dithering, and so ended up in Idaho Springs as assistant manager in a small bank.

Even when he meets Hannah, who he instantly falls in love with, if it wasn't for her being willing to risk taking the initiative, their relationship would never have started. Perhaps his confidence is boosted by her interest, or perhaps something else is pushing events, but whatever it is, when he discovers a one hundred and thirty odd year old safety deposit box in the basement of the bank, he decides he must find out what's inside of it.

One Friday night he secretes the box in his briefcase and takes it home. He and his room mate Mark open the box to discover that it contains a strange rock and a tapestry. They lay the tapestry out flat on the floor. When they notice a current of energy running through the room they assume that the rock could be radioactive. They decide to vacate the apartment to seek assistance in dealing with the dangerous rock. Steven leaves the room and Mark trips and falls into the tapestry.

The tapestry is the portal. Steven finally figures out where Mark has vanished to and is horrified. He's frozen with fear. What can he do? He spends the rest of the night berating himself for being a coward, and finally as dawn breaks he works up the nerve and jumps through the portal to try and find Mark.

Eldarn with its magic and immediate threats forces Steven to finally confront himself. He has been chosen by someone or something to wield an instrument of power: the hickory staff of the title, and be the main opponent to Nerak. He must find a way to remain true to himself but be strong enough to confront the variety of enemies and challenges this strange and wild world throws at him.

A key element in the success of this book is the strength and variety of the characters. The writers have done a masterful job in creating a diverse group of peoples with a myriad of motivations for why they do what they do. Even spirits and soulless warriors are allowed to show that they have the potential for more than one dimension.

At various times in The Hickory Staff we switch from one group of characters to another, and each time are rewarded with a different perspective of the land and the trials its people have endured. When Steven's girl friend Hannah stumbles through the portal, it's a day after the guys, and so she ends up in a different part of the world.

She is eventually befriended by people who are searching for a means to end the rule of Nerak, and learns more about the seemingly insurmountable task facing all of those who oppose him. When Steven and Mark had landed, they had been picked up by members of the resistance, whose first instinct is to kill them. Anyone dressed as strangely as the two men were must be dangerous.

In both instances the strangers are taken to meet someone who supposedly will be able to help them return to their own world. Not surprisingly they turn out to be the two wizards that survived Nerak's killing spree the first time round. It just so happens that they are in completely separate parts of the world, and by the end of the first book Steven and Hannah have yet to be reunited. In fact Steven has had to go back to Colorado to retrieve the "key"(remember that rock) from his apartment before Nerak beats him to it.

Unless Steven manages to retrieve the key, and return with it, not only will nobody else be coming home anytime soon, but there might not be any worlds anywhere for anyone.

Robert Scott and Jay Gordon have written a tantalizing opening volume to what promises to be an exciting sequence of books. Although there is an underlying thread of action through out the book, it is not dominated by action scenes. The Hickory Staff is far more than just sword and sorcery and this alone would raise it above so many books who attempt the alternate world scenario.

What really sets apart are the range and depth of the characters. We learn about all of them naturally; either through their own eyes, or through others' perceptions of them. You find yourself caring about what happens to these people much more than you would normally in most fiction. The Hickory Staff is a book well worth reading, and what's even better is that you know there's more of the same still to come. show less

I found this book by accident when I was going spastic with my chrissy vouchers. It's portal fantasy and seemed pretty interesting. Also some of the little write ups, while granted you need to take with a grain of salt, compared him to Stephen Donaldson who is one of my favourite fantasy authors.

It was a bit of a shaky start. Lots of death and destruction early on. Now I can deal with that but these guys liked to intorduce each character, tell you about them, what they were doing that day show more and what they had planned and then kill them. And it didn't just happen once or twice, oh no, consistently for the first 40 pages or so! It's a little taxing, and I found I quickly stopped connecting with characters because I just assumed they'd be killed off. Thankfully, this changed and also, after finishing the book and being about half way through the second one all the destruction makes sense.

The basic set up is that two friends Mark and Stephen get transported to another world called Eldarn after Stephen opens a safe deposit box from his bank that's over a hundred years old and discovers a far portal. The world of Eldarn is under the rule of an malevolent lord (of course) who has the entire place in fear of him and who uses other's bodies to house his spirit from time to time. Steven and Mark meet up with some freedom fighters and start to work out how to get home and how to help their new friends. Along the way they encounter all manner of demons and evil beasties as well as make some surprising discoveries about themselves and their companions.

The characters (the ones that don't die) are engaging and the story line moves along nicely and breaks off into some nice tangents and a few surprises. A very cool book really. I had to find the second one as soon as I finished (which thankfully I did) and I've been ripping through it very happily.

Four magic staffs. show less

As the second book in the Eldarn Sequence, Lessek's Key started out strong. Gripping and action filled from the beginning. Admittedly, the undeniable deaths of certain characters is disappointing, but helps add emotional depth to the story and remaining characters. The middle did seem to slow a bit, taking on a more formulaic fantasy approach, but overall, a wonderful middle book.