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Glowstones: The Journey to Pynchon
The Journey to Pynchon is the first book in a trilogy. A Druid named Beddamin is fighting against Malican to save Alveria. Malican possesses the Glowstone known as the Skull Glowstone. Through this powerful talisman and his knowledge of Dark Magic, Malican is gathering an army of Goblins, Trolls, and humans to invade and conquer the world. Beddamin must enlist the support of several races including Dwarves and Elves who do not ordinarily cooperate. To face their foe, Beddamin must also find the heirs to Althar's Medallion and the Innerfire. The fate of Alveria hangs in the balance.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 6, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 9, 2023
I read this book as a favor to the author. I very much enjoyed it!
October 18, 2023
Glowstones: The Journey to Pynchon, a debut novel by James Stout, has a lot of familiar tropes. But that is a feature, not a bug. Druids, goblins, trolls, and elves combined with some engaging storytelling, likable characters, and credible world-building. A wizard must gather a band to recover some dangerously magical objects before his evil brother can put them to use. Meanwhile, a young girl must develop her own magical powers to free herself from her evil caretakers. It is all good stuff. Imagine yourself gathered around a campfire as an old druid begins to spin you a yarn…
December 1, 2025
TLDR: My review is the way it is because Glowstones is neither bad nor good. It was a great starting place for the author, but I don’t think readers should invest too much time finishing this book. Therefore, I gave it 3 stars.
Despite having published none of my books, I thought I would share what I liked and disliked about this book. For some context, I was in Mr. Stout’s class last year, and read Glowstones due to having met the author. I still think this review is unbiased, though I don’t have the book in front of me so I can’t directly quote examples.
So, what did I like?
1. Unlikely character dynamics.
The characters from different backgrounds coming together in different ways were interesting to see! The pairing of a witches daughter and a giant finding their way away from captors, pairing of brothers and their estranged family, each new grouping made the story unique. I liked reading about how each character changed throughout the story.
2. The different perspectives.
Switching from character to character is a tricky thing to pull off and have each character stay important to the plot. I think you did this well.
3. The magical aspects of the story.
Adding in a bit of magic to the adventure made the story more interesting.
4. The hero’s journey format.
It works well with the book.
What did I dislike?
1. Malican’s names.
Malican the Mighty? Malican the Malevolent?? This sounds like fanfiction. May as well call him Malican the Melodramatic..
2. Dialogue (specifically for your bilingual character)
Though the character, I believe a giant (?), isn’t human, Eve’s companion was a little too “me no talk english” to enjoy the character himself. It was nice to get some variety in language, but the dialogue could be improved upon by incorporating some of the Giant’s native language in.. if that’s something worth pursuing.
As an example for you, my mom and her side of the family speak another language than English. Her knowledge of the language fails for certain words, so I’ll hear her using English words in replacement. A similar use of the giant language could bring more attention to the Giant being of a fantasy species, and make his sentences sound more realistic.
3. Dialogue (unrealistic/unvaried).
I found myself disappointed by the lack of variation between characters with dialogue, and the unnaturalness in how the dialogue was written. I understand this is a fantasy setting, so the characters have different speech habits. However, the dialogue doesn’t reflect their personalities and tends to take away from the story. For example, take Kaith and Gere’s cousin. He’s royalty, so he has a lot of responsibilities. When Kaith and Gere show up, he finally has the chance to open up to some people- You’d think he’d loosen up on the formalities when he’s around people he can act like his true self with… But no, his dialogue is as unfeeling as ever. I don’t know any teens who would talk with their friends the way he talks with Kaith and Gere. And the witch's daughter, Eve- With a lifetime of living with someone who insults, abuses, and generally mistreats her, it seems odd she’d be in the habit of speaking so politely and adeptly.
Your dialogue reminds me of the Inkheart dialogue, but Inkheart’s concept is pretty unique, so I wanted to keep reading that. That brings me to the next topic:
4. An unoriginal concept.
You’d be able to get away with more of the descriptive writing and unvaried dialogue if the story were original and made a reader want to see what happens. To compare, Gideon the Ninth was a series I recently read that spent a lot of time worldbuilding and describing the environment. I didn’t mind this here because the world described was one unfamiliar to me, one unlike a lot of other books I’d read. However, combining lots of description with an unoriginal setting and unvaried dialogue makes for a book I don’t see any reason in reading further. I say this from a place of someone who has a long attention span for books; I read the Harry Potter series over a few days, 1984 at the grocery store, The Hobbit during a 2 day road trip— but I still haven’t been able to see Glowstones to the end after 3 months.
Thank you for taking the time to read this review. It’s lengthy, and I hope I helped you decide whether or not to read this book.. Or if you’re Mr. Stout, some input on what a young reader thinks.
Despite having published none of my books, I thought I would share what I liked and disliked about this book. For some context, I was in Mr. Stout’s class last year, and read Glowstones due to having met the author. I still think this review is unbiased, though I don’t have the book in front of me so I can’t directly quote examples.
So, what did I like?
1. Unlikely character dynamics.
The characters from different backgrounds coming together in different ways were interesting to see! The pairing of a witches daughter and a giant finding their way away from captors, pairing of brothers and their estranged family, each new grouping made the story unique. I liked reading about how each character changed throughout the story.
2. The different perspectives.
Switching from character to character is a tricky thing to pull off and have each character stay important to the plot. I think you did this well.
3. The magical aspects of the story.
Adding in a bit of magic to the adventure made the story more interesting.
4. The hero’s journey format.
It works well with the book.
What did I dislike?
1. Malican’s names.
Malican the Mighty? Malican the Malevolent?? This sounds like fanfiction. May as well call him Malican the Melodramatic..
2. Dialogue (specifically for your bilingual character)
Though the character, I believe a giant (?), isn’t human, Eve’s companion was a little too “me no talk english” to enjoy the character himself. It was nice to get some variety in language, but the dialogue could be improved upon by incorporating some of the Giant’s native language in.. if that’s something worth pursuing.
As an example for you, my mom and her side of the family speak another language than English. Her knowledge of the language fails for certain words, so I’ll hear her using English words in replacement. A similar use of the giant language could bring more attention to the Giant being of a fantasy species, and make his sentences sound more realistic.
3. Dialogue (unrealistic/unvaried).
I found myself disappointed by the lack of variation between characters with dialogue, and the unnaturalness in how the dialogue was written. I understand this is a fantasy setting, so the characters have different speech habits. However, the dialogue doesn’t reflect their personalities and tends to take away from the story. For example, take Kaith and Gere’s cousin. He’s royalty, so he has a lot of responsibilities. When Kaith and Gere show up, he finally has the chance to open up to some people- You’d think he’d loosen up on the formalities when he’s around people he can act like his true self with… But no, his dialogue is as unfeeling as ever. I don’t know any teens who would talk with their friends the way he talks with Kaith and Gere. And the witch's daughter, Eve- With a lifetime of living with someone who insults, abuses, and generally mistreats her, it seems odd she’d be in the habit of speaking so politely and adeptly.
Your dialogue reminds me of the Inkheart dialogue, but Inkheart’s concept is pretty unique, so I wanted to keep reading that. That brings me to the next topic:
4. An unoriginal concept.
You’d be able to get away with more of the descriptive writing and unvaried dialogue if the story were original and made a reader want to see what happens. To compare, Gideon the Ninth was a series I recently read that spent a lot of time worldbuilding and describing the environment. I didn’t mind this here because the world described was one unfamiliar to me, one unlike a lot of other books I’d read. However, combining lots of description with an unoriginal setting and unvaried dialogue makes for a book I don’t see any reason in reading further. I say this from a place of someone who has a long attention span for books; I read the Harry Potter series over a few days, 1984 at the grocery store, The Hobbit during a 2 day road trip— but I still haven’t been able to see Glowstones to the end after 3 months.
Thank you for taking the time to read this review. It’s lengthy, and I hope I helped you decide whether or not to read this book.. Or if you’re Mr. Stout, some input on what a young reader thinks.
February 26, 2024
It’s a book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews