The Hickory Staff

The Eldarn Sequence #1

by Robert Scott, Jay Gordon

Steven Taylor is an assistant bank manager in a quiet little Mid-West town; his roommate Mark Jenkins is a high school history teacher. Steven's bored with his job; the thought of going through all the accounts that haven't had a single transaction in the past 25 years sounds even more boring - until he discovers one old prospector left $17,000 in October 1870; it's now worth 6.3 million dollars. There's a safe deposit box too, 17C, that's never been opened in all those years.

And it would have remained closed if Steven hadn't been browsing through a Denver antique store: as well as a dresser for his sister, he found a new girlfriend, Hannah, the owner's daughter ... and, in a jar of oddments, the long-missing key to Idaho Springs Safety Deposit Box 17C.

And without that key, he'd never have found the tapestry that sucked him and Mark into the land of Rona in the strange new world of Eldarn, where they are immediately captured by a group of Ronan resistance fighters. Rona has been occupied by Malakasia for nearly a thousand Twinmoons. Now an evil tyrant rules the land, but he wants more: he wants the key that will open the path for an ancient evil to manifest once and for all.

And Steven and Mark need this same key if they are ever to get home to Idaho Springs ...

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Unfinished, Magic

752 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Aka Rob Scott for the Eldarn fantasy trilogy written with his father-in-law Jay Gordon.

Reviews

[Cybernet · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy epic fantasy, get this book NOW. Read it, read it right away, do not hesitate go out and grab it I don't care grab it and read it now, this instant. From the first few chapters this book smacked me in the face, knocked me out, grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me into it and wouldn't let go until all 500 + pages were finished.

The book follows roommates Steven and Mark, a banker and a high school teacher respectively, ordinary people from our own world. When Steven decides to look inside a safety deposit box left untouched in his bank for hundreds of years, he discovers a massive tapestry and next thing he knows, he and Mark are in a completely different world and fighting for their lives.

This book has everything; amazing characters, a stunning and brilliantly detailed fantasy world, a superbly well balanced sense of magic, and a very complex but well paced plot. The story moves almost without a hitch from one scenario to another and a very rapid pace and does a great job of keeping the reader guessing just enough to encourage them to keep reading. The characters are also incredibly life like and it wasn't long before I found myself getting attached to them and all their personal stories and motives.

This is the next epic that I think most fantasy readers have been waiting for. Go, read it now.

[A. Reiter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover made me pick this up from a friend's shelf.

It was a slow start. I was disoriented by the switch between worlds and even timeline for each chapter. I ended up ignoring non-Earth storylines until the inevitable merge. Easier to follow.

Some interesting elements, though I can see the complaints of other readers. Why is every woman stunningly beautiful, in danger of rape and yet whose grin can only be described as sexy? Why are they so eager to fall in love and have sex in filthy, public locations? This might be a little indulgent on teen boy geek fantasy.

Slow start and ends with a cliffhanger in the final epic battle which, now it seems will be just the beginning of a saga. I am curious to see how it plays out, so I might pick up the sequel. Would not recommend though, unless you're on vacation and it's all you've got to read.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

It reminds me of Inkheart and The Lord of the Rings put together. It could have been just as good if it were 300 pages shorter but there is enough action to keep the book interesting and to keep you reading it. It is slow to start, what with several prologue chapters and the book finishes with a lot of loose ends, ultimately making you read the next in the series. The take on magic, I think is dry. There didn't seem to be anything unique about the sorcerers and the all-mighty Nerak failed to be intimidating to me. Despite the staleness of the magic and the unoriginal plot, it does create a few new creatures I've yet to see. Overall, for 700+ pages, I finished it in roughly 3 weeks.

[[ J o ] · Rating 1 out of 5]

A fantasy yarn wherein real world Earth men find themselves transported to another world, though that doesn't happen for several chapters. The most irksome part of this was the sheer disrespect of women, as one man dies his last thought is to fondle the breasts of the woman killing him. Slow, terribly written, but very, very fantasy yarn.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating:3.5 - This is Book 1 of a trilogy and there is a very convoluted beginning to the story - lots of characters are introduced but basically what you need to know is that we are following three characters - Steven Taylor (assistant bank manager), his friend Mark Jenkins (history teacher) and Steven’s new girlfriend Hannah (who runs an antique shop) who all live in Idaho Springs, USA. Steven discovers a key and a map which enables him to travel to Eldarn, a kingdom where magic exists and a powerful and evil force holds sway over the inhabitants and both Mark and then Hannah follow Steven and travel through the portal. A hard road for all of them lies ahead.

I wish we followed Hannah’s pathway through Eldarn more, I think the journey for her is more difficult especially emotionally as she is on her own whilst Steven and Mark have each other. Although there are a large number of characters to keep on top of I do like the breadth of the story and as the story develops you do begin to return more frequently to Hannah’s.

The story is quite fast paced and there are always unexpected dangers around every corner. This isn’t a book where the characters are invincible despite magic they are human and magic helps but doesn’t protect them from everything so there is plenty of tension.

I have read this trilogy before about 10 years ago but I started thinking about it again (that’s lockdown for you)! I fancied reading it again as I recalled the characters fondly and I am enjoying visiting with them again.

[Audrey Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had really hopes for this one, but as others have already said, it was way too damn wordy. If this had been a 300 page novel instead of a 600 page one, I would cut the plot holes some slack, but it's pretty much inexcusable in a book this long. Given the length, I was expecting some closure at the end of the book. This was a solid "meh", for me. I won't be purchasing the rest of the series.

[Marian Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would have been so much better if it had been condensed to 3/4 of the read. The start was really slow in fact i nearly gave up. It was worth persevering with however and produced a good fantasy epic. I may even have to read the 2nd in the sequel to find out what happens to all the characters. Hoping its not one of those awful series that goes on and on..

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to give up on this, so dull

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had no idea what was happening for the first 200 pages or so.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one! Now I have to track down the next book

[Karen Trenorden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably 3.5 ⭐️… long book. Few more words used than it really needed. Still I was invested by the end and need to find the next one!

[Alon Lankri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dnf 20%
This starts too slow for me. Measuring time in twinmoons and switching POV so much killed it for me since I felt no tension or buildup.

[Corinne Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and the two after it. Great characters. Complex but unputdownable.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way better than I expected. Slow/nontraditional build worked really well, if you have the patience to stay with it. The payoff is legit.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must start with saying that I usually don't like stories where people from our world are transplanted to an alternate world. In this novel, that didn't bother me so much. Other things did, however.

The authors managed to create some likable main characters, Steven and Mark, but without much depth, and with some traits which were force-fed to the reader at times. They adapt to another world and another language with surprising ease, without any explanation of the fact. They take matters into stride and joke at some really inopportune moments, which made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.

My main problem was the POV, which sometimes bounced back and forth between 4 or even more characters in one chapter. That made for some seriously restless reading, which was a pity because the plot and pace of this book was solid. That helped me move along, but despite some nice worldbuilding and action, I had difficulty reading all the way until the end. Beware of a little SPOILER: although the authors do not hesitate to kill off their characters, they also brought one back to life. That really did not appeal to me. Tolkien got away with something similar (Gandalf surviving the Balrog), but I couldn't be that forgiving here.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate giving up on books, I really do. It made it through 107 pages of the Hickory Staff before putting it down for good. The writing is horribly bland and generic, and it's a shame because you can tell Robert Scott and Jay Gordon put a lot of time and effort into crafting the story and world of the Hickory Staff. There was some interesting things going on in the Hickory Staff but I couldn't even bring myself to be excited, the stale dialogue and empty characters making it impossible to feel invested in the story.

I can see a few Goodreads members persisted with the novel and were rewarded for the effort but if a book can take up to 300 pages or so to become interesting I don't really see the worth in holding out for things to be better. There's not enough time in the world to read books so why waste it reading mediocre books?

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read a portal fantasy in a long time and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book it also had a pretty good reason for there being a portal to another world on Earth. That said the beginning of the book was a little confushing as the other world used a different time systerm that wasn't explained until near the end of the book which made picturing characters ratther hard as I had no idea how old they were. Also another thing that annoyed me was that they liked to kill of characters almost always after they had fallen in love with one of the other main characters it got rather annoying after a while.

[Albé Theunissen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry to say I was bored while reading the series. I had to force myself the finish reading the trilogy. I kept on reading hoping that it will improve but alas, what a waste of time.
The two main characters are so bland and boring that it's hard to discern between the two. Only the names are different. The rest of the characters are uninteresting, the dialogue stilted and the humour (if you can call it that) is forced.
There are some great spellbounding, enchanting and wonderful written fantasy books out there - the Eldarn Sequence are not among them.
If you like plot of someone from our world landing in a fantasy world, give Stephen Donaldson a try.

[Ryan Hobbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought on the whole it was alright with some interesting material, with interesting characters, and I appreciate the theme and importance of compassion over brute power- however, I think this book suffered from need of a good edit to reduce page count. It didn't need to be 730 pages long. There were stretches that could have been shortened that might have made it a bit more of an exciting page turner. Also, I know it was the first book of a trilogy, but the ending felt very "end of act 1" rather than the end of a book in and of itself. Decent but not great.

I'd like to see where the story goes but not sure I want to read another 1500 pages for the sequel books.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opening pages were intriguing though a bit gruesome. The story is going along well but I'm not sure were it's going. After a long introduction the story evolved and was very good but the story is far from over. My husband to my recommendation and read the book also and is waiting for me to finish the second book so he can continue on with it. I would say for anyone who likes Lord of the Rings they will probably like this.

[Kelly B · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mom made me read this--she's obsessed with the series. It's a trilogy, so I'm going to start the second one soon. I liked it, it's about two guys in Denver who accidentally fall through a portal to another world. It has a good sense of humor and doesn't take itself too seriously. Nothing really compares to my feeling about joe abercrombie's First Law trilogy, but I will continue trying to fill the void!

[Lenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quit enjoyable, though at times it had me sort of shaking my head at the slight overuse of Deus Ex Machina... But what the hell, right? It's Fantasy and this reminded me of the all of Fantasy I loved when I was growing up. There wasn't anything terribly new here but there was plenty of fun to be had.

[Carson Guillory · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the certain elements that I love to read about were present in The Hickory Staff, yet I struggled through it. I have started and stopped reading it several times and put it down in favor of other books on my to read list. Having finished it, I only hope that the following installments do not provide the same problem. Otherwise a great book.

[Suzana · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the beginning of the book the writing style to some getting used to. Found it a little juvenile, jumpy and lacking in details. It took me a little bit to feel comfortable with the two main characters. Not enough about them to get to really know them. The story is interesting and it starts to move along nicely once you find yourself in the other realm.

[Brett's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has all the elements of a sci fi or fantasy story I enjoy: interesting premise (alternate worlds that effect one another), engaging characters, magic or sorcery elements, interesting bad guy and the author isn't trying to push some agenda. Just good old escapism.

[Gopal Shanbhag]

Leaves you wanting to read more . have already bought the sequel.would rate the authors as one of the must read fantasy authors
its a different plot from the usual conventional ones. like the writing and treatment.

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK read, I found the story predictable. A poor man's 'Lord of the Rings' Gilmour = Gandalf

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, have to find the second one

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an alternate reality series. I really enjoyed this which is the first and can't wait to read the other two.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a while to get really into it but well worth the effort. Lots of interesting characters and plot lines but not hard to keep track of who is who.