The Spirit Stone

The Spirit Stone (2008) by Katharine Kerr

There are fantasy novels in which a reluctant young person discovers a magical object, goes on a brisk adventure and returns home in time for tea. Katharine Kerr’s The Spirit Stone is not especially interested in making things that simple. This is Deverry, where reincarnation, sorcery, ancient grudges, political scheming and several centuries of unfinished business have all been allowed to accumulate until even the dead seem to have paperwork outstanding.

Published by HarperVoyager in 2008, The Spirit Stone forms part of Kerr’s enormous and richly developed Deverry sequence, the Celtic-flavoured fantasy saga she began back in the 1980s and apparently decided should contain enough history to make several actual kingdoms feel inadequately documented. This volume belongs to the later Silver Wyrm sequence, so newcomers should be warned that there is quite a lot of world already in existence before they arrive.

The Deverry books are particularly known for their use of reincarnation. Characters die, are reborn generations later and then discover that destiny has retained copies of all the relevant correspondence. Loves, betrayals, debts and mistakes can therefore follow people across lifetimes, which is impressive commitment even by fantasy standards. Most of us can barely remember why we walked into the kitchen; Kerr’s characters may be dealing with something they did three hundred years ago.

In The Spirit Stone, ancient magical forces and the long history of Deverry continue to converge as the boundaries between the ordinary world and the supernatural become increasingly troublesome. Sorcery, spirits and the mysterious dweomer remain central, while political rivalries and personal loyalties ensure that nobody gets the luxury of dealing with only one crisis at a time.

Kerr’s world owes much of its atmosphere to Celtic mythology without simply transplanting familiar legends onto a fantasy map. Deverry has its own cultures, language, history and social order, filled with warriors, nobles, sorcerers, travelling folk and beings considerably less human than they initially appear. There are dragons too, because after several thousand pages of dynastic conflict and metaphysical complications, adding dragons is practically an act of restraint.

One of the pleasures of the series is that magic rarely functions as a convenient button marked “solve problem”. The dweomer has rules, consequences and philosophical baggage, and those who practise it are expected to understand rather more than how to wave their hands dramatically at inconvenient people. Supernatural power comes tangled with morality, destiny and responsibility—three things fantasy heroes generally discover are much heavier than swords.

The result is fantasy on the grand scale: layered, historical and populated by characters whose problems may have begun before their present incarnation was born. Readers already familiar with Deverry will find another substantial instalment in Kerr’s long-running tapestry, while adventurous newcomers can certainly enter here provided they accept that everyone else may occasionally seem to know something they don’t.

This copy is in Good condition, showing the normal signs of previous ownership expected from a book that has presumably travelled rather less dramatically than its characters. It remains a solid reading copy, ready for another expedition into Deverry without requiring a reincarnation first.

An appealing volume for collectors of Katharine Kerr, HarperVoyager fantasy, Celtic-inspired fiction and large sagas in which history refuses to remain safely in the past. Also ideal for anyone who feels a trilogy is simply not enough commitment and would prefer a fantasy series capable of becoming a long-term domestic arrangement.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where mysterious stones are available from time to time, although any supernatural consequences remain entirely the purchaser’s responsibility.

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