SONG OF THE KINGDOM
By
Heroic fantasy in a minimal, unchallenging pseudo-Dark Ages setting. Stone's variation on the genre is his treatment of music as a magical and redemptive art, long banished from the harsh tyranny of the erstwhile ""Great Kingdom."" His heroes are three young practitioners of the secret and subversive craft, who journey to the summit of Singer's Peak in an attempt to release the imprisoned Song of the Kingdom. The story is attractively enough paced, but not awfully well served by the omnipresent empurpled tributes to the transcendency of music. Competent, medium-pleasant stuff for a YA-at-heart audience, but not the product of much real grappling with real material.