Scream of Stone by Philip Athans is the final book in the Watercourse Trilogy. The first book in this trilogy is titled Whisper of Waves (Forgotten Realms: Watercourse Trilogy Book 1) and the second is titled Lies of Light: The Watercourse Trilogy, Book II (The Watercourse Trilogy). For fans of the Forgotten Realms this book, and series for that matter, this book is unlike most other Forgotten Realms books. It is written in very short chapters, most about 2-5 pages. It goes without saying, but if you have not read the first two books in this trilogy than you really do need to before reading this one. There are events that occur in this book that would make very little sense to someone who is not up to speed with the rest of the story.

The plot of this novel carries on with the plot from the first two books fairly well. There are also a couple sub-plots that are brought to conclusions from the previous books. The main plot line is of a character attempting to make a canal to connect the Lake of Steam and the Nagaflow. However, there are some that don't want this to happen, and of course some that do want it to come to fruition. One of the sub-plots is a Thayan envoy attempting to play the senators against each other to get what he wants. Another sub-plot involves a character from the first two books and something that happened to him and what he is set to do now. Overall, this book, for the most part, continues the overall plot lines of the first two books.

The characters in this novel are largely the same as from the previous two books. In my reviews of the first two books I commented that largely the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. Not much has really changed with this book. I still enjoyed the character Ivar, and I found myself more interested in Pristoleph other than those two though, the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. They seem to be cast in clichéd roles and were two-dimensional. There was very little true character development in this book, and really in this trilogy, aside from a few small instances. From the start of this book, it is fairly obvious what is going to happen in terms of how the characters will act and what, in the end, will occur.

This book, as a whole, is really nothing but average. The clichéd characters could have been salvaged. However, how the book was written, jumping from piece to piece via these ultra short chapters makes for a book that feels disjointed and it was extremely difficult for me to focus on something. It seemed every time the story was picking up steam, there was a new chapter and a dramatic shift in events.

Aside from the clichéd characters and flow, my main criticism of this book is that this trilogy has always been billed as a `Realms Shaking Event'. Something that would change the landscape of Faerun forever. However, at the conclusion of this book and trilogy, very little (if anything) has been changed. In fact, once I finished the book I felt as though I was merely back at square one where the firs novel picked up. I felt distinctively cheated by this fact. I invested the time and effort to read three novels, only to be back where I started.

Phil Athan is a wonderful author, and I have enjoyed many of his previous works. However, this trilogy is not one of them. I feel let down by the conclusion, I feel let down by the flatness of the characters. All in all it was just a blah reading experience for me. While there are some decent moments in this novel, they do not save this book (or trilogy) from mediocrity. This will not be a book, or trilogy, that I will be recommending to people. ( )

Scream of Stone is the third and final book in the Watercourse trilogy written by Philip Athans. The story revolves around a group of unique individuals in the city of Innarlith and how their lives and ambitions are all intertwined. The main storyline is about a man named Ivar Devorast and his pursuit of building a canal to connect the Nagaflow river and the Lake of Steam. Ivar’s canal building is met with opposition and there are many attempts to kill him as he is working. Almost all of the murder attempts are initiated from a greedy and evil Thayan by the name of Marek Rymut. As the story progresses the main focus shifts from Devorast to the genasi Pristoleph who is a senator of Innarlith and is making a play to be the ransar. Pristoleph intertwines his fate with Ivar Devorast and by doing this he causes the ire of the red wizard Marek. Without divulging any spoilers about the end of the book, I can say that the trilogy ends with several surprises, multiple conflicts, and quite a few fight sequences.

Check out the complete review at my website.
http://www.thefantasyreview.com/2007/06/20/scream-of-stone-review/ ( )