Mythical (Heart of Stone #1) by C.E.Martin
MYTHICAL (Heart of Stone #1) by C E Martin
MYTHICAL is a YA/teen novel (released June 2012) written in a mixed genre including paranormal, science-fiction, horror and fantasy. The novel and its’ characters read like a comic-book storyline without the pictures, but you can use your imagination as the author manufactures an action-reel of adventure with his telling of the story.
18year old Josie Winters and her friends are having one final camp-out and dirt bike excursion before heading off to college. What they didn’t expect was to find the charred remains of a boat in the middle of the desert complete with its’ own badly decomposing corpse riddled with unnatural wounds and a gaping hole where his heart once beat. But upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a body at all, but a statue—or was it?
Mark Kenslir needed water. Finding himself burned, injured and without the ability to heal himself. Mark wanders into a campsite that included a cooler full of bottled water and a group of armed teens ready to end his life-again. But it is Josie who recognizes the badly injured man, and to everyone’s horror, it is the corpse from the misplaced ship in the desert.
Mark’s ability to heal becomes exponentially faster with the addition of water, as does his strength and speed. Weapons, military style manoeuvres and a slew of specialized abilities will come in handy as Mark and his foundlings including Josie and Jimmy, must outrun and out smart the FBI, Special Ops Forces and teams of ‘super heroes’ brought in by the military. But isn’t Mark one of the good guys?
As Mark’s memory returns, he begins to recount to Josie and Jimmy how it is he found himself in the desert and to their horror, Mark is not completely human. And there are more ‘parahumans’ just like him. But it was his last assignment that went horribly wrong and Mark knows that whatever he was hoping to capture is still out there-looking for its’ next meal. Not only does Mark encounter the ‘beast’ that stole his heart, but he and Josie soon become the targets of the US Special Forces and their elite group of super-human heroes. As the ‘beast’ grows in power, so do the number of recovered and missing bodies without a heart.
To be honest, I am not sure in which direction to point the reader as it pertains to the age level of the storyline. The intended audience is young adult and teen, but many of the military references require a guideline for description and definition. As well, the dialogue is fairly simple, almost adolescent at times, which leads me to presume, it is intended for a younger audience. The passages waver between smart intelligent descriptive narration and then drop to a more-simpler text as though there are two distinct writers. There is plenty of ‘blood, guts and gore’, graphic violence, dismemberment and beheadings, as well as sci-fi military-style weapons and experiments, and the paranormal phenomenon of otherwordly creatures and shapeshifters.
The young adults carry guns, knives and tasers as though they were pieces of jewelry and are quick to use their weapons without benefit of doubt. C E Martin deftly avoids a complete explanation as to how Mark and the others became part of an elite operation of super soldiers, but reveals small bits of information when necessary for impact. Like our hero’s memory, I guess that information will be revealed a little at a time and on a need to know basis. Book 2 in Martin’s Mythical series should hopefully reveal more about how and why our hero and his fellow super soldiers are the way they are.
MYTHICAL is an interesting story and one that will captivate some readers but I found that many of the passages were very violent especially for younger audiences. Mythical is not for everyone. Although many YA novels are enjoyed by readers of all ages, there should be a warning as it pertains to the graphic nature of the content.
I am well aware that young adult readers are very knowledgeable and most are able to distinguish between reality and fiction, but sometimes a line has to be drawn and if that line is only a few words of warning-CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE-then I will be happy.
LINKS TO PURCHASE:: At the time of the posting MYTHICAL was .99 cents from the following suppliers
Amazon Kindle
Smashwords
B&N Nook
Copy supplied by author.
Reviewed by Sandy
hmmm, Interesting review Sandy. Sounds like a good storyline but not so sure about the violence. Maybe it should be for older teens and adults.
I had a message from C E Martin and he explained that since the release he has changed the ‘marketing age-group’ for MYTHICAL…
Nice review, Sandy. Interesting premise, not sure it is something I would like. I usually like YA, but this one sounds different. As for violence, some YA does have them, and no matter what anyone says, it is NOT for young adult. It is for adults, also. I loved the Hunger Games, but despite the teenage Katniss, this was an adult book.
I agree..there are so many that should NOT be labelled YA….we have read a large number where the violence is beyond what a some should read.
At 16, I was reading Robert E Howard’s Conan series and Warren Murphy’s Destroyer series. My classmates were reading Steven King.
Where do you stand on the issue of sex in YA novels? Even the James Bond books I read had it, and I find it peculiar that so many “YA” novels embrace the subject.
We’ll actually the thing with violence these days in YA, is more real then say Conan, James Bond. Those were more escapism fun. Steven King was scary, and violent. But they were all adult books.
It’s really the YA dystopian novels that are violent. But I truly do not believe they are YA, they are all adult, with the lead characters being teenagers. As for sex, they have a small amount of romance, triangles, but those books so far don’t take the next step up. so not much sex in the YA books I have read.
Hi C.E…thank you for stopping by.
I agree with what you are saying. Sex in YA novels is becoming more prominent, but in many cases, the YA author does not use graphic descriptions….sometimes it is implied….or the scene ‘fades to black’. I personally have read hundreds of YA novels, and have yet to come across a truly graphic and explicit sex scene in novels meant for teens. (which does not mean that it does not exist).
There will always be a ‘fine line’ that is drawn and at times the line is so blurred that the reader isn’t always aware. Sex and violence have become so common place in the movies, media and books, that many people are ‘hardened’ to the exposure and never consider the ramifications to the exposure on young children and adults.
And yes, for years comic books have portrayed women as sexual beings, and children’s readers used to stereotype women into the role of mother and wife, but that does not mean it was the right thing to do.
With the popularity of ebooks, minors and those under 18 are able to access virtually any book regardless of content. All that is required is a charge card or active paypal account but again that does not make it right.
Young adults today are a pretty savvy crowd, and we must trust them to make the right decisions, but they also need some guidance along the way to keep them on the correct path. And I would hope that we can limit their exposure to graphic sex and violence for a few years, before it becomes part of their every day life….so some guidelines should be implemented as it pertains to young adult storylines.
In My Opinion…..
The last couple of young adult YA books that I read did not have any sex scenes. There was some hot and heavy petting, but it never went ‘full frontal’ as they say in the movies, and never progressed to sex or even implied sex. To be honest, I don’t recall a graphic sex scene in any of the YA books. There was a scene in one of the HON recent books, but again, it was implied with no details.
hmmmm, not sure if this is helping…lol