A female pirate, a lost princess and a mysterious gemstone!
Welcome to the Eurastia, a legendary pirate ship whose captain holds a dark secret. Her name is Yuri, and once, she lived in the future. Unable to return until she rights a terrible wrong, she must redeem herself and fulfill her destiny.
Ten year old Princess Noelle is not from another time, but another place—a land invaded by evil conquerors who killed her parents and kidnapped her younger brother. The Princess herself is taken hostage until Yuri saves her. It is then that they both learn that Noelle holds the key to Captain Yuri’s destiny.
Both Yuri and Noelle want nothing more than to return home. But neither can, until Noelle finds her brother, and Yuri vanquishes the sinister forces that she herself accidentally set in motion.
Intrigued? Read On:
I’ll be honest.
I despise time travel. I don’t like manga or Japanese stories. Typically, I avoid both of these at all costs. They’re not my style. It’s just personal preference.
The Timelight Stone? It’s a Japanese story translated to English, about time travel. And I love it.
It has everything. Pirates, robots, magic, princesses. Mystery and beauty. Betrayal. Lots of betrayal. The Timelight Stone has honestly convinced me that more stories like this might not be so bad.
What I Love:
Each character has depth. A secret past the reader must unweave. Everyone is connected in some way. Everything ties in. Chizuru really pulled on the characters’ backgrounds while writing this. It feels as though there is another story before but long after (blame time-travel) that drives the plot of this one, ties together the characters, and explains all the mysteries. I wonder if Chizuru wrote it out in novel form…but I’m getting off topic.
The Timelight Stone is a unique combination of science fiction and fantasy. At first sight, it appears to be fantasy, with a legendary immortal pirate, a princess with a magic ring, and a mysterious enemy.
It quickly changes your mind when guns are drawn, a man reveals himself as a robot-android-thingy, and important characters are scientists experimenting with strange forces. However, those strange forces stem from a magic artifact. It’s a strange mix but artfully done.
The worldbuilding itself is beautiful, as it is in many Japanese tales. The people, the places, the sights, the outfits…I can;t get over it. his would be a gorgeous graphic novel or anime movie.
What I Don’t Love:
The prose feels choppy and a little plain, though I attribute that to the fact that the author originally wrote it in Japanese. Translated, it’s bound to be rougher.
The viewpoint is third person, but sometimes it seems omniscient, where it flows from one character’s thoughts to another, and sometimes it’s very clearly limited, where it stays in one character’s head for a long period of time.
My only other complaint is that I’ve had a hard time getting ahold of the second book, The Red Crystal. It’s old and not well known, though, so it has an excuse. Chizuru published The Timelight Stone in 2001. That’s eight years before I was even born.
Content Warnings:
References to slave trade. Fire, gunshots, and blood.
The main character starts out imprisoned on a ship with other soon-to-be slaves. A ship burns down. There’s a fight where guns are fired and people duel with swords. A girl has a large wound across her back. None of it is described in detail.
Ratings:
Appropriate content: 4/5
Writing skill: 3.8/5
Story construction: 4/5
Ethics: 4/5
Other Information:
Christian: No
Point of view: Third person (some sort of mix of omniscient and third person limited. Not sure how I feel about that.)
Tense: Past tense
Romance: No
Series: Yes
Conclusion:
A unique tale of the consequences of messing with time, The Timelight Stone sets up the beginning of a series that promises much more beauty and magic to come. Secrets and new friendship abound. It’s fantastical yet powerfully real, and I continue to enjoy diving into the world of The Eurastia again and again. Altogether, The Timelight Stone deserves 4 out of 5 slices of cheese and I would recommend it for kids from seven to twelve.
Have a lovely day!
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