Warrior Heir by: Cinda Williams Chima

Yes, i am reviewing: The Warrior Heir. I know it's 5 years old but maybe, just maybe there is a chance someone out there hasn’t read this book. I know, it’s a long stretch because every fantasy fan has read her book, but maybe someone with outstanding circumstances((Like being stranded on a desert island for five years)) hasn't. Now to the important part, the review.

Cinda Williams Chima is well….Cinda Williams Chima. Saying anything else would not be doing justice to her brilliance in writing young adult fiction. This is the first book in the heir series, and supposedly her first time writing fiction. I am going to be outspoken here and say something outright: she’s lying. A beginner can’t craft a masterpiece like this when they are starting out.

Her main character, Jack, has a really boring name but that’s the only thing boring about him. In fact, he has something in him that makes up part of the title. Can you guess? While blood, bones, and little enzymes that are slowly digesting food particles would all be correct answers,((because warriors have those things!)) I was really talking about the heir part. No, he isn’t a king of some royal lost line, or a forsaken god. He literally has the heir part in him, in the form of a rock.

This aptly named Heir stone gives him extraordinary abilities.  One of them is the ability to not have a heart! People who have Heir stones don’t have hearts, literally. Instead of hearts they have this huge giant chunk of stone that is magic. Does it pump blood? Nope. Does it help regulate blood pressure? Nadda. It has the exact same purpose of a regular stone, but with the bonus of making the person born with the stone inhuman.

So how do the people who have rocks inside of them live? To tell you the truth, I have no idea. I have many theories but for some reason none of them make sense. Every time I put it to some scientific term one of her gorgeous descriptions disproves my theory. This is the only problem with the book, there is no possible way whatsoever to describe how they live. Ohh well, I better get back to the review. There’s no use nitpicking a fantasy book for realistic elements. Though, I do bet removing that stone wouldn’t be as easy as say…passing a 3 inch in diameter kidney stone.

So, about the Heir stones. There are Warrior stones, Wizard stones and…um… some others. The two stones I listed are pretty self explanatory. The Warriors have huge swords and are servants to the wizards. The wizards can cause hurricanes, throw fire out of their hands, and freeze someone with their mind. Did I also mention that they hunt warriors for fun?

The wizard stone is obviously the best, and the book agrees with me. They wizards rule all the other stones because of a really ancient contract. This means that they have four different breeds of lackeys to choose from. I have already told you about the warrior one, but Wikipedia rudely told me it wasn’t the only one. There are actually three others; Enchanters, Soothsayers, and Sorcerers. Soothsayers are prophets, Sorcerers are your healers, and the Enchanters are mind prostitutes. Luckily, all these inferior breeds are usually slaves to the superior wizard.

Now, I could reveal all of this books secrets but that isn’t my style. It’s much more fun to read the book and figure them out yourself. But if you really want to extract juicy tidbits from this book without reading, just check out Wikipedia. They are perfectly fine with dissecting a book head from toe.

We are almost at the end of the review and I hope you liked it. Why? Because I almost stabbed out my eyes when I wrote it.  Trying to find one thing wrong with this book was insane. Her characters are all three dimensional, her plot is amazing, and it’s well written. So go buy this book and read it. If you have already read it ((You should have)), read it again. There are few books that are better than this one.

Read an excerpt if your still not sure if you want this book!

Last Edited: Two days after Thanksgiving in 2011.