When a gigantic stone behemoth appears in the middle of Millennium Square in Coventry, UK, it’s a photo op. When the stone man starts to move and walk relentlessly on its own, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, you’ve got an exciting sci-fi mystery. We follow reporter Andy Pointer, himself a witness at the origin point of this shocking event, as he tries to figure out why the Stone Man is here, where it is going, and why that moving monolith seems to have some kind of connection to him. The concept is intriguing and I was immediately eager to follow Andy along the Stone Man’s path, but unfortunately, after the exciting opening scenes, the novel shifted focus almost entirely to the people impacted by the Stone Man. Too much of the mystery is left out (though the author claims that why the Stone Man appears and what was its purpose is clearly stated in the text). The story seems to hook the reader at the start, then pivots to the human characters with only modest sci-fi stuff revealed for the rest of the story. Events escalate a bit, and there are a few dramatic and tense moments, but overall there is a lot less plot than there should have been (which is kind of surprising). 

Fortunately, the characters are enjoyable. Andy is not bad as a point-of-view character as we follow on his chase after the Stone Man. He quickly starts to feel a mysterious connection to it, along with other characters (mainly a man named Paul). They all start to feel physiological symptoms and stress. And with a quasi-psychic connection to each other and the Stone Man the mystery of the Stone Man’s purpose deepens. It’s kind of fun to watch the two men try to figure out what’s happening (we the readers don’t know any more than they do). Also, it was a nice change that when the military characters are introduced, they don’t just flex their muscles and push Andy and Paul around. Brigadier Straub is actually a very smart character and she’s clearly capable of making intelligent as well as sensitive decisions; and when she takes command of the situation, she doesn’t become the enemy to our main characters, but a hesitant ally.

I’m not going to spoil the ending by revealing any plot details, but I will say that it was sort of a letdown, in my opinion. The story is resolved in an open-ended kind of way. It’s not any kind of cliffhanger, since this book was intended to be a standalone rather than the first in a series (I guess that came later). However, there was not really a big climax, and there was no Hollywood ending with emotional fanfare or heroics. Nevertheless, one of the prominent themes of this story is heroism and what makes someone genuinely heroic. The characters do need to make some difficult, life-and-death decisions and also they struggle with their consciences and the emotional effects of their choices in a way that’s deeper than your average popcorn flic storyline. Smitherd’s writing is on par with many other writers of sci-fi thrillers (I want to name Blake Crouch, but I really don’t like his writing), but I just wish that the original concept could have been taken a lot further and in more imaginative directions.

3.5 stars

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