{"id":1323,"date":"2018-12-20T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T22:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2018-12-02T15:09:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T22:09:02","slug":"book-the-black-star-of-kingston-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/20\/book-the-black-star-of-kingston-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: The Black Star of Kingston (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1432828644l\/25618459.jpg\" alt=\"The Black Star of Kingston\" width=\"304\" height=\"475\" \/>The Black Star of Kingston<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nYear: 2015<br \/>\nAuthor: S.D. Smith<br \/>\nLength: 160 pages<\/p>\n<p>Immediately after I finished reading <em>The Green Ember<\/em>, I picked up this short story\/prequel and read through it in one sitting. I had become pretty well invested in the world created in <em>The Green Ember<\/em> and wanted more of it before diving into the sequel, <em>Ember Falls<\/em>. While <em>The Green Ember<\/em> mentioned a story of <em>The Black Star of Kingston<\/em> in its main plot, I have to say that I wasn\u2019t as impressed as I would have hoped. Sure, all the things that made <em>The Green Ember<\/em> great were mostly present in <em>The Black Star of Kingston<\/em>, but it felt a little\u2026underdeveloped.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, the strength of the plot and characters helped provide entertainment as I read this story. However, without a more comprehensive understanding of the lore of this series, I wasn\u2019t quite sure where this story fits in with the rest of the canon. I knew it was a prequel because characters mentioned\u00a0it in the first book, but did these events happen in tangent to the main backstory, or well before the fall of King Jupiter? If they happened before, how far back? It also would have been nice to have at least one setting feel familiar to the ones presented in <em>The Green Ember<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I did also appreciate how this book\u2014much like <em>The Green Ember<\/em>\u2014used characters who were tradesmen first, and soldiers\/sailors second. This was an element of realism that I feel is often missing in these kinds of fantasy stories. After all, people with a profession will have certain skills in battle or at sea that can come in handy. If anything, it helps to teach children that we shouldn\u2019t always focus on war. If war happens, we should step up and fight, but we shouldn\u2019t focus on professions of war as our primary purpose of being.<\/p>\n<p>A pretty good side story that was mentioned in <em>The Green Ember<\/em>, I give <em>The Black Star of Kingston<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Star of Kingston Year: 2015 Author: S.D. Smith Length: 160 pages Immediately after I finished reading The Green Ember, I picked up this short story\/prequel and read through it in one sitting. I had become pretty well invested in the world created in The Green Ember and wanted more of it before diving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[33,55,1582,789,1403,1100,8,1583,1340,1584,1581],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-book","tag-33","tag-book","tag-childrens","tag-fantasy","tag-middle-grade","tag-rabbits","tag-review","tag-s-d-smith","tag-side-story","tag-the-black-star-of-kingston","tag-the-green-ember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}