Skip to main content

story identification - Book series - Boy finds gem and is transported to a fantasy world


I read this book a few years ago which was part of a series, but I only found the first book and now I've forgotten the name.


The first book featured 3 children/teens from different places that end up on a quest to search for magic gems/stones together and the story takes place in a medieval kind fantasy world. One is a girl, while the other 2 are boys. One of the boys actually finds a stone/gem while he is on a school field trip (I think the gem/stone is red in colour), and when he picks it up, he gets transported to the fantasy land but ends up in some sort of military training ground/camp somewhere in a desert type area. He isn't familiar with the fantasy world. The other 2 characters each start out on their own on a quest to collect some magical gems/stones which once collected, can be used to fight an evil ruler (I guess). But halfway through the book, the girl and boy meet up and continue the quest together while the third boy(transported one) doesn't know that the stone he picked up is actually one of the magical stones others are looking for.


A few other details I remember:



  • The stone the boy finds is red in colour I think

  • The cover of the book had a border depicting the stones

  • It's part of a series or trilogy


Some books with similar storylines, but not the one I'm looking for:




  • Deltora Quest

  • The Seven Towers

  • Sword of Heaven series

  • Westeria series

  • Diadem series



Answer



This sounds like it might be Circle of Three, first book of the Tales of the Nine Charms series by Erica Farber as per An old book series about stones, teenagers, and parallel worlds.


Book cover for *Circle of Three*, with gems set along the side




Walker, ever the class clown, reaches into a fountain and finds the joke's on him when he wakes up in a distant world.


Niko wants to be a warrior, but his master insists he learn the ways of a philosopher. What's the good of that?


Aurora can do simple gypsy magic tricks, but even she doesn't know the true depths of her power.


Drawn together by forces they don't understand, to combat an evil they can't imagine, their only weapons are nine simple charms.



This has two boys and a girl, one boy of which was transported to the fantasy world from ours. It's part of a trilogy (although apparently the third book was much delayed). The border of the cover depicts the gems. And some of the reviews, discussing how long it takes for the plot to pick up and for the heroes to band against the antagonist, fits them not meeting until halfway through the book. One additional potential matching point, a few reviews mentioned that the children largely dealt with conflict (sensibly) by running from superior opponents rather than fighting, which wasn't always narratively satisfying.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...