The Pearls is a solid story. Good character development, interesting premise, solid detail. However, it falls into what seems to be happening more and more in SF & Fantasy books... it's not really a complete book. The Pearls is really just the first section of a larger book. This is frustrating, and that frustration is compounded by the fact that the next book(s) has not yet been published.

So you, dear reader will be reading along, enjoying yourself immensely... and then you'll start thinking..."wait a minute, I'm almost 90% through this great book, and the story isn't starting to wrap up yet"! Frankly, the story really doesn't start tying up loose ends until the last few pages, and even this is just enough to be able to end the book without it being TOTALLY disappointing.

So, if you don't mind waiting for the next edition to be released, by all means, go grab a copy. As with all of Chester's books, it's a very good one... but don't expect to be able to wrap up the story any time soon! ( )