Alastair Stone Chronicles Books In Order

Publication Order of Alastair Stone Chronicles Books

Chronological Order of Alastair Stone Chronicles Books

Publication Order of Alastair Stone Chronicles Novellas

Publication Order of Alastair Stone Chronicles: Happenstance and Bron Books

The Alastair Stone Chronicles is a series of urban fantasy novels written by R. L. King which follow the exploits of an English mage that fights magical threats in North America.

+The Story
As one might expect, the Alastair Stone Chronicles tells the story of Alastair Stone, one of the most powerful Mages in North America. Stone was a pretty decent Mage living in England when his life took a sharp turn.

His girlfriend, the woman he loved more than life itself and hoped to marry, dumped him. She said he loved his magic far too much and she was not willing to compete for Stone’s affection.

Heartbroken, Stone fled to California and landed a job as the occult studies professor at Stanford University. There Stone hoped to stay, living a quiet and mundane life, amusing his none-magical students with his stories and pursuing a semblance of normalcy.

However, the magical community would not let him be. And not long after the Ph.D. holder started teaching, cannibals came calling, forcing Stone back into the action.

The Alastair Stone chronicles follow Stone around as he battles evil whilst also attempting to meet the obligations of his day job. Stone is sarcastic and confident. His charm and British accent make him quite popular with the ladies, though he isn’t particularly indulgent.

For the most part, the Mage appreciates the quiet life. He understands the toll that magic can take on the mind and the body, and the sacrifices that come with manipulating supernatural forces.

So Stone generally never chooses to dabble in the realm of the magical and the fantastical. But when things go wrong, when lives are threatened and evil forces emerge, Stone’s sense of justice will not permit him to rest until he interferes with any nefarious machinations that might be at play.

In the beginning, Alastair Stone is on his own, and this proves problematic because, once the bad guys come calling, the protagonist quickly realizes that he has allowed his magical talents and fighting abilities to lie dormant for so long that he might be a little too rusty to face the dark powers running loose in the world on his own.

Over time, Stone finds his bearings, remembering the joys and mechanics of deploying his abilities. He also makes a few new friends. First, there’s Ethan, the apprentice a friend forces him to tutor.

Then he runs into Jason Thayer. The two initially join forces to save Thayer’s sister, Verity from a terrible fate. She eventually comes into the fold, using her gifts to help her brother and his new friend fight evil.

When the Alastair Stone Chronicles first kicks off, Stone’s magical adventurers are concerned with those portals in North America that connect the mundane world to the supernatural and through which evil normally travels to invade the realm of the living.

Eventually, it becomes less of an issue of finding and closing the portals and more a matter of dealing with the evil already walking in the mundane world.

The Alastair Stone novels have been commended for their strong lead character and passable supporting cast. But they’ve been criticized for their weak magical system which some readers have called vague, lazy and uninspired.

These complaints are most rife with the first novel. Over time, opinions surrounding the magic of this series begin to shift slightly as the author takes steps to add a few more layers of complexity.

Even though the Alastair Stone Chronicles is urban fantasy, the series stands out from most of its counterparts in the genre because of the lack of romance. While R.L. King’s characters are gifted with love interests from time to time, their romantic lives are a background element.

They do not drive the story in any way. King would like to believe that her books are appropriate for all age. The novels have plenty of violence and even a bit of sex, possibly even some coarse language but none of those aspects are so extreme as to offend the sensibilities of young readers.

When King was first inspired to write the Alastair Stone story, she decided to place it in the Urban Fantasy genre because she loves combining fantastical creatures and powers with modern-day settings.

The author has also admitted that she finds the idea of building an entirely new world from scratch a little daunting. She would rather build on what already exists.

+The Author
R.I. King is a successful indie published author that writes urban fantasy novels. But her writing isn’t restricted to her books. She also works freelance gigs, lending her abilities to the likes of Catalyst Game Labs.

King chose to go the indie publishing route because she wanted to have full control over the publication of her stories.

+Stone and a Hard Place
Alastair Stone tries very hard to pretend that he is normal. His students at the university think he’s just another Occult Studies professor. They do not know that he is actually a Mage and a powerful one at that.

For the most part, Stone tries to keep his head down when it comes to magical matters. That becomes difficult to do when he not only takes on a new apprentice at the request of a friend but is also asked to investigate an old house that people think is haunted.

It turns out that a malevolent spirit is living in the basement. And while it might be presently trapped, there are dark Mages that want to free it, certain that they have the power to control it.

Stone needs to stop them before it’s too late.

+The Forgotten
When a child commits an unthinkable act, a friend asks Stone to investigate. The Mage quickly finds that many other people have committed horrible acts despite having no history of violence.

Even worse, some of those people have eventually gone missing. Stone’s investigation brings him to Jason Thayer, a man whose sister might be under the thrall of the same power forcing normal people to do horrible things.

Jason and Stone have to join forces to get to the bottom of a conspiracy.