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Sky of Stone is the third in a trilogy of memoirs by Homer Hickam, Jr. about his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia, that began with October Sky.
In Sky of Stone, Hickam has gone off to college at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. His mother, who is living separated from her husband in Myrtle Beach, contacts him and asks him to return home to Coalwood to help his father. He arrives to find his father, the mine superintendent, is being investigated by the coal company because of a fatal mining accident. After wrecking the family car the young Hickam needs to pay for the repairs, and he takes a job in the coal mine for the summer in a program set up by the United Mine Workers of America for college students. His father, who although he wanted to see his son grow up to be a mining engineer is fervently anti-union, and his mother, who swore her sons would never work in a coal mine, are both against this. He defies the wishes of his parents to take the job. His father in response cuts off his college funds.
A female mining engineer (Rita) is in town, as is the standard practice of the parent company sending new engineers to gain experience working in the mine. Due to superstition ingrained in local custom, she is not allowed in the mine unlike the male engineers. She vows to be the first woman in the mine, and tries to get young Hickam to sneak her in one night. They are caught and this fails. Meanwhile, she unveils a plan to replace all the track inside the mine. Two teams will work from opposite ends of the mine replacing track, one from Coalwood and the other from Caretta (the two mines adjoin). Homer Hickam, Jr. is one of three people working on the Coalwood team, which is led by a devout Pentecostal Christian (Johnny Basso). The work becomes a race and a contest between the two teams, with the other miners placing bets on whether Coalwood or Caretta will win.
As the race goes on over the summer, so does the investigation of Hickam Sr. As the investigation unfolds, more mysteries are revealed, including the identity of a disabled worker still secretly on the coal mine's payroll, and the fate of the Hickam family's pet fox 'Parkyacarcass'. In the end, Hickam Sr. is cleared, the Hickam family is reunited, and Rita is allowed in the mine, but the Coalwood team loses the contest by a hair.
The StoneSky is a 2017 science fantasy novel by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best...
dropped out of school to work in the town's mine. He did, however, work in the mine the following summer, as described in Hickam's book SkyofStone. Homer...
memoir, a true sequel, was published in October 2001. It is entitled SkyofStone. His final book about Coalwood was published in 2002, a self-help/inspirational...
Stone and Sky is a fantasy novel written by Graham Edwards. The novel was first published in 1999 by Voyager Books (UK) and HarperPrism (US). It is the...
languages, this was joined with the notion of the skyofstone), horses and carts, and weapons (hammer, axe (Axe of Perun), and arrow). The supreme god in...
of 1970. It also climbed to No. 1 on the UK, Australian and Canadian charts in 1970. Rolling Stone ranked "Spirit in the Sky" No. 333 on its list of the...
successfully killed Skyler but was unable to gain control of the Sky Swirl Stone that gave the Sky Dancers their powers. Jade (voiced by Kerry O' Malley)...
by The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones. Also, unlike the previous albums, Sky Blue Sky was made with minimal involvement from Jim O'Rourke;...
Screamin' at the Sky, was released in 2023. Black Stone Cherry originated in Edmonton, Kentucky. Chris Robertson and John Fred Young, son of The Kentucky...
the world. The Coalwood Way (2000) is followed by SkyofStone (2002), and preceded by October Sky (1998). It is now 1959. The Rocket Boys are still perfecting...
January 12, 2014. "Sky Ferreira, 'Night Time My Time'". Rolling Stone. December 10, 2013. Retrieved January 12, 2014. "The 50 Best Albums of 2013". Complex...
Castle in the Sky (Japanese: 天空の城ラピュタ, Hepburn: Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta), also known as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, is a 1986 Japanese animated fantasy adventure...
ago. The stone's height and width are 4.5 by 12 feet (1.4 m × 3.7 m). The stone may have astronomical significance to the Puyallup tribe of Native Americans...
lifetime in the public eye. "Midnight Sky" was highly praised by music critics. Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone believed "the 27-year-old Disney darling-turned-pop...
2021. Connelly, Christopher (19 January 1984). "Under A Blood Red Sky". Rolling Stone. No. 413. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 12...
year after being initially recorded. Welcome to Sky Valley has been described as stoner rock and stoner metal. This is the first Kyuss album to feature...
trend in his music dulls the impact." A 1999 Rolling Stone review of For Everyman called Late for the Sky Browne's "masterpiece". Musichound Rock: The Essential...
channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. In 2019, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the 12th time...
HarperPrism (US). It is the second book in the Stone trilogy, which also includes Stone and Sky and Stone and Sun. The trilogy is a follow-up to Edwards'...
"The Great Gig in the Sky" is the fifth track on The Dark Side of the Moon, a 1973 album by English rock band Pink Floyd. The song features music by keyboard...
The Infinity Stones are fictional items in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, based on the Infinity Gems of the Marvel Comics. As expounded...