Dora Machado’s debut novel, Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone, is an accomplished adult fantasy, entertaining and thought provoking in equal measure. Due out in June, this is a page-turner with heart and deserves to find a wide readership. Read our review of the novel.

Through the generosity of Mermaid Press and Dora Machado we have two signed copies of the novel to give away. Details of the competition can be found at the end of this interview.

The novel raises many interesting questions and we were fortunate to have the opportunity to put some of them to the author:

Between truth and deception, between justice and abuse, a Stonewiser stands alone with the stones... Or so begins the Stonewiser's oath. But what happens when a rebellious Stonewiser discovers that lies have tainted the stone tales? In Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone, Dora Machado creates a spell-binding combination of action, adventure, intrigue and romance, set against a vivid, imaginative and timeless background.

So much for the press release and if that doesn't grab you, read no further, because on this occasion the publicity is remarkably close to the truth.

As with many additions to the fantasy genre nowadays (and as far back as I can recall) there's much that is familiar here: a rugged, taciturn Roamer, faintly reminiscent of Tolkien's Strider, and corruption or Rot in the land recalling Donaldson's Thomas Covenant. The ghost of Frank Herbert's Dune haunts these pages too, with a will-o'-the-whisp whiff of the Bene Gesserit in Machado's Guild, and a Fremen-like people, the New Blood, with their ecological mission to repair the blasted land, fierce loyalty and exceptional fighting skills.

Nonetheless, Machado's creation is far from imitative and she has found something fresh to add to this mix. In a world devastated by the Rot's widespread destruction, history and law - the very foundations of truth and justice - are quite literally preserved in stone. Only the Guild and its Stonewisers are able to read and interpret the stones: in a state of trance, gripping the stones in their hands, the Stonewisers experience visions of the past preserved as virtual realities.

Critically acclaimed writer Gregory Frost has been nominated for every major fantasy award. His latest novel Shadowbridge was released in January and will be concluded in Lord Tophet, due out in June.  If you’re generally impatient for answers, wait for the sequel before setting out on this journey because not only does the first part end with one humdinger of a cliffhanger, it poses far more questions about this intriguing world than it answers. But whether you wait or jump in, this is one journey well worth the undertaking.

Shadowbridge is remarkable for several reasons, all of which would be worth discussing here, many of which have been commented on elsewhere: Frost's superb prose style, the Scheherazade motif of tales within tales, and so on. But what particularly struck me was the refreshing way in which that old fantasy chestnut, the Quest, is handled. For much of the novel Frost pursues a non-linear timeline that effectively challenges our jaded expectations of the fantasy Quest: we’re introduced to the novel’s sixteen year old protagonist, Leodora, well into her journey, return to her past, pick up the threads of a seemingly parallel tale about Diverus, a musician gifted by the gods, only to find ourselves back in Leodora’s present. Two thirds of the way through the novel we're back at the start!

Gary Gygax, father of RPGs (Role Playing Games, for those of you from another dimension), sadly passed away on the morning of 4 March 2008 at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, aged 69.

Author and game designer, Gygax was responsible with Dave Arneson for the creation of the gaming system Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).  In 1973 Gygax founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye, publishing the first version of D&D in 1974, the seminal and most popular RPG system ever to captivate the imagination of its players.

Besides his wife, Gail, Gary Gygax is survived by six children.

I propose that those of us who have whiled away glorious days, weeks and months in the universes inspired by the genius of the man, take out and roll our four sided dice and pass 1d4 minutes silence in tribute: vale Gary Gygax!