The Stone in the Skull: The Lotus Kingdoms, Book One

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Description

Best SFF Books 2017 - The Guardian Kirkus Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017 The Verge Recommended Fantasy for 2017 Locus 2017 Recommended Reading List This first volume of a new Eternal Sky trilogy takes readers over the dangerous mountain passes of the Steles of the Sky and south, into the Lotus Kingdoms. The Gage, a brass automaton created by a long-dead wizard of Messaline around the core of a human being, works as a mercenary. He carries a message from the most powerful sorcerer of Messaline to the Rajni of the Lotus Kingdom. With him is the Dead Man, a bitter survivor of the bodyguard of the deposed Uthman Caliphate, protecting the message and the Gage. They are friends, of a peculiar sort. They are walking into a dynastic war between the rulers of the shattered bits of a once great Empire.

Reviews

Praise for The Stone in the Skull

"Elizabeth Bear sweeps the reader into a world of ravishing detail."--Huffington Post

"Amazing worldbuilding, gloriously precise prose, and excellent pacing."--Tor.com

"The Eternal Sky trilogy is one of the great fantasy epics of the last decade, and Bear triumphantly returns to that setting."--Library Journal

"Glorious and dramatic."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The plot hews closely to the whole band-of-rogues-assemble-to-fight-stronger-band-of-foes . . . Bear noodles around that trope like a jazz master and takes the story to some interesting places . . ."--Locus

"This is a promising beginning indeed for an epic . . . and it will no doubt be a magnificent journey."--Booklist

"A panoramic drama that grabs and grips from Page 1 . . . vivid, absorbing, and thrilling."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Clever and beautifully written."--Elitist Book Reviews

"A thoughtful, richly complex, humane work eloquently told and elegantly constructed."--Fantasy Literature

"Enchanting."--The Illustrated Page

"A beautifully written story, truly epic in scope."--Lynn's Book Blog

Praise for the Eternal Sky trilogy

"Subtle . . . crisp."--RT Book Reviews Top Pick for Range of Ghosts

"A vivid world." --Publishers Weekly on Range of Ghosts

"A rousing, artful adventure."--Asimov's Science Fiction on Shattered Pillars

"Astonishing."--Booklist on Shattered Pillars

"Bear delivers the thematic complexity, deft worldbuilding, and compelling storytelling we've come to expect in this concluding volume of the Eternal Sky trilogy, set in a world inspired by 13th-century Asia and The Arabian Nights."--Locus on Steles of the Sky

"Dense, gripping, and also entertaining, full of emotion, adventure, loss, and the possibility of hope."--Tor.com on Steles of the Sky

Author Bio

Elizabeth Bear was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. She has won two Hugo Awards for her short fiction, a Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Bear lives in Brookfield, Massachusetts.