The Seven Stones

The Lost Swords of the Alliance have been found, just as Itharia as once again fallen under the shadow of war. Twins Iaven and Orven Amberhseath become the unlikely bearers of the swords as well as the great responsibility that goes with them. But the swords are incomplete without Aorinthels' gems, and time is running out...

This is a magisterial work of rivalry and romance, loyalty and treachery, friendship and malice, quiet heroism and subhuman vileness. Wolf weaves a luminous tapestry, intimating without reproducing themes of Homer's Odyssey, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The trials and transformation of common dwarves into hardened heroes, the corrupting lust for power, and the astonishing triumph of enduring goodness over the forces of darkness give this work the gravitas of a true epic. With a dexterous juxtaposition of comforting homeliness with nail-biting suspense, tenderness and friendship with brutality and tragic loss, Wolf reveals the ultimate vindication of sacrificial love in a battle with self-serving power. ---—Dr. Angus Menuge, Editor, "C. S. Lewis: Lightbearer in the Shadowlands"

Mark J. P. Wolf is a Professor in the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. His books include Abstracting Reality (2000), The Medium of the Video Game (2001), Virtual Morality (2003), The Video Game Theory Reader 1 and 2 (2003, 2008), The Video Game Explosion (2007), Myst & Riven: The World of the D'ni (2011), Before the Crash: An Anthology of Early Video Game History (2012), Encyclopedia of Video Games (First Edition, 2012; Second Edition, 2021), Building Imaginary Worlds (2012), The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (First Edition, 2014; Second Edition, 2023), LEGO Studies (2014), Video Games Around the World (2015), Video Games and Gaming Culture (2016), Revisiting Imaginary Worlds (2017), Video Games FAQ (2017), The World of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (2017), The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds (2017), The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence (2018) which won the SCMS 2020 Award for Best Edited Collection, 101 Enigmatic Puzzles (2020), World-Builders on World-Building (2020), Exploring Imaginary Worlds (2020), Fifty Key Video Games (2022), and Calculated Imagery: A History of Computer Graphics and Hollywood Cinema (forthcoming). He has published articles in a wide variety of periodicals, and is the founder of the Video Game Studies Scholarly Interest Group (VGSSIG) and the Transmedia Studies Scholarly Interest Group (TSSIG) of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). He lives in Wisconsin with his wife Diane and his sons Michael, Christian, and Francis. This is his first novel. [mark.wolf@cuw.edu]