The Glitter of Stone

An Aegean island in 4460 BC, centuries before the people we know as Greeks arrived in this fabled land. For seven generations the Madi Keht have made their home on one particular island in this broad sea. But then a new breed of men appears: violent and bloodthirsty, their aim is to seize it, for this island is the single known source of obsidian and the incredibly sharp blades that can be crafted from it.

The leaderless survivors of the invasion face certain extinction until one of them, Lan'ta of the Madi Keht, has a dream. Convinced that it was sent by the ancient Mother Goddess, it becomes his unshakable belief that they must flee the island by raft and make for a distant shore. But even before he can share the dream he is accused of cowardice by a one-eyed man who becomes his nemesis.

Lan'ta's quest to save his tribe ultimately succeeds, but at a terrible price, one that leaves him to raise his impressionable son alone. Once in the new land his people's pitifully small numbers must deal with prejudice, treachery from within and an indigenous tribe which poses a threat to their very survival.

The Glitter of Stone imagines the founding of Halia, a real place on the Aegean coast of Greece which four thousand years later became a small classical city-state. It is also the first in a series that tells of ordinary people of Halia who find themselves caught up in the great events of their times, from the prehistoric era to the age of Classical Greece.

Dettagli