The Stone Dance of the Chameleon by Ricardo Pinto

[IlyaP]

Ricardo Pinto, the author of the woefully under-read The Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy (The Chosen, The Standing Dead, The Third God) has recently decided to revisit his series and release revised, updated editions, as a seven-part series. 

Per his own words: 

Quote

 

"Once upon a time I said in an interview that there was only a single word that I wanted to change in the whole of the nearly seven hundred thousand words of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon. That I could say anything so ludicrous and pretentious says a lot about who I was then. How things change: for the Second Edition I have reduced the text by a quarter, and I hacked my way through the excess verbiage with pleasure. The Second Edition is a much cleaner, leaner and more vital affair. Beyond and above this I took the opportunity to sort out all kinds of problems that I knew were there, and many more that I discovered along the way. In places, where I had compromised, I have restored my original, instinctual vision. Prime among these is that Fern has become Blue—indeed, the desire to rewrite him niggled at me for years, and it was Blue—that he be put right—who helped draw me back to the Stone Dance.

I have broken the Stone Dance into seven rather than three parts. There are practical reasons for this, but the artistic reasons are the clincher. I have had to write new material, most specifically the four new ‘hinge chapters’: if the First Edition was a triptych, the Second is a heptaptych.

As for the practicalities, the re-editing is done, and the text is being proof-read. I am working on new covers that are my own designs. The Second Edition will be available in paperback and as ebooks and will be released sooner rather than later; the individual volumes probably within a few months, or even weeks of each other. Please join my mailing list if you wish to be kept informed of progress."

 

 

This is a magnificent series. The world he built was very different from other major writers of the time, in the late 90s. It's a terrific series, with complicated, interesting characters. 

Check out his website if you're interested. The books are now available on the Kindle store and in print edition. 

[Maia]

I liked it, but I remember thinking that the eventual resolution was not entirely satisfying and some more intriguing things remained unexplained, like

Spoiler

what the emperor's apotheosis was all about and why it resulted in him having multiple hearts, beating of which was audible, why did the imperial family reliably produce male twins, why were the master-class women so prone to death in childbirth, was there some actual magic or not, etc. Also, the whole "they used to be a cemetery-attendant caste" revelation didn't really explain anything about them.  Certain elements were also fairly tropy - like the main character's coming of age journey, the evil empress backing the worse heir (of course!), etc.

Another thing to keep in mind is that female characters are very much marginalized in it, IIRC. OTOH, the setting was very inventive and I remember that writing and characterization were pretty good. The new covers are gorgeous.

P.S. Do I recall correctly that it was hinted that

Spoiler

the continent where the story takes place is actually Antarctic? And as such, it is either our imagined past or set on  some parallel Earth?

 

[williamjm]

I read the first book around the time it was published. It does have some spectacular world-building, there's a lot of depth to it and it's unlike anything else I've read. I had mixed feelings about the book itself, I remember finding it a bit of a struggle to finish it so maybe the revisions might help with that. Debut novels often aren't an author's best work so maybe with the benefit of a couple of decades hindsight Pinto might be able to improve it significantly.

In retrospect it feels like a novel slightly before its time since it was a bit before grimdark seemed to be the fashionable thing and I can see the world-building appealing to that audience.