by Gary Gygax, with an introduction by Ed Greenwood

The governor is dead!

While vacationing in the treacherous city of On, Magister Setne Inhetep—personal wizard-priest to the Pharaoh and part-time detective—stumbles upon a scene of murder by magic at the highest levels of government. With suspects ranging from the high priest of Set to a consortium of merchants and wizards from across the world, Inhetep must piece together the mystery before more luminaries are killed in a plot that threatens the Triple Kingdom of Ægypt!

An exotic mystery by the father of fantasy roleplaying, The Samarkand Solution is Gary Gygax at his most thrilling and mysterious.

Recommended Age: Mature Readers (ages 16 and up)

208-page softcover trade paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-083-4

About the Author

In 1974, Gary Gygax (1938–2008) co-created the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, forever changing the face of fantasy. The hand-assembled first print run of 1000 boxed rulesets sold out in nine months, and by 1978 the game’s explosion in popularity warranted a three-volume harcover rules expansion called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons authored by Gygax. The release of AD&D coincided with the explosive popularity that catapulted the game into a true cultural phenomenon, introducing fantasy to a generation of new readers. D&D’s literary roots drew upon the sword and sorcery work of authors like Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and Robert E. Howard, and by the mid-1980s D&D’s publisher, TSR, began to release their own line of fantasy fiction.

Thus was born Gord the Rogue, Gygax’s rakish, metropolitan thief whose daring adventures span seven novels: Saga of Old City, Artifact of Evil, Sea of Death, City of Hawks, Night Arrant, Come Endless Darkness, and Dance of Demons. Years later he introduced a new character, the crime-solving Ægyptian wizard-priest Magister Setne Inhetep, in a trilogy of novels: The Anubis Murders, The Samarkand Solution, and Death in Delhi.

Gygax's importance to American popular culture was solidified with an animated cameo alongside Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, and Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols in a 2000 episode of Futurama.

Not Agatha Christie
Reviewer: B_Wiklund
Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 11:09 PM