The Anubis Murders (Trade Paperback)

by Gary Gygax, with an introduction by Erik Mona

The father of fantasy roleplaying and the co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game weaves a fantastic tale of warring wizards that spans the world from the pyramids of ancient Egypt to the mist-shrouded towns of medieval England.

Someone is murdering the world’s most powerful sorcerers, and the trail of blood leads straight to Anubis, the solemn god known by most as the Master of Jackals. Can Magister Setne Inhetep, personal philosopher-wizard to the Pharaoh, reach the distant kingdom of Avillonia and put an end to the Anubis Murders, or will he be claimed as the latest victim?

160-page softcover trade paperback ISBN: 1-60125-042-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-042-1

Ian Randal Strock of SFScope.com has posted the first online review of The Anubis Murders. "I was taken with the character and his world," Strock says. "...this volume is a good episode of what could be an interesting series of books or television shows." In fact, The Anubis Murders is the first of three books starring Magister Setne Inhetep. The second, The Samarkand Solution, is slated for a April 2008 Planet Stories release.

The geek-focused folks over at Always Go Right had this to say about The Anubis Murders: "I was expecting a classic hero's journey in a fantasy setting, but what I got was a Sherlock Holmes mystery in a fantasy setting, with a lot more sexual tension between Holmes and Watson... I am impressed by the pure creativity Gygax demonstrates in this unusual book."

NOTE: Copies sold as "Non-Mint" have been dinged or bent during the course of shipment, or have some markings on the cover, so we're making them available at a discounted price. While they have some cosmetic damage, they'll make great second reading copies. There will be no refunds on these non-mint copies.

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.