Spirits of Wood and Stone

Samuel Pryce is the priest of a dead religion, and has dedicated his life to two goals — first, to gather and nurture those energies that will bring about a rebirth of the old gods. Second, to bring his beloved wife Elizabeth back from the dead. The first is going according to plan. For the second, he will need to trade the life of his long-missing son for that of his dead wife. Pryce can barely believe his luck when that son, Nathaniel, finds Pryce on his own, driven by curiosity about his biological father. Pryce almost succeeds in sacrificing the bewildered young man before being thwarted by the intervention of a secret enemy, John Miko.

John Miko is a self-taught Choctaw magician fighting a guerilla war against Samuel Pryce’s schemes, making it his mission to defend the native spirit realm from Pryce's "born again" godlings. Together John and Nathaniel risk a dark and dangerous journey through the spirit underworld to find the one means of defeating the sorcerer the native spirits call the Stone Man. All John Miko has to do is lead an army of ghosts against an army of gods. All Nathaniel has to do is defeat Samuel Pryce on Pryce’s own terms — without becoming him, or something much, much worse.

"Discovering Richard Parks's fiction is like discovering a wise zen master pumping gas at a service station or a weathered swami slinging burgers at your favorite corner diner: transcendence in the midst of the ordinary, right where it ought to be." - Terry McGarry, Strange Horizons.

"... a writer who deserves to be better known, and who, I trust, soon will be." - Rich Horton