Ricardo Pinto

Ricardo Pinto (born 1961 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a computer game programmer and fantasy novelist.

Early life and gaming career Pinto's family moved to London when he was six, and then to Dundee in Scotland. In 1979, he commenced a degree in mathematics at the University of Dundee. In 1983, Pinto moved to London to work as a programmer writing computer games. He moved back to Edinburgh and then to Bristol working on game design. He became interested in creating the plot for games and wrote Kryomek and Hivestone as support material for tabletop wargames. After 10 years working the computer gaming industry he spent two years unemployed and teaching himself to write, during which time he developed his Stone Dance concept further.

The Stone Dance of the Chameleon Pinto's The Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy follows young nobleman Carnelian as he is thrust into the dangerous political arena of the Three Lands. In this slave-owning civilisation of dazzling beauty and ancient ritual, the purity of noble bloodlines is paramount to the strict and ruthless caste system headed by the God Emperor and his Chosen. The faces of these self-indulgent Masters, held as deities, can never be seen unmasked by lesser people, under threat of immediate death. As the series begins, Carnelian follows his father Sardian, Lord Suth, from their outlying home to the capital of Osrakum as the current Emperor lies dying and a successor is to be named. Carnelian's own lineage puts him at the center of court intrigue, and in mortal danger.

In 2020, Pinto re-released and self-published the series in a re-edited form, consisting of seven "leaner and extensive reworkings" of the original trilogy.

First Edition The Chosen (1999) The Standing Dead (2002) The Third God (2009)

Second Edition The Masters (2020) The Chosen (2020) The Standing Dead (2020) The Darkness Under the Trees (2020) Dragon Fire (2020) The Mirror Breaks (2020) The Third God (2020)

Other works

War in Heaven (2013, with Adrian Smith) Matryoshka (2018)