<i>The Stone Boatmen</i> evolved from Sarah Tolmie's fascination with the fourteenth-century visionary poem, <i>Piers Plowman,</i> which she has also explored in the media of virtual reality and dance. The novel weaves a tale of three cities, separated by oceans, lost to one another long ago: the first, the city of rituals, of ceremonies; the second, the city of words, of poetry; and the third, the city of the golden birds, of dreams. In their harbors stand the stone boatmen, pointing outward toward the unknown. Now the birds are fostering a new-found relationship of the three cities of the ancestors, and the voyages of the ship <i>Aphelion</i> and its crew are beginning to rebuild the links. <p> Ursula Le Guin declares of <i>The Stone Boatmen</i>: ''Certain imaginative novels never best-sell, yet remain alive, a singular treasure to each new generation that finds them -- books such as <i>Islandia, <i>The Worm Ouroboros</i>, <i>Gormenghast</i>. The Stone Boatmen has the makings of one of these quiet classics. It is lucid yet complex. Its strangeness fascinates, captivates. To read it is to find yourself in a country a long, long way from home, taken on a unforeseeable journey -- and when it's over, you wish you were still there.''</i></p>
