The Bones of Zora

The Bones of Zora is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, the ninth book of the former's Viagens Interplanetarias series and the seventh of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the sixth Krishna novel. It was first published in hardcover by Phantasia Press in 1983, and in paperback by Ace Books in August, 1984 as part of the standard edition of the Krishna novels.

As with all of the "Krishna" novels, the title of The Bones of Zora has a "Z" in it, a practice de Camp claimed to have devised to keep track of them. Short stories in the series do not follow the practice, nor do Viagens Interplanetarias works not set on Krishna.

Plot and storyline

Fergus Reith, prime Terran tour guide on the planet Krishna, finds himself between tours and on a somewhat different job, working with Aristide Marot, a French paleontologist out to unravel the mysteries of Krishnan vertebrate evolution. Marot is particularly interested in the era when life first emerged from the seas; as Krishna’s surface is mostly land and its bodies of water are separated from each other, he theorizes the planet’s animal species could have multiple origins.

Fergus guides Marot to the most promising fossil-bearing site, near the town of Kubyab on the banks of the upper Zora River in the Dashtate of Chilihagh. There they find a rival, Marot’s competitor Warren Foltz, who is fanatically attached to a...
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