The Bones of Zora

Infobox Book |
name = The Bones of Zora
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = first edition of "The Bones of Zora"
author = L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp
illustrator =
cover_artist = Victoria Poyser
country = United States
language = English
series = Krishna
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Phantasia Press
release_date = 1983
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = _ pp
isbn = ISBN 0932096271
preceded_by = The Virgin of Zesh
followed_by = The Tower of Zanid

"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 rival theory and is not averse to destroying contrary evidence. Moreover, Foltz is being assisted by xenologist Alicia Dyckman, to whom Fergus had formerly been wed in a stormy marriage culminating in divorce. The cause was Alicia’s contentious and overbearing personality; convinced she always knew best, she had interfered with Fergus’s tours to the point that he had finally barred her from participating.

Miserable, at an emotional low ebb, and exploited by Foltz, Alicia now regrets having left Fergus, but their jobs keep them in continued opposition. Reith’s scientific adventure is thus beset by skullduggery, violence, and tempestuous personal relations. Blessed with beginner’s luck, he actually discovers a fossil supporting Marot’s theory, which Foltz endeavors to hijack and break up.

Various complications ensue; Fergus and Alicia are brought back together by their mutual passion for each other and enmity with Foltz, only to be alienated again due to Alicia’s extreme behavior. Ultimately Fergus decides with regret it would be disastrous to take her back, and she leaves Krishna heartbroken, hoping to find treatment for her personality disorders on Earth.

"The Bones of Zora" is unique among the later Krishna novels in its inclusion of a non-Krishnan extraterrestrial, a reptilian native of the planet Osiris. While such aliens were fairly common in the earliest of de Camp’s Krishna books, his later works usually focus on Terrans and Krishnans only.

The events of the novel take place about the Terran year 2151.

Setting

The planet Krishna is de Camp's premier creation in the Sword and Planet genre, representing both a tribute to the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and an attempt to "get it right", reconstructing the concept logically, without what he regarded as Burroughs' biological and technological absurdities.