Now is the time to tell the story of an ancient realm, a tragic tale that sets the stage for all the tales yet to come and all those already told... It's a conflicted time in Kurald Galain, the realm of Darkness, where Mother Dark reigns. But this ancient land was once home to many a power. and even death is not quite eternal. The commoners' great hero, Vatha Urusander, is being promoted by his followers to take Mother Dark's hand in marriage, but her Consort, Lord Draconus, stands in the way of such ambitions. The impending clash sends fissures throughout the realm, and as the rumors of civil war burn through the masses, an ancient power emerges from the long dead seas. Caught in the middle of it all are the First Sons of Darkness, Anomander, Andarist, and Silchas Ruin of the Purake Hold... Steven Erikson entered the pantheon of great fantasy writers with his debut Gardens of the Moon. Now he returns with the first novel in a trilogy that takes place millennia before the events of the Malazan Book of the Fallen and introduces readers to Kurald Galain, the warren of Darkness. It is the epic story of a realm whose fate plays a crucial role in shaping the world of the Malazan Empire. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"Highly recommended to all scientists and non-scientists interested in paleontology and the West." — Science Books A century after the founding of the Republic, the United States was a leader in the science of vertebrate paleontology — the study of the fossils of backboned animals. In this lucid, nontechnical study, a noted popularizer of science and former curator at the Museum of the University of Colorado first reviews the geology of the western United States and provides an overview of American paleontology since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Lanham next focuses on the paleontologists themselves and the astounding fossil discoveries that revolutionized our understanding of vertebrate evolution. You'll learn how nineteenth-century paleontologists struggled against hostile Indians, scorching summers and frigid winters, loneliness, isolation, lack of funds and other hardships as they excavated tons of fossil bones from beds and quarries in South Dakota, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and other areas. While many eminent scientists are profiled, including Samuel Williston, John Bell Hatcher, Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden, and Joseph Leidy, much of the book is devoted to the explorations and achievements of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. These two brilliant paleontologists, whose discoveries revolutionized the discipline, eventually became bitter rivals and the central figures in one of the most notorious scientific feuds of the century. These and many other aspects of nineteenth-century paleontology are covered in this fascinating and readable book. Easily accessible to the layman, The Bone Hunters will appeal to any reader interested in the behind-the-scenes drama and inspired scientific fieldwork that resulted in an explosion of knowledge about the nature and evolution of the prehistoric animals that once roamed the American West.

A clash of warriors draws closer as Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor. Against this backdrop, a band of fugitives seek a way out of the empire, but one of them, Fear Sengar, must find the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye. It is his hope that the soul might help halt the Tiste Edur, and so save his brother, the emperor.

Wallace explores in exciting detail the rivalry between the paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Onthniel Charles Marsh--19th-century America's major scientific feud. Cope and Marsh independently discovered hundreds of dinosaur fossils on the high plains when the Indian wars were in full swing.

An heir of John Buchan and Rider Haggard, Holland is a storyteller, dealing in mysteries and marvels ... he holds the reader's attention in an iron grip' DAILY TELEGRAPH 1878. The golden days of dinosaur discoveries. In the still-Wild West, fossils of a monstrous size are being uncovered by America's two greatest bone-hunters, Professors Marsh and Cope. Caught in the bitterest of feuds, their rival gangs steal or smash up each other's collections of bones, and clash murderously in the badlands of the West. Back in New York, the two professors are sniffing out tantalising rumours of the ultimate find. Also lured by these hints are enigmatic English scientist Captain Dawkins and Miss Lilian Prescott, a naïve but wilful heiress. Drawn into a web of corruption and murder, they are forced on a desperate hunt for a box of mysterious fossils - a quest filled with danger, adventure and extraordinary discoveries.

After decades of internecine warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the Warlock King of the Hiroth. There is peace--but it has been exacted at a terrible price: a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst, deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether, eager to fulfill its long-prophesized renaissance as an Empire reborn, has enslved all its less-civilized neighbors with rapacious hunger. All, that is, save one--the Tiste Edur. And it must be only a matter of time before they too fall--either beneath the suffocating weight of gold, or by slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so destiny has decreed. Yet as the two sides gather for a pivotal treaty neither truly wants, ancient forces are awakening. For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of a far more profound, primal battle--a confrontation with the still-raw wound of an old betrayal and the craving for revenge at its seething heart. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A thrilling, harrowing novel of war, intrigue and dark, uncontrollable magic, Toll the Hounds is the new chapter in Erikson's monumental series - epic fantasy at its most imaginative and storytelling at its most exciting. In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways, but the quarry has turned and the hunters become the hunted. Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus. While the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of Hounds...And in the distant city of Black Coral, where rules Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, ancient crimes awaken, intent on revenge. It seems Love and Death are indeed about to arrive...hand in hand, dancing. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Fantasy-roman.

Drawing on events touched on in the prologue of Steven Erikson's landmark fantasy Gardens of the Moon: A Malazan Book of the Fallen, Night of Knives is the first in Ian C. Esslemont's Novels of the Malazn Empire series--a momentous chapter in the unfolding story of the extraordinarily imagined world of Malaz. The small island of Malaz and its city gave the great empire its name, but now it is little more than a sleepy, backwater port. Tonight, however, things are different. Tonight the city is on edge, a hive of hurried, sometimes violent activity; its citizens bustle about, barring doors, shuttering windows, avoiding any stranger's stare. Because tonight there is to be a convergence, the once-in-a-generation appearance of a Shadow Moon--an occasion that threatens the good people of Malaz with demon hounds and other, darker things... It was also prophesied that this night would witness the return of Emperor Kellanved, and there are those prepared to do anything to prevent this happening. As factions within the greater Empire draw up battle lines over the imperial throne, the Shadow Moon summons a far more ancient and potent presence for an all-out assault upon the island. Witnessing these cataclysmic events are Kiska, a young girl who yearns to flee the constraints of the city, and Temper, a grizzled, battle-weary veteran who seeks simply to escape his past. Each is to play a part in a conflict that will not only determine the fate of Malaz City, but also of the world beyond... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every soldier in every world... In Letherii, the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen. And in these same Wastelands, others gather to confront their destinies. The warlike Barghast, thwarted in their vengeance against the Tiste Edur, seek new enemies beyond the border and Onos Toolan, once immortal T'lan Imass now mortal commander of the White Face clan, faces insurrection. To the south, the Perish Grey Helms parlay passage through the treacherous kingdom of Bolkando. Their intention is to rendezvous with the Bonehunters but their vow of allegiance to the Malazans will be sorely tested. And ancient enclaves of an Elder Race are in search of salvation—not among their own kind, but among humans—as an old enemy draws ever closer to the last surviving bastion of the K'Chain Che'Malle. So this last great army of the Malazan Empire is resolved to make one final defiant, heroic stand in the name of redemption. But can deeds be heroic when there is no one to witness them? And can that which is not witnessed forever change the world? Destines are rarely simple, truths never clear but one certainty is that time is on no one's side. For the Deck of Dragons has been read, unleashing a dread power that none can comprehend... In a faraway land and beneath indifferent skies, the final chapter of ‘The Malazan Book of the Fallen' has begun... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.