Encased in stone for millions of years as a result of a failed experiment, atomic scientist Ulysses Singing Bear is liberated from his imprisonment by a bolt of lightning during a battle between two races of bipedal creatures. One group appears to have evolved from cats while the other, raccoons. Ulysses soon learns that humans have long since become extinct and the earth populated by sentient beings evolved from familiar animals of the late 20th century.
As Ulysses acclimates to his new environment, the Wufea come to worship him as a god and ask for his help in defeating the Great Devourer known as Wurutana. To uphold his status as a deity, Ulysses has little choice but to agree and, along with an army of Wufea warriors, treks across the wilderness to do battle with what he understands to be an enormous tree that is spreading across the land. Along the way, he manages to form a truce between the Wufea and their enemy, the Wagarondit. He even recruits Wagarondit warriors to join the offensive.
All the while, they are guided by Ghlikh, a pygmy creature with batwings who offers Ulysses information about the land and peoples ahead of them, including a village of humans who live along the southern coast. In order to reach them, however, Ulysses and his armies must cross Wurutana. Yet, Ulysses senses that Ghlikh is withholding information and possibly leading them into a trap.
Will Ulysses and his troops survive their passage through Wurutana and their encounters with the treacherous denizens within its vast network of tangled branches, vines, trunks, and waterways?
At its core, The Stone God Awakens is a fish out of water adventure much like Farmer’s The Green Odyssey published 13 years earlier, or Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series, or even The Time Machine by H.G. Welles. In this case, Farmer adds a few imaginative twists including the evolution of various animal species, an uncommon antagonist, and the development of plant-based science and engineering. The fact that an atomic scientist displays such exceptional prowess in survival, military tactics, and political leadership is, at times, a stretch. Still, The Stone God Awakens is another outstanding tale from one of the giants of the genre.
In the middle of summer, an ice floe materializes in New York harbor, leaving two ships in distress. During the ensuing confusion, a strange black aircraft descends and hovers over the scene before vanishing as quickly as it appeared. Shortly after, several more ice “cakes” form without warning in the Straits of Gibraltar, Folkestone Harbor, and Yokohama.
After fleeing Earth to the planet Kareen, thief and murderer John Carmody is taken in by two Catholic missionaries who order him on a covert fact-finding mission to the Temple of Boonta on the eve of an annual ritual known as the Night of Light.
A signal from outer space reaches Earth and is broadcast over the radio, interrupting Joe Burke just as he is about to propose to his secretary and longtime friend, Sandy Lund. As it turns out, the signal is comprised of sounds resembling those of a flute. They are eerily familiar to Burke from a recurring dream he had as a child after his uncle gifted him with a number of relics found in a Cro-Magnon cave.
Jack Cull is one of the millions of humans resurrected from the dead only to live on a dry blistering world where the sun never sets. Is this truly Hell or merely Purgatory? Whatever it is, one this is certain, the place isn’t supernatural. The denizens, whether human or “demon” are biological and the planet itself unstable and prone to earthquakes as it expands to accommodate new arrivals.