WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2022 'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives' - The Times 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's words - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.

In Deep Time, Henry Gee, assistant editor of Nature, shows us that everything we think we know about evolution is wrong. For a long time, popular scientists have told us that by looking at a fossilised bone we could tell whether it belonged to our ancestors or not. This is not true. In Deep Time, Henry Gee, introduces for the first time in the popular science market a new way of thinking that has revolutionised the way that scientists are approaching the past - Cladistics. Cladistics ignores story-telling and authority and proposes a method based on shared characteristics, rather than ancestry and descent. As a result of using this new method Henry Gee is able to show us the wealth of new ideas that is radically altering our notions of the past: Dinosaurs with feathers; why fish developed fingers; what it means to be human.

'A dazzling, beguiling story . . . told at an exhilarating pace' Literary Review 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.

'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives' - The Times 'Henry Gee makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? - Everybody!' Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape by way of incessant volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux. And yet, despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter, life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again. Life has learned and adapted and continued through the billions of years that followed. It has weathered fire and ice. Slimes begat sponges, who through billions of years of complex evolution and adaptation grew a backbone, braved the unknown of pitiless shores, and sought an existence beyond the sea. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee's lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide, and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today. Creatures are engagingly personified, from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their (newly evolved) grasp. Those long extinct, almost alien early life forms are resurrected in evocative detail. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an alluring, up-close intimacy.

The idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new fossil discoveries are often hailed in headlines as revealing the elusive transitional step, the moment when we stopped being "animal" and started being "human." In The Accidental Species, Henry Gee, longtime paleontology editor at Nature, takes aim at this misleading notion, arguing that it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how evolution works and, when applied to the evolution of our own species, supports mistaken ideas about our own place in the universe. Touring the many features of human beings that have recurrently been used to distinguish us from the rest of the animal world, Gee shows that our evolutionary outcome is one possibility among many, one that owes more to chance than to an organized progression to supremacy. The Accidental Species combines Gee's firsthand experience on the editorial side of many incredible paleontological findings with healthy skepticism and humor to create a book that aims to overturn popular thinking on human evolution - the key is not what's missing, but how we're linked.

"Nature" has published news about the history of life ever since its first issue in 1869, in which T. H. Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") wrote about Triassic dinosaurs. In recent years, the field has enjoyed a tremendous flowering due to new investigative techniques drawn from cladistics (a revolutionary method for charting evolutionary relationships) and molecular biology.
"Shaking the Tree" brings together nineteen review articles written for "Nature" over the past decade by many of the major figures in paleontology and evolution, from Stephen Jay Gould to Simon Conway Morris. Each article is brief, accessible, and opinionated, providing "shoot from the hip" accounts of the latest news and debates. Topics covered include major extinction events, homeotic genes and body plans, the origin and evolution of the primates, and reconstructions of phylogenetic trees for a wide variety of groups. The editor, Henry Gee, gives new commentary and updated references.
"Shaking the Tree" is a one-stop resource for engaging overviews of the latest research in the history of life on Earth.

The idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new fossil discoveries are often hailed in headlines as revealing the elusive transitional step, the moment when we stopped being "animal" and started being "human." In "The Accidental Species," Henry Gee, longtime paleontology editor at "Nature," takes aim at this misleading notion, arguing that it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how evolution works and, when applied to the evolution of our own species, supports mistaken ideas about our own place in the universe. Gee presents a robust and stark challenge to our tendency to see ourselves as the acme of creation. Far from being a quirk of religious fundamentalism, human exceptionalism, Gee argues, is an error that also infects scientific thought. Touring the many features of human beings that have recurrently been used to distinguish us from the rest of the animal world, Gee shows that our evolutionary outcome is one possibility among many, one that owes more to chance than to an organized progression to supremacy. He starts with bipedality, which he shows could have arisen entirely by accident, as a by-product of sexual selection, moves on to technology, large brain size, intelligence, language, and, finally, sentience. He reveals each of these attributes to be alive and well throughout the animal world--they are not, indeed, unique to our species.
"The Accidental Species "combines Gee's firsthand experience on the editorial side of many incredible paleontological findings with healthy skepticism and humor to create a book that aims to overturn popular thinking on human evolution--the key is not what's missing, but how we're linked.

Print edition of the concluding volume to Henry Gee's incredible Sigil Trilogy The Universe is still dying from within and the young Drover tasked with stopping the rot is still racing against time. For fifty years, former textile merchant Mr Haraddzjin Khorare has been Chancellor of a Kingdom unequalled in brutality. And it's about to get a whole lot worse. Dogfinger is a boy orphaned when his village is razed by Stoners. One day, he knows, the time will come for revenge. Domingo-scientist, Priest and Pope-is watching, helpless, as the world circles to its doom. What we need, he thinks, is a miracle. Will his prayers be answered? The Plague has forced Jadis Markham and Jack Corstophine to give up their research in favour of survival. But there are always questions left to answer. Their son, Tom, now himself a noted anthropologist, has an encounter that will force him to confront his own nature-and the very nature of the universe, as the stars themselves begin going dark. Rage of Stars is the climactic third volume of The Sigil, Henry Gee's epic tale that explores the nature of humanity, religion and love. Praise for THE SIGIL TRILOGY: "Great stuff. Touches of Douglas Adams, Barrington Bayley, David Britton and Steve Ayelet only emphasise the splendid originality of this book. Henry Gee is thoughtful, funny, original. And pretty thoroughly mind-expanding in the tradition of Wells, David Lindsay, Stapledon and Clarke. In fact everything you yearn to find in a very good contemporary SF novel. Really enjoyed it " -SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock "Coming to a science fiction novel by Henry Gee I was expecting a work knowledgeable about the world and all its ways, but who would have guessed it would also reveal Henry to be a visionary space voyager of the first order? The Sigil is in the grand tradition of Stapledonian space opera, and provides not only an explanation for why this universe is the way it is, but gives us the many vivid wild adventures on the part of some (very appealing) conscious characters acting to make it that way. Awesome stuff, and a true pleasure to read page by page." -Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning author of Red Mars "Fast-moving, insanely inventive science fiction in the grand manner-seldom has the fate of the galaxy been handled on such a large scale. Gee draws on archeology, geology, physics, and biology to create a rich tapestry with surprises woven into every thread." -Nancy Kress "Siege is compelling, grandiose, and breathtaking in its spacetime and its characters are intriguing, personal, and complex....This book of Henry's is going to be high on the charts." -scienceblogs.com "Echoes of Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke, with more interesting characters than either of them." -John Gribbin "Cosmically deep and sensually rich, here is a very warm, enthusiastic and human book about great issues of our own world and of the whole universe, beautifully written. What can I say but: Gee Whiz (unless somebody already has...)" -Ian Watson "One of the very best books I've ever read." -Critique.org "Henry Gee serves up a tasty stew of sex, science and space opera. Or should that read romance, rationality and retro-SF? Either way, the book is great entertainment." -Vaughan Stanger "A great very-wide-screen story, with many interesting characters I cared about...the writing-and the palaeontology-are beautifully executed" -Jack Cohen, author of Wheelers and Heaven "wildly imaginative... personalities and relationships drive the story forward as much as its grandiose scale, making "Siege" difficult to put down." -Alex Shvartsman "Henry Gee's crackling prose and fast-paced storytelling pull the reader right in, but it's the vividness of his characters that creates such a sense of intimacy in this large-scale cosmic tale. It's an impressive fiction debut, a page-turner that delivers the goods " -Mercurio D. Rivera, World Fantasy Award nominee

Print edition of Book Two of Henry Gee's incredible Sigil Trilogy The Brethren of a remote and lonely monastery are preparing for the Apparition of the Goddess, a festival that happens once every 2,058,416 years. But will the Goddess arrive in time to save them from an apparition of an altogether more hostile kind? Mr Haraddzjin Khorare, Trader in Textiles from the Very Great and Ancient City of Axandragor, is on a routine business trip. But when his vessel is attacked by pirates, his adventure takes an altogether more astonishing turn. The discoveries of Jack Corstorphine and Jadis Markham have stunned the world. But more is to come, With their adopted son Tom, their student Shoshana Levinson, their colleague Avram Malkeinu, and their mentor, scientist-priest Domingo, they are about to witness at first hand the full horror of the War of the Last Days. Scourge of Stars is the second volume of The Sigil Trilogy, Henry Gee's epic tale that explores the nature of humanity, religion and love. Praise for THE SIGIL TRILOGY: "Great stuff. Touches of Douglas Adams, Barrington Bayley, David Britton and Steve Ayelet only emphasise the splendid originality of this book. Henry Gee is thoughtful, funny, original. And pretty thoroughly mind-expanding in the tradition of Wells, David Lindsay, Stapledon and Clarke. In fact everything you yearn to find in a very good contemporary SF novel. Really enjoyed it " -SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock "Siege is compelling, grandiose, and breathtaking in its spacetime and its characters are intriguing, personal, and complex....This book of Henry's is going to be high on the charts." -Greg Laden, scienceblogs.com "Echoes of Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke, with more interesting characters than either of them." - John Gribbin Cosmically deep and sensually rich, here is a very warm, enthusiastic and human book about great issues of our own world and of the whole universe, beautifully written. What can I say but: Gee Whiz (unless somebody already has...) - Ian Watson "One of the very best books I've ever read." -Critique.org "Henry Gee serves up a tasty stew of sex, science and space opera. Or should that read romance, rationality and retro-SF? Either way, the book is great entertainment." -Vaughan Stanger, author of Alternate Apollos "A great very-wide-screen story, with many interesting characters I cared about...the writing-and the palaeontology-are beautifully executed" -Jack Cohen, author of Wheelers and Heaven Reminiscent of Peter F. Hamilton's SF epics in its scope and ambition, "The Siege of Stars" is a wildly imaginative book set against the vivid locales scattered throughout time and space. Gee masterfully paints his protagonists in engaging, realistic and very human light. Their personalities and relationships drive the story forward as much as its grandiose scale, making "Siege" difficult to put down. - Alex Shvartsman "Henry Gee's crackling prose and fast-paced storytelling pull the reader right in, but it's the vividness of his characters that creates such a sense of intimacy in this large-scale cosmic tale. It's an impressive fiction debut, a page-turner that delivers the goods " -Mercurio D. Rivera "Henry Gee paints a stunning, thriving universe in which readers will delight." -Shelly Li "Siege of Stars is terrific - a highly original mash-up of wild archaeology and advanced aliens, with sympathetic characters, comedy and tragedy. Scientists (and Nature editors) can write science fiction." - Ian Stewart "The Sigil Trilogy is magnificently panoramic in breadth - a quirky, erudite and often hilarious tale of adventure mingling epic science fiction, archaeology, palaeontology and romance. Vividly entertaining " -Cecilia Dart-Thornton, bestselling author of the Bitterbynde series "SIEGE OF STARS is a fascinating story from start to finish, with great ideas, neat set pieces, and interesting characters. Gee knows his stuff." - Eric Brown, author of Engineman

From Nature Editor Henry Gee comes a story of breathtaking scope and beloved characters. Spanning millions of years and the breadth of the universe, The Sigil Trilogy is an epic tale that explores the nature of humanity, belief, and love. The Universe is dying from within. No one knows how to save it, so the Elders give a young Drover a last ditch chance to stop the rot. If only she knew where to begin. Unaware of the threat to the universe, Ruxhana Fengen Kraa, Admiral of the 17th Rigel Fleet, is about to be cashiered for a stupendous tactical error. But Special Ops has an important and most bizarre job for him. Eons away in time, Jack Corstophine is an archaeologist on Earth with an intuition about the land that he can't put into words-until the beautiful and brilliant Jadis Markham comes into his life. Together, they discover that the landscape of Europe is far from natural. The Earth bears the scars of an ancient civilization that goes back millions of years - and has terrible implications for the future of mankind. The Sigil Trilogy traces the lives of compelling characters - people... entities... and... species... - through time and space. It's magnificent in background, beautifully written, and with the most memorable characters. The Sigil Trilogy is spellbinding, funny, thoughtful, and touching all at the same time. Complete with complex mysteries, massive battles, romance, hot aliens, steampunk cities, good scotch, armageddon, it's all here - you won't be able to put it down. Siege of Stars is the first volume of The Sigil Trilogy, Henry Gee's incredible opus. The second and third volumes, SCOURGE OF STARS and RAGE OF STARS, are completed and in production for release within weeks of SIEGE OF STARS. Praise for THE SIGIL TRILOGY: "Great stuff. Touches of Douglas Adams, Barrington Bayley, David Britton and Steve Ayelet only emphasise the splendid originality of this book. Henry Gee is thoughtful, funny, original. And pretty thoroughly mind-expanding in the tradition of Wells, David Lindsay, Stapledon and Clarke. In fact everything you yearn to find in a very good contemporary SF novel. Really enjoyed it " -SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock "Siege is compelling, grandiose, and breathtaking in its spacetime and its characters are intriguing, personal, and complex....This book of Henry's is going to be high on the charts." -Greg Laden, scienceblogs.com "One of the very best books I've ever read." -Critique.org "Henry Gee serves up a tasty stew of sex, science and space opera. Or should that read romance, rationality and retro-SF? Either way, the book is great entertainment." -Vaughan Stanger, author of Alternate Apollos and The English Dead "A great very-wide-screen story, with many interesting characters I cared about...the writing-and the palaeontology-are beautifully executed" -Jack Cohen, author of Wheelers and Heaven "Henry Gee paints a stunning, thriving universe in which readers will delight." -Shelly Li "The Sigil Trilogy is magnificently panoramic in breadth - a quirky, erudite and often hilarious tale of adventure mingling epic science fiction, archaeology, palaeontology and romance. Vividly entertaining " -Cecilia Dart-Thornton, bestselling author of the Bitterbynde series "I got so engrossed in it that I could not put it down. Siege of Stars is a very good Sci-Fi novel, in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. It spans space and time on a grand scale, but at the same time delves into the questions of what it means to be human. I recommend this book." -Lee Gimenez, bestselling author of The Nanotech Murders Dr. Henry Gee is senior editor at the renowned science journal Nature and editor of the award-winning Nature Futures science fiction short story series. He has written over a dozen books, including The Science of Middle Earth and A Field Guide to Dinosaurs.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

Our understanding of vertebrate origins and the backbone of human history evolves with each new fossil find and DNA map. Many species have now had their genomes sequenced, and molecular techniques allow genetic inspection of even nonmodel organisms. But as longtime Nature editor Henry Gee argues in Across the Bridge, despite these giant strides and our deepening understanding of how vertebrates fit into the tree of life, the morphological chasm between vertebrates and invertebrates remains vast and enigmatic. As Gee shows, even as scientific advances have falsified a variety of theories linking these groups, the extant relatives of vertebrates are too few for effective genetic analysis. Moreover, the more we learn about the species that do remain--from seasquirts to starfish--the clearer it becomes that they are too far evolved along their own courses to be of much use in reconstructing what the latest invertebrate ancestors of vertebrates looked like. Fossils present yet further problems of interpretation. Tracing both the fast-changing science that has helped illuminate the intricacies of vertebrate evolution as well as the limits of that science, Across the Bridge helps us to see how far the field has come in crossing the invertebrate-to-vertebrate divide--and how far we still have to go.