The hope of every Paleontologist is to uncover a major
fossil. Richard Leyester had done just that. He was at the prime
of his game,
and nothing could coax him away from the dig sight. That is until Mr.Griffin
showed up with the head of a Triceratops.
In Bones of the Earth, Swanwick takes the reader on a trip in time,
to the past, to the present, and to the future. Humans have time-travel, but
Leyester is suspicious when the only travelers allowed are bone hunters like him.
Mr.Griffin is concerned with Salley, a traveler from the not so distant future
who seems hell-bent on ruining Leyester's career.
Soon, a creationist terrorist destroys a time-beacon when Leyester and twenty
other bone hunters are stuck in the late Mesozoic era. After the man gloats,
he's confronted by a forty year-old Salley, who promptly ends the man's life.
Mr. Griffin hears about the attack, and soon begins sending his own notes back
and fourth, trying to catch what going on.
In the Mesozoic, the survivors make the best they can, and continue to study
the dinosaurs, noting many interesting theories, such as sound-based herd done
by the T-Rex. Soon, one of the survivors is pregnant, and has a son.
In the chase through time, Mr.Griffin uncovers the truth of the Unchanged that
granted man the power of time travel: its one creature looped over to make it
seem like many. After digging farther, they step into the distant future, only
to discover Salley has sold out to the Avi-Homo
sapiens so a second time line
could be created where she gets to be with Leyester as his woman. In exchange,
she is placed in a zoo-like tower to represent Homo sapiens for the Avi-Homo sapiens.
The Avi-Homo sapiens mention that mankind shall rescue the ones lost in the
past, but then the power of time travel will be taken.
Mr.Griffin returns to the past to assist in the rescue effort, shaking his
future self's hand admitting that they had one again saved the human race.