The Ghanan Reserve, 1904—if not, precisely, our 1904.

Pale, grey-eyed Shorn is visibly unlike the rest of the People, though he has lived among them, respected and beloved, all his life. When strangers who do resemble him land on the People’s shores, Shorn is as wary as anyone, but deeply intrigued.

As the visitor’s encampment is attacked by pirates in the night, one of their numbers flees into the darkened forest, and is rescued by a young native woman traveling in search of a new community to join. But the tribe they find is mired in conflict over an act of betrayal that has left them all in peril.

Meanwhile, the visitors’ guide, left for dead after the pirates’ attack, is nursed back to health by an enigmatic young man possessed of no verbal language yet deeply wise and empathetic. He is clearly not of native descent, yet seems entirely at home in this land.

 Elsewhere, the chief of the feared Ruin Dwellers occupies the throne of a crumbled city of forgotten origin as his people fight each other, hunt their neighboring tribes, and struggle for survival against the inexorable march of history.

 In this lush and imaginative “novel revised,” Steven Erikson, author of the ten-volume epic fantasy Malazan Book of the Fallen, enriches a classic adventure tale with deep and unexpected explorations of civilization, community, freedom, and the nature of the soul. At its heart, Of the Apes challenges our very definitions of what it means to be human.