Mesopotamia. The Tigris-Euphrates Valley. The Cradle of Civilization. Within the vast, unforgiving deserts of the Middle East there is an island of green fecundity known as the Fertile Crescent, and this Crescent is made fertile by the juxtaposition of the two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. So it was in the Ancient World, so it is as well in the Banoric Age, some 800 years in the future. And unto this realm of ziggurats and chariots has come Sagrim, incomparable hero of his time, where he, like fabled King Gilgamesh, must meet many challenges, including the incomparably beautiful and incomparably deadly woman known as the Eunuch Maker, a Predatory Sphinx and the Minions of an Alien Pantheon - and that's just for starters.