Seismologist Dr. Ella Jordan gets the news that strange signals are being received in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They are, however, much too regular to be caused by anything natural and seem to originate from the 10,000 meter deep Mariana Trench. Ella drops everything to join a team of researchers heading over there in the most advanced submarine in the world. Along with a Japanese crew, an attractive U.S. Marine officer, and a somewhat shady Swiss professor, Konrad Martin, Ella and her team descent to the deepest spot on earth and barely escape disaster: They find a gigantic, perfectly round stone that reacts to their probing with a deadly heat ray. What hardly anyone knows is that hidden away in the mountains of Switzerland, there is an underground lab, where scientists are working on a similar, though smaller ball of stone, found decades earlier next to the corpse of a geologist. Suddenly new signals are detected: first from the North Pole, then from Russia, Australia, and the Antarctic. Ella and Konrad Martin find these same inexplicable stone shapes everywhere. When the stones’ signals start to be sent in unison, the resulting seismic waves are so strong that they cause earthquakes and volcanoes, but that is just the beginning. A countdown to disaster begins, and Ella recognizes the terrible truth. The threat does not come from this world.

Among other publishers, he has worked for Heyne Verlag, Arena, Fantasy Productions, Beltz & Gelberg, HarperCollins, Random House and Wizards of the Coast. In 2014, one of his paintings based on the biblical story of Noah was exhibited in an art show in New York City curated by the American film director Darren Aronofsky. In Germany, Thiemeyer’s work was repeatedly awarded the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis and the Deutscher Phantastik-Preis (a German Fantasy award).

In 2004, his debut novel “Medusa” published by Droemer Knaur became an international success. Many other novels both for adults as well as for young readers followed, some of them became bestsellers. His novels have been translated into English, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Korean, Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Portuguese as well as Slovenian.

His stories are set in the tradition of classic adventure novels and often deal with the discovery of ancient cultures, including supernatural threats by mysterious powers. – As he had previously illustrated a picture book on dinosaurs, Thiemeyer was invited in 1998 to draw pictures for a book for young readers in Tanzania on the dinosaurs of Tendaguru, the historic and most important discovery of dinosaur fossils in Africa.

Thiemeyer studied art and geology in Cologne. His first children’s book was published in 1989 by the Ravensburger publishing house, where he also worked as graphic advisor. Two years later, he decided to become a freelance artist, illustrating games, children’s books, book covers and much more.

Thomas Thiemeyer (born 22 March 1963) is a German illustrator and author of fantasy novels. Since 2018, he also has published crime stories set in Corsica under the pen name Vitu Falconi.