Can ancient humans help save the planet?

A thousand years in the future, planet Earth is a hostile place. Miles-thick glaciers blanket the continents, leaving only narrow strips of coastline warm enough to support life. There, a menagerie of Ice Age monsters skulk the frozen forests, hunting and being hunted by groups of nomadic humans. Something even deadlier lies offshore: the zyme, a glowing green algae that coats the oceans like slimy quicksand, swallowing any ships that dare venture into its domain.

This is the mesmerizing world archaeologist Kathleen O’Neal Gear has brought to life in her recent novel The Ice Lion, a genre-bending work of fiction that’s both a cautionary tale about the future and a vivid re-imagining of human history. The Ice Lion tells the story of Quiller and Lynx, two best friends from the Sealion tribe who begin to unravel the mystery of their existence after a group of lions attacks and slaughters several members of their village, including Lynx’s wife.

Like the predators that hunt them, Quiller, Lynx, and the rest of the Sealion people are ambassadors from the distant past: In their case, archaic humans called Denisovans. By revealing the world through their eyes — eyes that see cosmic battles between ancient gods where readers will glimpse a world remade by a catastrophic climate experiment — O’Neal Gear shows the humanity of people many wouldn’t consider entirely human. Perhaps, she suggests, getting to know these forgotten ancestors could help us save the future.