[1] The books deal with the author's theories on evolution, backdropped against a description of humanity from pre-Ice Age up to the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

The work is fictional, weaving in Jensen's stylistic mythic prose with his personal views on Darwinian evolutionary theory.

He also takes the first step toward civilized intercourse between individuals, discovering tenderness in sexual relations, the inaugural burgeoning of what we know as love.

He is a sort of Cain, a slayer avoided by his fellow men, whom he holds in such contempt that he does not even condescend to take their god, fire, with him to the icy lands of the North.

The theme is repeated in the third and fourth book with another genius who invents means of locomotion: wagons and boats driven by oar or sail.

In accordance with Jensen's peculiar theory that all great exploratory leaps in human history must be initiated by a "Nordic," Columbus is described as blonde and blue-eyed.