Summary

In the prologue, a breathless narration moves quickly through the geological and evolutionary history of earth. It references the big bang, the shaping of the atmosphere and oceans, and emergence of living organisms. It discusses the evolution of those organisms from those that inhabited the sea, and through those that evolved to live on land. The language used throughout includes the word “enter” or its synonyms – “here comes the lava” (3), “enter the mantis shrimp” (4), or “here’s the sagittal crest” (5).

At that point, the narrative shifts style and focus. In third-person, present-tense narration, it considers the situation of Sir Richard Ostlet, working in Africa in the late 1870’s to investigate the evidence of evolution and to catalogue the animals found there who inhabited and defined that process. He asks one of his African consultants to tell him the name, in his language...