In The Fall of the Glaciers it's the ability ice has to tell a deeper story about who we are, where we come from, and where we are going that forms the nerve of the narrative. Biologist and nature writer Dag O. Hessen, who himself has been a glacier guide, combines his personal and engaging voice with his professional and insightful one. He shows us how the ice not only literally carries within it remnants of times that have passed, from an impressive microbacterial diversity to perfectly preserved remains of ancient animals and humans, but also how it tells a story in a larger context about the past and future climate on our earth. What can more effectively convey the story of tipping points and a warmer planet than a glacier that melts more in summer than it grows in winter?

The melting of glaciers and the following mourning, has not always been the standard. There was a time when the glacier crept imperceptibly down the valley floor, like a silent and threatening image of untamed and dangerous nature on a planet where man was an ant in the landscape. Perhaps it is the remnants of this force that make an encounter with a glacier so powerful?

And perhaps it is precisely this perspective that makes the ice a natural place to conclude a series of work which, more than anything else, has encouraged reflection on the place of humans in an ever-shrinking nature. With The Fall of the Glaciers he has completed a trilogy that will stand as a pillar in the history of Norwegian non-fiction, which started with Wolverine Tracks and continued with The Bird's Perspective. The books can be read as stand alones, but are tied together through Hessen's personal and professional reflections on nature and humanity's role in the rapidly accelerated changes we see today.