This series has truly been a journey and I'm sad to see it end. From the excellent world building in the first book to the epic conclusion, I was fascinated by the lives of these characters! The story just built and expanded from the first, describing these hardy people living in such a harsh climate from events of their everyday lives to their outstanding wisdom and courage. I've been a fan of this author since my teens reading my mother's copies of North America's Forgotten Past series. The writing of the series was so similar but the story so wildly different and I enjoyed every page.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a review of The Ice Ghost, by Kathleen O'Neal Gear (DAW) and The Ice Orphan, by Kathleen O'Neal Gear (DAW)

I previously reviewed the first of the “Rewilding Reports” novels (The Ice Lion) and I liked it (The Ice Lion, by Kathleen O'Neal Gear, DAW). The set-up is appealing: In the far future, an attempt to halt the Earth’s runaway warming resulted in a new, apocalyptic Ice Age with glaciers three miles high and a poisonous slime, “zyme” covering the oceans. As the planet descended into this frigid nightmare, the last scientists recreated species that had survived earlier Ice Ages: dire wolves, helmeted musk oxen, cave lions, and extinct, archaic human species like the Denisovans, Neanderthals, and Homo erectus. Remnants of the previous civilization persist in myths (about the godlike Jemen = G-men), an enigmatic scientist with an artificially extended lifespan, and a quantum computer spiraling into loss of function.

Some of the things I liked best about the first volume are here in the subsequent books. Foremost is the humanity, culture, and sensitivity, and poetic imagery of the pre-human characters. We moderns tend to regard our ancestors as dim-witted and lacking in social graces, although recent discoveries reveal such markers of cooperative culture as care for the injured and burial of the dead long before H. sapiens came along. Gear’s characters, although having much smaller brains, are nonetheless resourceful, compassionate, and thoughtful. The Dog Soldiers (H. erectus) may have had small, sloping skulls, but their understanding of ethical issues, not to mention their literacy and reverence for books, marks them as anything but “primitive.” In fact, the most advanced of the three species, the Rust People Neanderthals, are the most violent.

The Ice Ghost and The Ice Orphan continue the adventures of Sealion People (Denisovan) Lynx and Quiller, and members of Quiller’s family, as they struggle against an increasingly hostile terrain and new enemies. Legends mix uneasily with prophecies and dreams, as none of the pre-human species draws precise differences between poorly understood history, inspiration, and the visions born of mental illness or hallucinogens. The disintegrating quantum computer, called “Quancee,” is undoubtedly real, as is the reanimated Jemen general bent on destroying the computer’s autonomy and changing it into a weapon, and the brutal Rust People (Neandertal) shaman whose visions drive him to invade the Jemen stronghold and reawaken the ancient ruler. Who, of course, has an agenda of her own.

These next two volumes have many of the strengths of the first, including smooth prose, sympathetic characters, innovative world-building, and wonderful physical descriptions. The characters are portrayed through their experiences so that only occasionally are their physical appearances important. What matters is the quality of their characters, their courage, compassion, leadership, and honesty.

Each of the three books centers on a different but related quest, and therein lies not only the charm of the series and the independence of each installment, but a flaw in the latter two. The first volume of a series has a lot of work to do, establishing not only viewpoint characters, their goals and conflicts, but the world itself. In this case, the world’s history is critical to the story. To her credit, Gear does not bash us over the head with pages of exposition and backstory. History is gleaned from hints here and there, and the understanding of the characters. In this, Gear does a great job, even when historical facts have become distorted or even erased with time and the demands of survival in an increasingly perilous environment.

The problem I experienced was that, compared with the first volume (The Ice Lion), what comes next felt lightweight. They seemed more like novellas in the scope of the plot, stories fleshed out with too many repetitive descriptions and inconsequential or trivial events.

My second problem arose from the conflation of imaginary and real events. In books of this type, there’s an expectation that mysterious elements will be revealed (as opposed to fantasy, where magic need not have any relationship to the laws of physics), that the reader will be able to put together the pieces and figure out what the age-warped technology, historical events, and so forth really are. And how much were real technology, events, and so forth, versus how much the imaginative, often superstitious interpretation. Gear’s characters treat superstition as just as real as tangible physical articles, but we the readers lack the clues to distinguish them. Perhaps those clues will be revealed in a future volume. Alas, I for one found two novels too long to be befuddled. This was made worse by hand-waving technology, such as near-immortality antiaging tech, a way for the genetically modified prehumans to receive telepathic communications from a computer, and the dream quest of Quiller’s adolescent son, which left me wondering if he was spiritually “transformed” or actually dead.

I continue to recommend the first volume of this series for all the reasons cited above. As for the rest, other readers may find the same delight in them. The series looks to be continuing. As they say, “YMMV.”

I loved this trilogy so much, I can't believe it's not talked about more! They're a wonderful marriage of science fiction and prehistoric fiction, where extinct human races are brought back to ride out a scientifically induced Ice Age after the Earth undergoes a climate apocalypse.

I was absolutely hooked on this third book. Hard to discuss without spoilers but you're kept in absolute suspense for ages about the fate of certain characters and I loved the various arcs for faves from books 1 and 2.

I'm not sure if this was meant to be a trilogy or a longer series. The end certainly left it open enough for more of the larger picture story but still had a satisfying conclusion for the personal journeys of the main cast. I sincerely hope we get more, there's a lot more I want to know!

I did like the first person view of the book, but I got a bit lost on the story because I haven't read the first two books, I really thought that I would be able to get into the story without having read the other books, but that is not really the case, you definitely need to read the previous two books, I requested the first book in audiobook (it will arrive in a couple of weeks) format in my library but I am still to find the second book, I will come back and evaluate this book more fairly, because the way the author writes made me interested, if I am lost is my own fault because I haven't read the previous books, but you do feel a melody, is like each main character has his/her own voice and that gives a special feeling.

Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

The Ice Orphan
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

It's interesting that this series started in ice and ends in ice. The broad scope of humanity may in itself have the same spiral. Since homo ancestors are with in our genetic makeup, its possible. The final reveal in the story brings the spiral around full circle without showing all its secrets. Jawbone, has his trials from the first book, and finds a peace he has never known since the loss of his family. Quiller and Rabbitear learn to understand family, and the obligations of their choices. The Jemen are at their last moment and Quancee is fading. Finally, Lynx learns many of the secrets of Quancee, after Arakie's passing, but finds that no matter how much he studies, or learns he will not understand all about the origins of Quantum Consciousness, and its dangers. The book is a reminder to the reader that with all our learning nature, life, and the universe is a balance, and we can not know all that achieves that balance no matter how much we study. The imagery in the book is haunting, and I found it inspiring. A great series.

Wow! Of course Kathleen O'Neal Gear does it again! The Ice Orphan is the 3rd book in her exciting cli-fi series featuring a futuristic ice age.
One of the many things that I loved about this book is that while it's set in the future, the characters are the hominin people brought back to life. So, it had much the same realistic and familiar feel as her and her husband's First North Americans series. I highly recommend that series, as well.
This is a great series for anyone 12-102, who enjoys sci-fi, cli-fi and historical novels. I literally laughed, cried and rooted for the main characters. I didn't want to put it down.
Almost a thousand years ago the Jemen accidentally set another Ice Age in motion. Before they left earth, they brought back many of the people and animals who had survived the first ice age. Now some of them have stopped thriving.
Blessed Teacher Lynx is trying to come up with a solution to save his people, the Sealion People. At the same time, he's concerned about his best friend's son, Jawbone, who's been having strange spells. But Jawbone is determined to go on his first spirit quest. It's a dangerous venture but he's determined to prove he's a man, no matter the risk.

Maybe I should have read the first two books in the series? The plot didn't make sense, the characters were ill developed and the story fragmented and flat.; Not my favorite

The third book in this cli-fiction series continues the story of the Sealion people, who are struggling to survive in a world turned into a second ice age by the introduction of zyme, an algae that was introduced to counteract global warming, by the Jemen (former inhabitants of earth that escaped to the stars). Before the Jemen left they cloned species that were likely to survive the ice. Mammoths, Sabertooth tigers, dire wolves and neanderthals and denisovans. They also left behind a quantum computer and one last Jemen to help the people survive. Hope is running low and their survival is in question.
This has been a fascinating look into what could be. The series is an enjoyable read.

I found this book very gripping and difficult to put down. The writing was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the character development and the world created in this book.