“A heartwrenching mix of human interest, history and thrilling rendition of scientific interest. It has all the stylishness of good fiction, and its huge dollops of well-researched scientific fact go down with amazing ease.
The Telegraph Magazine

“Jago is a taut, imaginative writer. Her description of the winter
Birkeland and his young protégés spent huddled by the stove
makes one gasp at the old, reckless days of science...
Entertaining, provocative.”
The Times Literary Supplement

“First-time author Lucy Jago now resurrects this intrepid,
visionary, and obsessively hardworking genius in a compulsively
readable tale of courage, conviction, and betrayal. Jago's lucid
and captivating blend of biography, physics, and cultural history
adds a vital chapter to the annals of science and finally gives
Birkeland his due.”
Booklist (*starred* review)

“Lucy Jago's account of [Kristian Birkeland's] heroic and
horrifying expedition... is as gripping as a Conan Doyle adventure.”
Harper's Magazine

“Lucy Jago's account of [Kristian Birkeland's] life within his
scientific times is a satisfying attempt at rehabilitation – even
score-settling... Birkeland's story is a fascinating one, evoking the
manic, punishing era of polar exploration as it overlapped with
early-20th-century atomic physics, set against a background of Norway's struggle for independence and
the outbreak of World War I.”
The New York Times Book Review