Galapagos is set one million years in the future. The central setting is the Galapagos Islands, a small archipelago of volcanic peaks in the Pacific Ocean west of Ecuador. In 1986, back when humans had bigger brains, scientists researched the islands, which are home to a diverse range of animals and plants—most of which arrived on the island “on natural rafts” (9), according to the scientists. Other people believe that “God Almighty had created all those creatures where the explorers found them, so they had no need for transportation” (10).

James Wait is a 35-year-old American man. He buys a ticket for a cruise from Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands. The cruise is billed as “the Nature Cruise of the Century” (11). Wait is a con man but leads Jesus Ortiz, the barman in the Ecuadorian hotel, to think that he’s a pitiable figure. In the past, Wait tricked 17 women into marrying him and then stole each woman’s life savings and abandoned them. He’s now a millionaire and—he believes—completely free from police suspicion. The narrator is surprised by Wait’s ability to deceive but attributes this “brilliantly duplicitous” behavior to the large brains that humans possessed during this time.