Dougal Dixon

I definitely connected with my inner seven-year old while reading this book. It's not too technical, but enough so to satisfy the juvenile fact-collecting passion, and is encyclopaedic rather than in essay form, so great for dipping into rather than developing a deep knowledge. As I'm not studying to be a paleontologist, that suits me fine. It's wonderfully illustrated and is very clear about what is known and what is assumed. Loved it!

This book is very, very pretty, and also a fascinating excercise in worldbuilding for the fun of it. It describes a postulated future Earth, 50 million years from now, built on the remains of a world which was devastated by mankind and then regenerated after Man wiped himself out.

It's a wonderful demonstration of evolution in action, with a guide to Earth's evolutionary history in the front, and every new animal described in terms of its evolutionary history and sorted by biome, with show more gorgeous watercolor illustrations of everything.

I had some difficulties with the book itself, though: firstly, the particular species he chose to wipe out as a results of Mankind, and the species which survived - he thinks rabbits and rats would survive because of their ability to live among human habitats, but not deer, cats, or horses? I'm sure a lot of the individual choices were simply down to what animals he wanted to work with, and what would give cool results, -- and extinctions do often seem utterly arbitrary - but presenting it as the obvious result seems like sloppy thinking.

Much more importantly, though, he focuses entirely on charismatic animals. There is almost no mention of fish or invertebrates, and plant communities - which have if anything been more wholly altered by human action - are left unmentioned and completely unchanged, so that his fantastical rabbucks and giant predatory rats wander through a forest ecosystem of still entirely recognizable modern plants. show less

This square hard cover was picked up for my eldest, who at aged (nearly) 4 and a half, is far too young. It has a lot of text along with the pictures, and the detailed info would be better for a 8-10 year old I'd say. But, I read it and found it very interesting indeed. It turns out there were more dinosaurs out there than just the T-Rex!

The author sounds a very sensible chap in that he acknowledges where there are gaps in data. He brings up common misconceptions and outs past scientists who show more have made false claims or huge assumptions. Because of this his information comes over as very credible. All in all a fascinating read for a novice. show less

A really erratic mix. Some truly excellent illustrations, photographs of skeletons and models. A good discussion of more recent discoveries about the dinosaur ancestry of birds. Omits a glossary, instead putting a roughly equivalent (to the writer I guess) phrase or word in parentheses after the difficult word. But the words aren't always equivalent, and that's what glossaries are for. No etymological information at all, which is always a frustrating omission w/ dinosaurs, which have such show more fascinating names. show less