Otherlands

Penned by that rare scientist with a gift for exposition, Otherlands is a tour de force.

Building on a framework of hard data from paleontological study sites around the globe, Halliday paints a picture of each period in Earth’s history since the Ediacarian, more than 500 million years ago.

What forces formed today’s continents, mountain ranges, and oceans? What and who thrived there along the way? What smells, sights, and sounds greeted them each day? Why did some species survive and flourish, while others vanished?

In superb prose, Halliday answers so many questions, yet still leaves us with a… show more.

Like many children, one of my obsessions was the dinosaurs, a group of animals - chickens and their kind notwithstanding - that only existed in books, the fossil record, and, chiefly, my imagination. In truth, I’m still obsessed by them, but also by the more than 99% of life forms that have ever existed on Earth and which are now extinct.

In Otherlands, Thomas Halliday, a palaeobiologist, explores Earth’s deep past, attempting to ‘see ancient life forms as if they were commonplace visitors to our world, as quivering, steaming beasts of flesh and instinct, as creaking beams and falling… show more.