33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It seems like only yesterday!, November 22, 1999
A book which attempts to cover four billion years in less than four hundred pages is going to have to be a survey aimed at the general reader. If you like serious scientific tomes which discourage humour and a bit of artistic license in written presentations-- this is not for you. Fortney's book is an engaging and enjoyable read that gives insight into the development of life on earth and the scientific field of paleontology. His gifts for constructing an accessible and often charming narrative, quoting poets and bards, noting geniuses and quacks, is a great tribute to English educational system-- which here has developed a devoted scientific mind, obviously entranced by his subject matter, who can express himself with elegance, comprehension, wit and some self deprecation, a refreshing attribute for a scientist.
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure trove for the curious, July 6, 1999
By A Customer
It is refreshing to read a book like this: a scientific book for the layman, but one that does not take for granted that its readers are ignorant or stupid. This is not a book for scientists or specialists, but for ordinary people, scientifically literate but only to some degree, who are curious about about the origin and evolution of Life, who ever wondered how was Earth like in the first years of its history, and in later periods, when our planet was still an alien place. This book does just that, taking us to sweltering Carboniferous forests, to oceans teeming with life and deserted land, to landscapes inhabited by strange animals, the like of which exist no more. It explains us how, step by tiny step, life changed the face of the Earth. I was not bothered by the personal references or apparent digressions; all these served as examples to illustrate different points. I was indeed bothered however by the lack of charts. For example, an chart illustrating the different geological eras would have been useful: not all of us know by heart the exact order of the geological periods, and sometimes it is easy to get lost. I ended up copying such a chart from an encyclopedia and keeping the slip of paper inside the book, for reference. It would also have been interesting to have charts (like the cladistic charts of which there are some examples), illustrating how different species are related.
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52 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fortey fails to find the middle ground..., July 24, 2000
The title of this book, "Life: A natural history of four billion years of life on Earth," was a great selling point for me. As an invertebrate zoologist I have an ongoing interest in learning more about where life came from, how it is interrelated, and how and when the diversity of life around us came into being. Of course, no one has definitive explanations for those kinds of topics, but I was looking forward to reading Fortey's views on the natural history of life.
As I began reading I soon became disillusioned with Fortey's approach. If he wanted to write his autobiography, wedged in here and there among his main topic, why in the world didn't he tip off the reader by having a better subtitle? I did press on and complete the book, and found it to have meaningful content and thought-provoking ideas, but after all was said and done I was left wanting.
Fortey deserves commendation for undertaking such a massive topic, in 322pp no less! As I read through his account in search of information that would provide me with a clue to the framework he uses to understand the natural history of life on earth, I felt like I hit speed bump after speed bump in the form of occasionally interesting, but often meaningless, diversions. I'm sorry, but I could really care less, for example, what a hotel traditionally frequented by paleontologists serves for breakfast, or Fortey's personal reflections on Australian ponds where "the jolly swagman rested his tuckerbag"!
Don't get me wrong, those are wonderful literary side steps in this largely scientific work, but for me they were only distractions rather than useful contributions to the work.
Fortey does do a great job in some areas...for example, he does a super job of tying together plate tectonics and continent formations, break-ups, and movements as they affect the history of life. He also does a grand job of telling the basics of what kinds of things one can learn about life and the state of the earth from the fossil and other geologic records. But even so, there is too little meat here for the scientist, and there is too little support in the form of graphs, illustrations, etc., to allow most non-professionals to keep up with what's happening. That point is evidenced by the fact that Fortey introduces many little-known, though important, animals by their scientific names, but provides no supporting illustrations to let the reader know or confirm what Fortey is talking about.
There are a few chapters that, in my opinion, Fortey got "right." Those are the chapters he said that he was loathe to write -- the chapters about dinosaurs. Fortey did a masterful job of describing this period of history, as well as the underlying major controversies and players behind those controversies. He did not accomplish those things in most of the other sections of the book.
To sum things up, Fortey did what a water color painter, Terry Madden, tells his students to do -- that is, to use the largest brush you can manage. Fortey used a large brush supported by limited detail work here and there -- not enough detail to make this book a must have for professionals, and too little on the explanation side to make this an essential book for the non-professional.
If you are looking for a great book that provides a synopsis on the natural history of life on earth, there are better offerings. If you are looking for autobiographical accounts of scientists or works where the author likes to sidestep and let you in on his daydreams and poetic reflections, this book may suffice for you.
It seems to me, though, that Fortey failed to identify his audience, as well as his ultimate goal in writing the book. There are good parts, and disappointments.
Failing to find the middle ground resulted in what was, for me, only about a 3-star experience.
Alan Holyoak, Dept of Biology, Manchester College, IN
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