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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Making of a Paleontologist, June 3, 2002
After Michael Novacek wrote _Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs_, a very successful non-specialist account of his fossil-hunting expeditions in Mongolia, he found that readers told him that they especially enjoyed his descriptions of the expeditions and life in the field, perhaps even more than the substantial paleontology he included. With that in mind, he has now written _Time Traveler: In Search of Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals from Montana to Mongolia_ (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), which does not scrimp on scientific information, but still consists mostly of stories about how paleontologists do what they do. Interested in fossils even as a boy, in graduate school he got interested in extinct insectivores, which are now represented by hedgehogs, shrews, and moles, but which were much more diverse in the past. Novacek admits that these aren't the showiest of ancient animals: "they might be more aptly called vermin than beasts." But in an evolutionary sense, they have vast importance; from such shrewlike creatures came rodents, bats, elephants, whales, and of course, humans. He shows us what sort of work he has done on the creatures, and why it has been important. The book's main attraction is his stories of field work all over the world. They are told with good humor, and occasionally with forgiveness. He starts as a novice, worried that the graduate students are going to play tricks on him, and eventually ends up leading expeditions himself, to Baja, Mongolia, the Andes, and Yemen. Reading these tales makes one realize that there truly must be a fantastically strong appeal for this sort of work, if Novacek still likes it after all the difficulties he experienced, from mildly irritating to potentially lethal. "Our hands were swollen and blistered from swinging sledges all day, and our backs were sore from cradling heavy plaster blocks as we climbed the steep slope back to the vehicles. The work was hard. But I liked the routine, I felt useful; we were a chain gang in the service of science." There are a few tales worthy of Indiana Jones, like how his party is ominously detained by the militia in Yemen. In the Andes, he is tangled in the stirrup of a horse and dragged down painfully, temporarily ruining his legs. He is bitten in the groin by the world's most deadly scorpions in Baja. He discovers that a desert can bloom into swarms of insects denser than that in a rain forest because they are attracted to sweat. There are bar fights. Shrapnel from a colleague's hammer on a specimen severs one of his arteries. "As some of my college mates would say, `It's a lot of trouble for a few old bones.'" Novacek's animated tales and explanations of how he has done his work give genuine insight into his passion. He has included lots of real science here about plate tectonics, evolution, and much more. For those who never graduated beyond childhood dinomania, it will tell them what they missed. Best of all, this book ought to be in the hands of young people who are in the thralls of such enthusiasm, for in its pages are revealed what it is really like to be a paleontologist.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A life in the field..., February 7, 2004
This review is from: Time Traveler: In Search of Dinosaurs and Other Fossils from Montana to Mongolia (Paperback)
Michael Novacek must be a very interesting person, judging from "Time Traveller," which he describes as "a book not about a life, but about a life in the field." Starting from his childhood in California, he relates the story of his start as a young paleontologist (moving from a background as an indifferent student and an unsuccessful rock musician) working in the American West and Baja California. Most of the digs take place in unpleasant locations, fraught with heat, scorpions and dreadful food. As he moves up the academic ladder, the digs become much more exotic and he heads out to Patagonia (where it is cold and windy instead of hot and accidents with horses can happen, but the food is still of varying quality), then to Yemen (where there are not even any interesting fossils to make up for the sheer awfulness of the place), Mongolia and Argentina. It appears that extreme physical fitness is a prerequisite for those wishing to enter this profession. The major fault of the book is that it appears to be written backwards. The last chapters, focussing on the extremely important discoveries made in the 1990s in Mongolia, are fascinating and move quickly. They appear to come from another, and better, book. When he writes of the importance of palaeontology and the fossil record, his prose is powerful and almost poetic. But the earlier chapters seem to meander, a collection of anecdotes about his childhood, working in the field, a bit of this and a bit of that. One has the impression that Dr. Novacek is a bit of a scatterbrain, unable to focus his attention--Looky! Old rocks! Insectivore jaws! Bikini babes! Look! Fossil fish! Ancient teeth! Yemeni bandits! Look! Picturesque Chileans! That Roy Chapman Andrews-what a guy! Hey, look! We've been in Mongolia for ten years! The chapter on Yemen is particularly odd. It describes in great detail all the problems involved in working in this near-medieval country, the dangers and the heat, but the only scientific finding is that there is really not much there to interest a paleontologist. Nonetheless, in the next chapter he writes about possibly putting together another expedition to go back, until he is distracted by Mongolia. Is this a thirst for derring-do, in the style of Andrews? His attempt to write "popular science" often feels clumsy but cannot hide the fact that many of his discoveries are significant and have contributed to many serious scientific debates. I particularly liked his writing about how the Mongolian dinosaurs may have died. Originally accepting the idea that they were buried in soft sand, he carefully describes recent work by geologists that suggests instead that heavy rains resulted in mudslides that caught the animals in the gullies where they lived. It is clearly and elegantly expressed and ultimately helps make this book worth reading. It probably would be a better book with less rock-smashing and more such thoughtful analysis.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The travels began in childhood, March 15, 2002
And so does Novacek's book. So right away we know that TIME TRAVELER is not merely a recounting of paleontological studies. They certainly remain as one of the main topics of discussion and the trips to Mongolia, Yemen, and Chile read like adventures rather than scientific expeditions. Interwoven throughout is Novacek's personal story and recollections. There was nothing to indicate that the ten year old who was "more of a Beaver Cleaver type than a young Indiana Jones" would eventually go on to become one of our foremost paleontologists. Novacek recounts a fairly normal, middle-class life, growing up in suburban Los Angeles. His admission that he "liked crawling around in the dirt and mud, turning over rocks, and looking at things through binoculars and microscopes" is however insufficient evidence of a budding scientist. Didn't we all do the same? The difference perhaps is that when the opportunity arose to loose himself in the world of girls and music, Novacek remained enthused with the fossilized world. His enthusiasm is still there and it's captivating. The thrill he gets from discovery, the joy of the outdoors, and the sense of adventure are all reminiscent of our own simple childhood pleasures. Novacek's willingness to share these feelings with us and the writing style which enhances it, makes this a very refreshing reading experience. It's not all fun and enjoyment however. He tells of illness and infections, insect bites and stings, and injury. Deadly places and dangerous people provided their own challenges. Science remains the serious subject connecting all the personal stories and travel adventures. As such Novacek delves into current topics in paleontology such as extinctions and loss of biodiversity, continental drift, and dinosaur and mammalian evolution. In the debate about the origins of birds he comes down firmly on the side of a dinosaurian origin. He adds his own support to the view that dinosaurs are not extinct by saying "the survivors were of course birds." On another subject where the majority of recent writers are in agreement (Bjorn Lomborg excepted), Novacek agrees that the loss of biodiversity is a critical issue. Near the end he offers a view that is far from cheerful and refreshing and as such jangles with the joie de vivre which characterized so much of the book. His statement that "paleontology should not be the only biological science in the future - the science of a dead planet" is no doubt informed by a life spent in realities of science.
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