The Ultimate Dinosaur: Past, Present, and Future [Hardcover]

BYRON PREISS (Author), Robert Silverberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1992

A collection of articles--including one by a leading paleontologist--speculating on the world of the dinosaurs includes contributions by Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

What an idea! To combine essays by distinguished scientists (e.g., David Gillette and Philip Currie), stories by noted science fiction writers (e.g., Ray Bradbury and Poul Anderson), and artworks by first-rate illustrators in a single book on dinosaurs. Despite the disparate nature of these genres, it all fits together pretty well, as in similarly organized works like The Planets , also edited by Preiss (Bantam, 1985). Chapters, each including fictional and nonfictional contributions, span the time from the dawn of the age of dinosaurs to its end. The book also includes some helpful charts and diagrams. Highly recommended for older dinosaur aficionados (a few stories are slightly ribald). For public library collections.
- Joseph Hannibal, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553076760
• ISBN-13: 978-0553076769
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,010,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a decent but flawed book, March 2, 2001

By 

Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ultimate Dinosaur (Paperback)

The Ultimate Dinosaur is an ambitious book, one that seeks to alternate sections on the latest theories on the origin, lives, and deaths of dinosaurs as well as pterosaurs and prehistoric marine reptiles, all written by such noted experts as George Olshevsky, Sankar Chatterjee, and others, with dinosaur-themed science fiction short stories by such authors as Charles Sheffield, Gregory Benford, and Harry Turtledove. A great concept.

Unfortunately it was rather unevenly carried out. The non-fiction sections are quite good, though a few are relatively dry to read. I did learn a few things reading these sections, and alone they just about make the book worthwhile. There were some interesting discussions over the relationship of prosauropods and sauropods for instance, and there was a great article on migrating dinosaurs.

However the short stories vary alot in style and quality, some quite good, other more moderately decent, and a few frankly terrible and hard to get through. The short stories and non-fictions are paired together, and it looks like they found it difficult to find a short story to put with some of the non-fiction sections.

Though this may only apply to the hard-cover edition which I have, I feel I must point out the book was either poorly edited, which I find suprising, or poorly published. The book was replete with words that were run together, misplaced punctuation, odd gaps in sentences, and even misspelled words. They were so common at times that it was jarring and irritating. While many books have one or two such errors, there were many of them in this work. Hopefully the paperback version cleared this up.

Having said that though this was still not a bad book and a worthwhile one to get, though frankly I would not place at the top of the list of books to fill your dinosaur needs. Still, wouldn't be bad to have either.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Untimate Dinosaur, February 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ultimate Dinosaur: Past, Present, and Future (Hardcover)

This book The Ultimate Dinosaur, is very fact filled. There is a lot more of text than there are pictures and it is very informational. This book is for dinosaur lovers only. If you really love to read about dinosaurs, then this book is for you. Information on almost all the dinosaurs that ever lived millions of years ago. Each part of the book is seperated by each preastoric period and then by whether the dinosaur is herbavorious or carnivorous. Then it tells what was happening in that period of time. This book also tells what type of plant life was in a period of time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars what a value!, September 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ultimate Dinosaur (Paperback)

big names in science and sf coupled with top paleoartists!