Rating: 
Summary: Quite Enjoyable; A Bit Verbose
Review: In trying to keep the subject matter engaging and fun, I think the author went too far in masking substance some might find dry. If you're interested in buying this book you will be interested in the substance and may find yourself asking the author to get to the point. That said, when he does get to the point, he captures your attention and keeps it.
Rating: 
Summary: Incoherent and poorly reasoned
Review: Incoherent. This book wanders seemingly at random. Travelog? Literary criticism? Science? History of? Behavior studies? I might well want to read any one of these, at various times. What I am not interested in, is a book that wanders from one to the other.
Poorly reasoned. The author steps from the observed facts of commonalities at the genome level, to the fairly safe conclusion that all earthly life has common ancestry, but then leaps to the absolutely unjustified conclusion that "life [on earth] happened once and only once". Nonsense: the evidence does not rise to that level. For one thing, life could just as easily have started 1000 times and been extinguished by inferno in the early bombardment period. And, it should be well known to the author that there was no single tree of descent for unicellular life - they routinely exchange genetic material and have even combined to form more complex cells. Pardon me, but there is plenty of room in that history for multiple geneses to have been obscured by early exchanges and combinations.
So, the author can't write straight and can't think straight - regretfully, I find that I for one have no use for this work.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and Frustrating
Review: It didn't take me very long to figure out that the author had left out of this otherwise engaging and enlightening book the one thing that would prove most helpful to its readers struggling to put this vast amount of information in context- a chart showing the names of the various eras and periods. (The copy I read came from the library, and I took the liberty of creating a chart of the chronology in Excel, cribbed from "What Evolution Is" by Ernst Mayr, and leaving a copy of it on page 1 for the next reader.) Compounding this difficulty is Mr. Fortey's relatively haphazard organization of the material and sparse leavening of information that helps place it in context. For example, at one point in the book, he references dates of 2.5 billion years, and suddenly the book jumps to the Cambrian era of roughly 850 million years ago, with no real attempt to impress that scale upon the reader.The author almost deliberately seems to have wanted to avoid the burden of actually 'educating' his audience, preferring instead to plop down next to him or her at some far-off pub and tell stories, leading a meandering tour of the best spots here and there. The tour is in chronological order, but never is the necessity of actually knowing the relative chronology foisted onto the reader. It almost feels as though to Dr. Fortey, 'education' is a dirty word - too much the dull, plodding stuff of daily life and not much fun. But I disagree with this approach - though this book was written for a non-professional audience, it is still, I presume, an audience that would like to feel they have learned something. Not being able to place most of the insights in this book into a context or framework undercut this goal and he compounded this error through a circumambulatory writing style, replete with cryptic-sounding creatures whose place in life's strata is fleshed out only sparsely. Additionally, though there are three sections of black and white photographs, there were a number of places where a simple diagram or some other graphic would have done wonders for my comprehension. Nevertheless, through my frustration at this book's failings, I was able to glean some worthwhile insight from this book. And while no one would accuse Dr. Fortey of crafting clear, readable and professional prose, his words do allow his natural enthusiasm (and a bit of hubris) to show through. I was delighted at some of the windows which Dr. Fortey opens onto the methods and history of paleontology, and fascinated by his discussion of recent thinking on which creature first struck out onto the land after billions of years in the water. All in all, one could do worse, but as I am beginning to read "Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth" by Andrew Knoll, it is already clear to me that one could also do a good deal better.
Rating:
Summary: A treasure trove for the curious
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A natural history of life on earth
Review: It's hard to imagine a more ambitious project than writing a natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth. It's even harder to imagine writing it for the interested layperson without making too many oversimplifications or leaving out too much important detail in a book with just over 300 pages. Richard Fortey has risen to the occasion though, and in the process has created a book that's engaging and highly worth reading. You might expect a book like this to be mechanistic, starting at the beginning and cranking by rote through the sequence of events that constitute the earth's history. Fortey doesn't do this. In a cordial and poetic style he first introduces us to the real world of paleontology. A world of dirt, grime and fierce winds on forsaken beaches bordering forgotten islands of the far north. This is where Fortey began his carrier, and where he made a first mark in the study of extinct organisms from earth's ancient past. This first chapter is important because it reminds us that our knowledge of earth's history has come in fitful starts in which chance and luck have played a central roll. Only a fraction of all creatures leave fossilized remains, only a fraction of those are ever found, and even then they must be interpreted through the preconceptions of scientists. The miracle is that we know anything at all - but we do, and what a story it is. Having introduced the working of paleontology, Fortey devotes the second chapter to the origin of the first life forms. This chapter is of necessity the most barren of all. We still don't understand the origin of life, though there have been remarkable strides in recent years. The author describes the central importance of carbon and the fact many carbon-based molecules necessary for life are found in extraterrestrial objects (but he does not advocate the idea that first life was extraterrestrial). He makes a strong point for the proposition that all life originated with a common ancestor. Much of Fortey's discussions about first life discuss the roll that life played in creating our current environment. The atmosphere is literally a created thing, with the oxygen we breathe constituting a poisonous gas given off by the first organisms on earth. This makes creatures like the chemolithoautotrophic hyperthermophiles a little more understandable - first life evolved in an environment that we today would find very inhospitable - and vise versa. From here the book pretty much follows in chronological order with the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous periods. The author explains how life first evolved in the seas, how it flourished, about extinction, and the eventual migration of life onto land. Fortey does not simply recite history, though. He has a style that brings these ancient animals and ecosystems to life. I particularly enjoyed his recollection of conodonts. Conodonts are tooth-like objects of calcium phosphate that were used for years as a type of natural chronometer. They belonged to an extinct aquatic animal. They changed as the animal evolved over time and their presence in sedimentary deposits thus enabled scientists to date the rocks in which they were found. The problem was, nobody knew what animal the conodonts belonged too. There was much speculation, and Fortey's telling of the story and its eventual resolution is typical of the way he brings the subject to life. Through all the narrative Fortey does a reasonably good job of helping the reader understand that life did not march onward and upward along a directed path. This is a common misunderstanding, and one that chronological narratives often give. Life did not emerge from the seas and then rise to the air. Rather, like an expanding gas, life evolved to fill unoccupied niches. The simplest and oldest life forms still flourish, and if longevity is the measure by which life is accounted, then we are just upstarts with our few-million-year presence on earth. There is, of course, the story of the dinosaurs. The neat twist offered by Fortey is to show how our understanding and perception of the dinosaurs has changed over time. He compares what we know of them today with how we perceived them years ago. I found this particularly interesting because I can recall as a little boy reading how dinosaurs were slow, had two brains (one in the head and one in the tail) and had to live in water to support their weight. Observing how our perceptions of dinosaurs have change so dramatically in my lifetime is a real-life dramatization of science at work. The dinosaurs have changed our understanding of evolution as well. In times past dinosaurs were synonymous with failure to evolve and change - they disappeared because they were outmoded. Fortey explains how luck and chance are essential parts of the evolutionary process. The dinosaurs were superbly adapted animals. They are gone because of bad luck - a bolide from space - and we are here because some nondescript little mammals just happened to be lucky enough have the right equipment for surviving in the new environment. What had been good for survival changed in an instant, and changed the course of evolution. The book ends with a chapter describing the search for our past and an epilogue on chance and evolution. This is a pretty brief chapter that summarizes the fossil evidence for human evolution and describes our earliest ancestors down to roughly the last ice age. I truly enjoyed reading this book. It is well written and it has a useful glossary and a very complete index. The style of writing is informative yet colorful and full of imagery. Written by someone with an obvious zest for life - "Life" is a top-caliber book and one you won't regret investing the time to read and savor. Duwayne Anderson, February 22, 2000
Rating:
Summary: More Interesting as Memoir Than as Science
Review: Like his more recent book Trilobyte, this book is well crafted. For the reader interested in the process of discovery by a scientist, I suspect that this book will satisfy. Sadly, I came to the book in a search for current information about the history of life on earth and was disappointed. The book drifts between stories of the author's paleontological expeditions and a discussion of theories of the history of life on earth. If the reader is actually attempting to learn what Fortey knows about that history he is left to riffle through the pages in search of information. There are some interesting discussions here, but unfortunately they are buried in chatty biography. In short, if you are interested in Richard Fortey's life, buy this book. If you are interested in life on this planet, keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: Really enjoying...
Review: Maybe for a paleontologist this can be a kids' book, but for most of us it is fun and lead us to new wanders. Being a chemical engineer, I am not used to all this information, although I have read a couple books dealing with evolution, and this is maybe the best (my last favourite was "Dragons of Eden").
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Journey into the Earth's Past
Review: No, this is not a heavy duty textbook and no it is not "all inclusive." It is not written for the expert in biology or evolutionary science. It is, however, a wonderfully facinating book for those interested in the development of life on this planet. At times, it seems, there is a bit too much of the personal within its pages, and this prevents it from being a five star book, but it nevertheless is well worth reading. One will come away from it with a much greater appreciation of life on earth and our place in the scheme of things. The author does a wonderful job in presenting the "story of life" in one short volume.
Rating:
Summary: DRY BUT INTERESTING EXPLINATION OF ORIGIN OF LIFE
Review: OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE AND THE SUPPORTING FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES. THE AUTHOR ADMITS GREAT GAPS IN THE FOSSIL EVIDENCE AND DOES NOT HAVE ANY EXPLINATION FOR SUCH BASIC EVENTS AS THE DEVELOPMENT OF EYE SITE, WINGS, ETC. THE BOOK IS INTERESTING AS FAR AS IT GOES BUT STILL DOES NOT BEGIN TO ANSWER THE WHY AND HOW OF EVOLUTION.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Overview of the History of Life on Earth
Review: Richard Fortey has almost done the impossible, describing in vivid,
elegant prose, the history of life on Earth in a mere 322 pages. Yet I
fear he gives too cursory a treatment; one which have benefited
immensely from including additional drawings, diagrams, and perhaps,
photographs, offering readers more visual insights on Planet Earth's
rich biological history. Among his finest achievements are his
excellent descriptions of cladistics as an important methodological
tool for classifying animal species and higher taxa (The best I've
read in popular science literature so far.), the role of plate
tectonics in influencing the history of life, dinosaurs, and the
terminal Cretaceous mass extinction which killed off non-avian
dinosaurs. Although his professional specialty is invertebrate
paleobiology, Fortey does an admirable job describing the conquest of
the land by plants and arthropods and the terrestrial reptilian and
mammalian faunas which follow. I also commend his frequent insights
on the history of paleontology, offering interesting vignettes which
give readers an inside look on paleontology as a profession. He opens
with an introductory chapter about his graduate education that ought
to appeal to anyone thinking of pursuing paleontology as a
vocation. It's cast in vivid, exciting prose that could be drawn from
the pages of a bestselling thriller. Yet there are some major
omissions. Fortey dismisses or ignores the important contributions of
University of Chicago paleontologists David Raup and the late Jack
Sepkoski in transforming paleontology into a more rigorous,
statistically oriented science. And he ignores major contributions
from other important American paleontologists such as Niles
Eldredge (However, he does cite Eldredge in his
bibliography.)", George Gaylord Simpson, and Steven M. Stanley, to
name but a few, in favor of those from Great Britain. Judging from
Fortey's comments, you might think that Stephen Jay Gould was the most
important 20th Century American paleontologist. So anyone who thinks
that this is simultaneously an excellent history of paleontology and
an elegant history of life will be sadly mistaken. Despite its
numerous flaws, I do recommend Fortey's book, as the most succinct
overview of the history of life on Earth yet published.
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