Luis Chiappe

Dry. Dry as the Patagonian desert that held the treasures uncovered by a series of palaeontological digs at the tail-end of the twentieth century, but interspersed by the revelations of new findings about cretaceous creatures in the same way that the digs were struck by flash floods.

The story is well told and well structured, and is kept to a decent length that prevents it becoming boring. I could have stood a bit more detail on the work done back in the laboratory, which - although perhaps not as entertaining as the stories set under the baking sun (and pelting hailstones, and dangerous lightning strikes) - is where the real graft is done, I'm sure. The descriptions of the results show that this was an incredibly important piece of work that was being done, but somehow the wonder and enthusiasm just doesn't come through. This is groundbreaking stuff, and I'm sure in the right hands this story could have been a best-seller that fired the imagination of a whole generation of future palaeontologists, but as it is, it's just a 'textbook' (as my father described it).

Still, it's a book I'd recommend for those who are into popular science, and the story it tells must represent a landmark in the study of dinosaurs.… (mehr)