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Title: The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life
ISBN: 155407181X
Author:
Tim Haines
Paul Chambers
Publicate Date: 2007-01-19
Publish: 2007-01-19
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.96
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.96
Amazon Merchant Price: $16.47
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| Customer Review: |
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1: High Quality But Not Quite "Complete"...
This book is a terrific presentation of monstrous life-forms from Earth`s history, but contrary to the title is quite incomplete. The reason for this seems simple: the illustrations are captures of computer renders done for video documentaries (the results of which are compelling), which cost money and require professional specialized effort to produce. The scope of the book is therefore not as comprehensive as one would wish. A great number of creatures are covered however, and information is drawn from relatively/comparatively up-to-date sources.
The writ itself is also noteworthy in that it presents perhaps for one of the first times ever a fathomable (!) chronology of epochs for the layman. It is at least arguably one of the easiest such presentations to digest. Giganotosaurus is this reader`s most welcome entry, although the film-famous and size-comparable monster Spinosaurus Aegypticus is completely & utterly absent. This reader finds objection to the reference of the main of dinosaurids as "reptiles" given the fierce prior debate among experts and throughout the literature concerning proper classifications, which may prove to throw off purchasers of the book until one clues in to this approach. Still, the book is a terrific perusal. Exciting stuff.
I hope there is a truly *complete* edition coming to us in the future.
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2: "The Complete Guide To Prehistoric Life"!
The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life is a field-guide like book that contains (nearly) all the prehistoric creatures from the "walking with" series. This book is written by Tim Haines and Paul Chambers, both of whom had very influential parts in the making of all the programs.
This book is really fun to read, and contains just about every creature from the series, but there are a few missing. (some examples are the Mesothelae spider form "Walking with Monsters" and the Polar (dwarf) Allosaur from "Walking with Dinosaurs") This is rare though, overall it's a very complete volume.
The book is designed very well. The animals are listed chronologically throughout, starting from the Cambrian and up through the Pleistocene Epoch. (mya = million years ago)
Part One> The Rise of Life
- CAMBRIAN PERIOD (543 to 490 mya)
- ORDOVICIAN PERIOD (490 to 443 mya)
- SILURIAN PERIOD (443 to 417 mya)
- DEVONIAN PERIOD (417 to 354 mya)
- CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD (354 to 290 mya)
- PERMIAN PERIOD (290 to 248 mya)
Part Two> The Age of Reptiles
- TRIASSIC PERIOD (248 to 206 mya)
- JURASSIC PERIOD (206 to 144 mya)
- CRETACEOUS PERIOD (144 to 65 mya)
Part Three> The Age of Beasts
- PALAEOCENE EPOCH (65 to 55 mya)
- EOCENE EPOCH (55 to 34 mya)
- OLIGOCENE EPOCH (34 to 24 mya)
- MIOCENE EPOCH (24 to 5 mya)
- PLIOCENE EPOCH (5 to 1.8 mya)
- PLEISTOCENE EPOCH (1.8 mya to 10,000 years ago)
Each creature gets a page or two and at least one picture. The text is very interesting and the pictures are fantastic, as usual they look incredibly real! Many pictures are taken from other "walking with" books and the series, but many are new and they look great. There is also a lot of new info that isn't included in the programs, and makes this book hard to set down.
Although not quite 100% complete, still a very good addition to your "walking with" collection, highly recommended!
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3: Great text and great pictures
This book accompanies the Walking with Dinosaurs shows that appeared on BBC. I am not sure which came first, the shows or the books. But regardless, this book is great. Starting from the Cambrian explosion and ending with early humans, this book highlights numerous animal life forms over the past 600 million years; with an even balance of fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, arthropods, molluscs, and amphibians. Now echinoderms, coelenterates, medusa, or other "lower" life forms unfortunately. The book is broken up into several large chapters; each chapter covers a geological time period. Each chapter then focuses on several dozen key animals; each animal gets 1 - 2 pages of text + figures to describe it. All the figures are color; and the text is written with enough detail for the professional dinosaur buff, but easy enough for children to understand. The figures are wonderful, and look like digital photographs of real animals. The organization is great; and the book binding is also great. Overall, a great book.
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4: A Great Book
Note: My son wanted to review this book, but Amazon makes you buy something before you review. He's only 6, so I'm letting him use my log in. Here goes:
You should get this book because it shows all the prehistoric creatures from BBC's "Walking With" series. The pictures give me the feeling that I'm really there. It tells good information too. Everything looks realistic. It's the best book about prehistory that I've ever read. You can still tell what's going on just from the pictures.
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5: All about the book.
This is a great book. It features 111 of the animals from the BBC's famous "walking with" series. Unlike other books about prehistoric animals, it has realistic illustrations.
The "walking with" series is about prehistoric life that lived millions of years ago. It has many episodes. My favorite is Walking With Prehistoric Beasts which is about life in the Cenozoic era.
Though the book features most animals from the "walking with...." series it introduces a new specie called homo floresiensis. This human is not featured in any production of the walking with series.
The contents of this book are divided into the rise of life, age of reptiles, age of beasts, timescale of the earth and tree of life. The rise of life lists the creatures of the Paleozoic era. The age of reptiles lists the creatures in the Mesozoic era. The age of beasts lists the creatures in the Cenozoic era. Each chapter has great illustrations.
Most of the animals featured in the book are vertebrates. There were only nine invertebrates. Two of them are molluscs while the rest are arthropods.
The illustrations in this book are so realistic that in an illustration of a homo sapien, I knew exactly what the clothes felt like.
Everyone should get this book. It is a must for anyone who wants to collect books about prehistoric life.
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