HD-man's Serious Dino Books/Dino-Related Reviews!

[HD-man]

My 96th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

Feduccia does NOT represent most ornithologists ( www.amazon.com/review/R2EWZH9WUPG03A/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8
): 1/5

Short version: If you want a good "understanding of avian and flight origins" for the enthusiast/the specialist, read Pittman/Xu's Pennaraptoran Theropod Dinosaurs: Past Progress and New Frontiers. Unlike Feduccia's Romancing the Birds and Dinosaurs: Forays in Postmodern Paleontology (henceforth RB), the former is peer-reviewed, open-access, high quality, & NOT fundamentally flawed.*

Long version: Read on.

Similarly to Feduccia's Riddle of the Feathered Dragons ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3474612358 ), I originally wasn't sure if I should bother reviewing RB. To paraphrase JD in the "My Jerks" episode of Scrubs, "I'm so tired of [his] attitude, and I'm tired of [his] ignorance. It's the same thing year after year. I'm just... Tired." However, I then read Naish's "My New Book: Dinopedia from Princeton University Press", in which it's stated that "we shouldn't ignore [Feduccia's] view as anti-scientific rhetoric (even if it is): this stuff has been faithfully reported in the popular press and has had a major influence on public and scientific thought." In this review, I try to sum up RB's fundamental flaws, mostly focusing on the Feduccia quote (which, yes, is that bad).**

1) In my Riddle review, I said that Feduccia "fails to understand the methods he criticizes (Cladistics)". As indicated by RB in general & the Feduccia quote in particular, not much has changed since 2012. More specifically, contra what he says, cladograms aren't tested "by additional cladograms", but "according to new evidence and analyses. If someone disagrees with a particular result, they can sift through the collected data to see if an inappropriate trait was included, an essential organism was left out, or if there was some other problem. Cladistics is useful not because it results in a perfect reflection of nature each time, but because it allows researchers to effectively examine, test and improve ideas about relationships" ( www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaurs-of-a-feather-19984209/ ). Similarly, he also fails to understand what a scientific consensus is (See the "Historically," part of the Byrne et al. quote).

2) As indicated by the Witton quote, Feduccia clearly uses the Galileo Gambit (AKA the Galileo Fallacy) to compare himself to Einstein.

3) As indicated by the Byrne et al. quote, what Feduccia calls skepticism is actually denialism. Furthermore, Feduccia clearly uses selective quotation to make it look like Sagan agrees with his & Olson's "healthy skepticism". This is very problematic in 3 major ways: 1) He & Olson incredulously reject "the bird-dinosaur link, despite the literal thousands of fossils and hundreds of studies that evidence the origin of birds among theropod dinosaurs" ( https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-to-spot-palaeontological-crankery.html ); 2) He conveniently ignores Sagan's acceptance that "the birds are almost certainly the principal living descendants of the dinosaurs" (See The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence); 3) He inconveniently ignores his & Olson's "common allies with creationists like the Discovery Institute" ( https://qilong.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/really-again-youve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me/ ), which take away from their credibility as sources.

4) In Chapters 17 & 21, Feduccia claims that "the intuitively facile arboreal or trees-down"/"maniraptorans as avian descendants" hypothesis is "preferred by ornithologists"/"the preferred hypothesis of myself and others". Said claim is not only undercut by his "consensus is not science" argument, but also false.*** According to Flocking Around (which is "from a group of bird experts"), Birdbooker Report (which "is edited by[...]evolutionary biologist and ornithologist" GrrlScientist), & the Ornithology Exchange (which is "by ornithologists, for ornithologists"), the following are the "top recommendations for[...post-1997...]ornithology textbooks", all of which accept that birds are theropod dinos (hence the title of this review):
-Maclean's Ornithology for Africa: A Text for Users on the African Continent.
-Proctor/Lynch's Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function.
-Unwin's The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation.
-Lovette/Fitzpatrick's Handbook of Bird Biology (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).
-Morrison et al.'s Ornithology: Foundation, Analysis, and Application.
-Gill et al.'s Ornithology.
-Scott's Essential Ornithology.
-Faaborg's Book of Birds: Introduction to Ornithology.

*In reference to "high quality", it's written by "49 experts from 10 countries whose views cover much of the current discussion on this topic."

**By "fundamental flaws", I mean scientifically. Don't worry, RB's illustrations (I.e. It's "grainy-as-heck photos": www.goodreads.com/review/show/3498568626 ) & writing are also very flawed. More specifically, there's a staggering amount of weird syntax (E.g. "Too, in many of the so-called "feathered maniraptorans," the outer and middle fingers are united structurally[...]"), repetition, sometimes even in the same sentence (E.g. "When I first saw a specimen of Microraptor in Beijing, I thought it had all the earmarks of[...]a gliding trunk climber and glider"), typos (E.g. "Gong back in time, following Yalden's earlier studies[...]"), & misspellings/wordings (E.g. "Scansoriopterids"; Should read: "Scansoriopterygids").

***Said claim is also undercut by his non-explanation of how he reconciled his "years[...of...]arguing that dromaeosaurs are completely unlike and unrelated to birds" with suddenly arguing "that dromaeosaurs are birds that are extraordinarily convergent with theropod dinosaurs" ( https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/120/2/550/5562001 ).

Quoting Feduccia:

Vertebrate paleontology has created a theory-laden approach governed by strict adherence to the cladograms generated. Once the cladogram is accomplished, it is inappropriately "tested" by additional cladograms, and there is very little room for dispute. Aside from the inappropriateness of testing a cladogram with another cladogram (see chapter 6), the field has generated innumerable "fantastic" proposals, and despite extraordinary claims, the field appears impervious to criticism. Astronomer Carl Sagan perceptively noted: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," but importantly, he also cautioned that extraordinary claims require skepticism and imagination, both. "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." However, most importantly, "Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations."9 Commenting on the alarming recent claims of the field, and adding to Sagan's admonishment, distinguished Smithsonian curator Storrs Olson commented: "Healthy skepticism is the most powerful tool of science and should be cherished as a welcome anodyne to the complacency of certitude."10
Although the current paleontological view of bird origins is ruled by consensus view, we must be constantly open to new ideas. Consensus is not science, and science is not consensus! In 1931, there was a 104-page pamphlet entitled "100 Scientists Against Einstein" ("Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein"), signed by 120 German physicists to overthrow Einstein's theory of relativity. In response, the great one replied: "Why 100 authors? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough."

Quoting Byrne et al. ( https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMED13B0931B/abstract ):

Identifying which of these two terms best describes someone's attitude turns on whether they reject a generally accepted view based on a `high threshold' for acceptance of conclusions in general, or from a preference that the conclusion in question be false. In most cases, denialism manifests in disregard and mistreatment of evidence, including selective quotation, credulous endorsement of bad sources and incredulous rejection of good sources. Historically, current accepted views became dominant as alternatives were excluded and arguments supporting current views accumulated. The accumulated record of evidence and successful application of those views sets a high bar for proposed alternatives to them. Pure skeptics may refuse to endorse generally accepted views without rejecting or distorting the strong evidence for those views, and typically support policy responses based on the implications of that evidence. But deniers who reject scientific conclusions reject the evidence for those views while endorsing views that a true skeptic would regard as less plausible and well-supported than the accepted views. Thus motivated cognition is the key to defining denial. Pascal's famous argument for belief in God illustrates the problem: even assuming God's existence to be extremely improbable, the expected value of believing is far higher than the expected value of disbelieving. But Pascal's argument undermines its own methodology: without reasons to rely on beliefs as reliable guides to successful action, cost-benefit calculations cannot be justified at all.

Quoting Witton:

9. The Galileo Gambit
Another major red flag common to all cranks is their frequent comparison between themselves and scientists who received establishment pushback against their ideas - Wegner, Galileo, Darwin and so on. The folly of the Galileo Gambit is well established and we needn't outline it in detail here, it will suffice to point out that invoking these big names is clear evidence of self-belief in their own abilities against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Note that scientists making genuine research contributions never use this defence when proposing ideas they know will cause upset or controversy. If you see someone comparing themselves in this way to a historically persecuted scientific figure, there's a very good chance they're a dyed-in-the-wool crank.

[HD-man]

My 97th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

Mostly good, part 5 ( www.amazon.com/review/RD4XGQKSGOJDO/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 4/5

Is Kuether's The Amazing World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Journey Through the Mesozoic Era (henceforth AW) mostly good? Yes. Is it mostly good enough for me to recommend reading it on its own? No. That said, I do recommend reading it, but in conjunction with Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved. In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is, besides the lack of expert consulting.

1) There are several weirds bits of text throughout AW (E.g. Contra the "Editorial Reviews" excerpt, leaf-shaped teeth are for fine chopping, not cropping; Also, Deinocheirus was a non-ornithomimid ornithomimosaur: www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-World-Dinosaurs-Illustrated-Mesozoic/dp/1591936454 ), especially in the introductory chapter:
-For 1, it begins with a misleading Einstein quote (See the Greenberg quote).
-For another, it's claimed that "in the Crystal Palace sculptures, dinosaurs are depicted as gigantic, lumbering, sprawling lizards"; That's not right (See the 1st Naish/Barrett quote).
-For yet another, it's claimed that "all of this research doesn't tell us how dinosaurs behaved or how they interacted with their environments or with the other animals in their ecosystems[...]For that, we need our imaginations"; Not only is that not right (See the 2nd Naish/Barrett quote), but it contradicts the previous paragraph (E.g. "We can examine isotopes stored in fossilized bones and estimate how much time an animal spent in water and what it ate. We can identify fossilized pollen grains contained in coprolites[...]and determine what plants they ate"; As you can see, this is also a good example of oddly-repetitive writing).

2) There are several weird bits of writing throughout AW (E.g. "The Pteranodons[...]"; Also, see reason #1 above).

3) Remember what I said about Kuether's Earth work (See reason #3: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3982395800 )? The same goes for his AW work.

Quoting Greenberg (See Art in Chemistry, Chemistry in Art):

Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the earth." He saw and experienced the power of imagination. He did not mean that knowledge is unnecessary; it just does not have the scope of imagination. This is how I see it: Knowledge stirs imagination. Imagination needs knowledge as a springboard.

Quoting Naish/Barrett (See Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved):

The group of animals that we today call dinosaurs was first recognized scientifically during the 1840s. At this time, British anatomist Richard Owen proposed that three large fossil reptiles, all from southern England, shared features of the hip region lacking in other reptiles. The animals that possessed these unusual features were all large, and the key features that Owen regarded as important showed how their bodies and limbs were specialized to carry great weight. He essentially regarded them as 'super-reptiles'[...]as reptiles that, in contrast to the mostly small, sprawling reptiles of modern times, resembled giant mammals like elephants and rhinos. Owen named them dinosaurs, a name meaning something like 'terrible reptiles', but with 'terrible' intended to mean 'awesome'.

Quoting Naish/Barrett:

It would be wrong to imply that the fossil record is completely silent on these issues. Enormous numbers of dinosaur eggs and nests are known, revealing much about dinosaur nesting and breeding behaviour, and cases where juveniles are preserved together with adults reveal glimpses of parental behaviour. Variation present within certain dinosaur species can show us how the sexes or growth stages differed and hence what sort of social structure was present. And bite marks and injuries show where dinosaurs interacted with predators or members of their own species.

[HD-man]

My 98th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

What's the purpose? ( www.amazon.com/review/R11GF639RIK8M4/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 1/5

When I 1st saw Jackson's The Magic School Bus Presents: Dinosaurs: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series (henceforth Magic), I thought something like, "What's the purpose?" In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.

1) Despite its title, Magic has almost nothing to do with the OG series: For 1, it's neither authored by Cole nor illustrated by Degen; For another, only characters from the TV series are included; Furthermore, all their looks (illustrated by Bracken) are based on the TV characters, yet all their dialogue is interchangeable, in which case, what's the purpose of focusing on a core cast?

2) While the OG series has an actual story, Magic is just a bunch of stuff happening in no particular order, yet it's formatted just like the OG series (I.e. With a small amount of narrative main text & lots of informational sidebar text). In other words, what's the purpose of "a nonfiction companion" that reads like a lesser version of its fictional counterpart?*

3) The OG series never needed "a nonfiction companion", especially 1 as textually/visually bad as Magic:** For 1, as mentioned above, most of its text is informational (& thus, nonfiction); For another, it lists the American Museum of Natural History, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, & the Museum of the Rockies as sources of "helpful advice and consultation" (& thus, more info).

*In addition to the interchangeable dialogue, the writing is annoyingly redundant (E.g. On page 15, 1 sidebar reads "A hadrosaur's crest[...]would have made the dinosaur's calls sound much louder", & another reads "A hadrosaur's crest might have been used[...]for making loud calls")/simplified (E.g. 1st, see the 1st Jackson quote; Then, see reason #1 in my review of Schwabacher's book: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3492121242 )/weird (E.g. See the 2nd Jackson quote; Where else would one eat meat other than from bodies?; Also, why "T. rex ate by scavenging [AWA] hunting"?; Why not "T. rex scavenged [AWA] hunted"?).

**In reference to textually, see the Jackson quotes, the 2nd of which is especially bad for how much it gets wrong about living animals (I.e. "The biggest sharks alive today" are whale sharks, which don't bite at all hard, let alone that hard; Hyenas aren't "the animal with the strongest bite today", nor are they just "a scavenging animal"). In reference to visually, the paleoart consists almost entirely of poorly-photoshopped stock photos of inaccurate, cheap-looking CG dinos (including Dinoraul's, which aren't even the worst ones) depicted in inappropriately-modern environments (E.g. Grass, grass everywhere, even in the Jurassic).

Quoting Jackson:

How did dinosaurs become fossils? by Carlos
To become fossilized, an animal must be buried soon after it dies. Many of the dinosaurs we have fossils for drowned in mud or were buried in rock falls. The soft parts of the body, such as the skin, rotted away, but the harder bones and teeth stayed buried for millions of years. The sand or mud around the bones turned to solid rock. Water trickling through the rocks washed away the bones, leaving minerals in their place. Eventually, a bone-shaped stone was formed — a fossil!

Quoting Jackson:

How hard could T. rex bite? by Dorothy Ann
Scientists believe Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any animal that has ever lived. They think it may have bitten three times as hard as the biggest sharks alive today.
The animal with the strongest bite today is the hyena — a scavenging animal that eats meat from bodies. It uses its strong jaws to crack through bones. Dinosaur experts think that T. rex ate by scavenging as well as hunting.

[HD-man]

My 98th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

What's the purpose? ( www.amazon.com/review/R11GF639RIK8M4/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 1/5

My negative review was down for a while, but it's back up now.

[HD-man]

My 99th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

A series of dino-related events ( www.amazon.com/review/R2PGR6JLPSI52Y/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 5/5

Remember what I said about Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs & The Age of Dinosaurs ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/4708284320 )? Tanaka's Graveyards of the Dinosaurs (henceforth GD), while not a natural history per se, is similar in that it combines field stories with day-in-the-life stories, but in ways that work better. In this review, I list those ways.

1) GD begins with a Prologue describing Roy Chapman Andrews, whose "story inspired many young paleontologists to continue his adventure[...&...]discover some remarkable things not only about how dinosaurs died, but about how they lived" (I.e. The overarching theme of GD). GD then continues with 3 middle chapters, each of which begins by describing a paleontologist (I.e. Norell, Currie, & Sereno, all of whom consulted on GD), his then recent discoveries, & how they connect to GD's theme. My only related gripe is a few weird bits in the writing (E.g. On page 38, it's stated that T. rex is "more advanced than both Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus", but not explained how).

2) Each of GD's middle chapters ends by telling a day-in-the-life dino story based on that paleontologist's then recent discoveries (I.e. Oviraptor, Centrosaurus, & Herrerasaurus). This reminds me of how "Evolving Planet" is laid out, but with the paleontologist descriptions being the "homework" parts of the middle chapters & the dino stories being the rewards (See the Ben quote). GD then ends with an Epilogue describing the end-Cretaceous extinction, how the earth & its life changed over time (which helps put the stories in context), & 19 "[then] new dinosaur finds around the world". I especially like that it includes a reminder that dino-related knowledge is important not just for knowledge's sake (See the Tanaka quote).

3) GD is mostly illustrated by Barnard, Hallett (E.g. See the front cover), Sibbick, & Skrepnick: The paleoartwork of Hallett, Sibbick, & Skrepnick is great at using "balance, composition, perspective, and color in concert with factual information to create riveting images of the past that capture the interest and imagination of a very wide audience" (See Lanzendorf's Dinosaur Imagery: The Science of Lost Worlds and Jurassic Art: The Lanzendorf Collection); Barnard's GD work, while overall not as good as the others', is still mostly very good; In fact, some of the former reminds me of the latter in terms of balance/composition/perspective/color, differing only in degree; I especially like Barnard's Oviraptor on page 15 ( https://chasmosaurs.com/2022/03/10/vintage-dinosaur-art-graveyards-of-the-dinosaurs/ ). My only related gripe is McMaster's diagrams & maps (E.g. His Oviraptor on page 13 looks like a sock puppet with Barnard's Oviraptor colors).

I recommend reading GD in conjunction with other, more recent books, especially Chuang/Yang's Age Of Dinosaurs (which tells day-in-the-life Oviraptor, Centrosaurus, & Herrerasaurus stories that are mostly accurate by modern standards).

Quoting Ben ( https://extinctmonsters.net/2015/01/14/framing-fossil-exhibits-a-walk-through-time/ ):

Visitors are more focused and more inclined to read signs carefully early in the exhibit, so the developers used the introductory rooms to cover challenging concepts like the origins of life and the mechanisms of speciation. This is the "homework" part of the exhibit, and the narrow corridors and limited sightlines keep visitors engaged with the content, without being tempted to run ahead. Once visitors reach the Mesozoic and the dinosaurs, however, the space opens up. Among the dinosaur mounts, visitors are can choose what they wish to view, and in what order. This serves as a reward for putting up with the challenging material up front.

Quoting Tanaka:

In the end, it is not the fact that dinosaurs are gone that interests so many people. What fascinates us about dinosaurs is the way they lived. They were peaceful browsers and vicious killers. They looked as weird as aliens and as familiar as garden lizards. They grew to almost impossible sizes, with killing claws and teeth more frightening than any horror movie has shown us. They thundered over the land, preyed on each other, ate monstrous amounts of vegetation, yet somehow left the earth intact for 165 million years. No wonder we think they may have something to teach us.

[HD-man]

My 100th review for this thread (Happy 100th! Yay!) is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

A messy mess ( www.amazon.com/review/R241X2Q5ASLSNL/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 2/5

Compared to Tanaka's Graveyards of the Dinosaurs ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/5592564589 ), her New Dinos: The Latest Finds! The Coolest Dinosaur Discoveries! (henceforth ND) is a messy mess of a dino book. In fact, if I didn't know better, I wouldn't think they're by the same people (I.e. Written by Tanaka, illustrated by Barnard, & consulted by Currie). In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.

1) Unlike GD, ND is only illustrated by Barnard. This wouldn't be bad if his ND work was good like his GD work. Unfortunately, it's not even close. This is especially apparent in "But I Don't WANNA be a Hypsilophodon!" ( https://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2011/04/but-i-dont-wanna-be-hypsilophodon-lets.html ): For 1, his downy feathers look more like stringy doll hair; For another, his Thescelosaurus has too many claws & concentric rings;* For yet another, his Masiakasaurus is just plain abominable (I.e. Besides the above problems, look how misshapen & disproportionate its head is compared to the actual skull).

2) Unlike GD, ND is very unorganized, not even having a table of contents. It doesn't help that, also unlike GD, ND's overarching theme is very lacking (I.e. It's basically just, "Look at all these cool new dinos!").

3) Unlike GD, ND is hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight. This is especially apparent in "Hunting for Dinner": 1st, see the Tanaka quote; Then, compare it to "Predation in T. rex and other theropods" ( https://reptilis.net/DML/1994Nov/msg00148.html ).**

*To be fair, his GD animals also have too many concentric rings, but not to the same degree. Also, said rings aren't as noticeable in the nicer, more atmospheric environments of GD.

**On a related note, there are also weird bits of writing in ND (E.g. "Grabbing AND kicking the prey with its hind limbs"?; That doesn't make any sense!).

Quoting Tanaka:

Hunting for Dinner
Meat-eating dinosaurs probably adopted one of three hunting techniques used by carnivores today. Some, like Utahraptor, might stalk prey (like a cat after a mouse), step by step: (I) with its long tail stretched out behind for balance, (2) at the right moment the raptor would pounce forward, (3) grabbing and kicking the prey with its hind limbs and disemboweling it with its enormous claws.
Other dinosaurs, like Suchomimus, might suddenly lunge for prey like a crocodile, biting down quickly on the neck or back.
Dinosaurs like Velociraptor may have chased down prey, like a cougar after a deer, jumping up again and again to weaken the quarry before the final kill.

[HD-man]

My 101st review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

1 of my favorite dino art books ( www.amazon.com/review/R351M1OTCN3NML/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8
): 5/5

Do you love Conway et al.'s All Yesterdays (henceforth AY) &/or anything by Charles Knight? If so, then I recommend reading Witton's Recreating an Age of Reptiles (henceforth RA) in conjunction with "Mark P. Witton's blog". RA is 1 of my favorite dino art books, along with Willoughby's Drawing and Painting Dinosaurs: Using Art and Science to Bring the Past to Life (which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/5246729180 ). In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why that is.

1) RA is basically a spiritual successor to AY, beginning with a Preface that more-or-less continues where AY leaves off, most apparently when Witton says that "our knowledge of fossil animals continues to swell, but greater knowledge does not always bring greater clarity". In fact, in the same paragraph, he says to see AY for a discussion "of recent, compelling observations that our traditional palaeoartistic approaches can fail to produce animals consistent with those of modern times". Furthermore, Witton later describes it as "a tome[...]devoted to discussing informed speculation in palaeoart and an essential read for anyone interested in the artistic portrayal of extinct life", which is also a near-perfect way to describe RA, as you can see in "Recreating an Age of Reptiles - book launch video" ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc__NnW1V9Q ).

2) Witton himself is basically a modern-day Knight, which is especially fitting given 1) AY's Introduction ("Both [GSPaul] and Bakker were inspired by Charles R. Knight's[...]discussions and depictions of animal anatomy[...]His book—Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists—should be obtained by anyone seriously interested in the subject"), & 2) the fact that Witton was "crowned [1 of] the Kings of Palaeoart" the same year that RA was published ( https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-great-2017-palaeoart-survey-some.html ). Furthermore, in reference to "Brontosmash!" on page 28, he says that it "owes a debt to Charles Knight, whose ability to produce murky, atmospheric palaeoart was truly first rate", which can also be said about Witton's ability, most apparently when you compare his sauropod paintings (especially "A mural for Dippy") to Knight's (especially "Brontosaurus, 1897").

[HD-man]

My 102nd review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

A not-so-grand tour ( www.amazon.com/review/R7A87XAX2YWOW/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 2/5

Pim's Dinosaurs―The Grand Tour (henceforth Tour) was originally published in 2013 as The Bumper Book of Dinosaurs. I hadn't read the whole thing then, but based on what I had read, I interpreted it as being like the NHM's "Dino Directory" in book form (I.e. Lots of good info, but also lots of outdated paleoart). Now that I've read the whole 2nd edition of Tour, I see that I gave it too much credit. In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why that is.

1) There's a lot of weird text (1) & writing (2) throughout Tour. This is especially apparent in the Pim quote:
-1) I'm specifically referring to Pangaea (which had already split into Laurasia & Gondwana in the Jurassic), "the first spikey-skulled ceratopsians" (which had already evolved in the Jurassic), carcharodontosaurs (which were already roaming South America in the Jurassic), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*
-2) I'm specifically referring to the missing commas ("In western North America tyrannosaurs[...]and on land the first flowers[...]"), the oddly-structured sentences ("The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies,[...]"), the hyperbole ("monstrous carcharodontosaurs[...]the most almighty bang..."), & maybe the part about tyrannosaurs.*

2) There's a lot of non-paleoart (1) & bad paleoart (2) throughout Tour:
-1) Less than half of the profiled dinos (I.e. 83 out of 195) are reconstructed.
-2) Many of Pastori's reconstructions are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions, just plain outdated/abominable, or some combination of both. This is especially apparent in his Dromaeosaurus/Scipionyx/Deinonychus/Velociraptor (which 1st appear on the 1st inside flap & then on page 4: https://web.archive.org/web/20230128093653/https://theexperimentpublishing.com/2015/04/these-dino-times-they-are-a-changin-by-keiron-pim/ ): For 1, they're shameless rip-offs of Klausmeyer's Deinonychus/McCreery's baby Velociraptor/multiple JP reconstructions/Rey's 90s Velociraptor, respectively;** For another, they have mostly scaly skin &/or bunny hands; For yet another, they have very misshapen & disproportionate body parts (which makes sense given that they're mostly based on the wrong genera). Yes, they're from 1999. However, even if you ignore the fact that other paleoartists were doing better work in 1999 & earlier, that wouldn't explain why his newer reconstructions also have the above problems. The most egregious example in Tour may be his Neuquenraptor from 2008, which shamelessly rips off Sibbick's "Deinonychus portrait, front" with the addition of colors & feathers.*** Not only is Sibbick's reconstruction very well-known (E.g. See Norman's Dinosaur!), but Neuquenraptor has been known to be an unenlagiine (& thus, very different looking from eudromaeosaurs like Deinonychus) since 2005.

*In reference to "maybe", is the problem more about text or writing?: On the 1 hand (in reference to text), Pim might mean that tyrannosaurs had both unrivaled brain-power & unrivaled bite-power; If so, that's not right (I.e. Maniraptoriformes had relatively larger brains & cerebrums); On the other hand (in reference to writing), he might mean that they had an unrivaled combination of brain-power & bite-power; If so, why not simply say that?

**By "multiple JP reconstructions", I mean the T. rex head, the Velociraptor body, & the Ultimasaurus colors/patterns.

***Speaking of colors, remember what I said about the Durantes's colors (See problem #3: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3877062213 )? The same goes for Pastori's (E.g. Compare the front cover T. rex to any of Rey's tyrannosaurids).

Quoting Pim:

No great extinction opens this epoch, only a geological trend that saw more chalk formed than in any other time within the last 500m years, which led a German geologist to name it the Kreidezeit or 'chalk period'. This term was later Latinised into Cretaceous; the limestone-rich Greek island of Crete owes its name to the same derivation. And so while Pangaea dispersed further, with the southern landmass of Gondwana splitting into something approaching the arrangement we recognise from today's atlas, the dinosaurs flourished, diversifying further into some of the most amazing forms to have inhabited Earth. The first spikey-skulled ceratopsians and bone-headed pachycephalosaurs evolved, while monstrous carcharodontosaurs roamed South America alongside the lithe and lethal abelisaurs and the immense herbivorous titanosaurs. In western North America tyrannosaurs became the most advanced meat-eaters known, blending a brain-power and bite-power both unrivalled among fellow land animals of their time. The warm seas teemed with ammonites, gigantic pterosaurs flapped through the skies, and on land the first flowers began to bloom. Mammals began their ascent, birds became established - and then it all ended with the most almighty bang... except that it didn't end, for we remain surrounded by dinosaurs to this day. Those that survived joined the mammals, fish, reptiles, flowering plants and trees to form the template for our present array of flora and fauna. As the terrestrial dinosaurs' world ended, the one that we recognise was just beginning.

[HD-man]

My 103rd review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

Another great Smithsonian book ( www.amazon.com/review/R22IC4CL8G4TG9/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 5/5

Remember what I said about Johnson/Stucky's Prehistoric Journey: A History of Life on Earth (henceforth PJ: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3517508327 )? The same mostly goes for Edgar's Smithsonian Dinosaurs and Other Amazing Creatures from Deep Time (henceforth SD), but even more so.* In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.

1) Both PJ & SD are published by natural history museums. However, as good as the DMNS is, the Smithsonian is 1 of the best dino museums ever ( www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-dinosaur-exhibits-in-the-world ). This is especially apparent in the Smithsonian's adult dino books (E.g. The 1st edition of Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, which is co-published by the NHM).

2) Both PJ & SD are very well illustrated with both photos of fossils & life reconstructions. However, as good as Greg Micheals's paleoart is, Csotonyi's is some of the best ever ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3500348586 ). I especially like the combination of the Smithsonian's Diplodocus mount & Csotonyi's "Smilosuchus gregorii hunting [early dinos] in the Late Triassic" on the front cover, which is a good way to show that 1) dinos are the most awesome land animals, but 2) they didn't start out that way.

3) Both PJ & SD have a chronological format (which, contra the "no narrative thread" claim of 1 Amazon Reviewer, is made pretty clear from the beginning: [See the Edgar quote] ). However, SD is better at distinguishing the different periods. This is especially apparent in the Triassic & Jurassic (which are lumped together into Chapter 6 in PJ, yet distinctly color-coded in SD).

*I say "mostly" because, unlike PJ, SD is for kids. On a related note, my only gripes are the lack of non-dino IDs/pronunciations & the lack of a glossary. More specifically, most of the bigger words are defined in the main text, but some aren't (E.g. "Climate" & "Climate change"), & some are only defined long after they're 1st used (E.g. "Mass extinction", which is 1st used on page 9 & defined on page 22).

Quoting Edgar:

Everyone likes a good story, and no story is grander than the saga of Earth and life on it. It's a very long tale—spanning over 4.5 billion years—but it features plenty of plot twists, scene changes, and a cast of amazing characters. Including you: your body contains traces of life's long journey across deep time, the billions of years from Earth's formation to today[...]This book takes you from the earliest Earth, just after the planet formed, through successive eras in time and turning points of evolution, up to the age of humans. From the viewpoint of deep time, climates and ecosystems constantly shift, and species come and go. Some groups, like the dinosaurs featured here, endure for vast stretches of time. Our species is still young, yet it is having a huge global impact that will influence the outcome of Earth's next chapter.

[HD-man]

My 104th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

A condensed natural history ( www.amazon.com/review/RYNJFTCGBFUHK/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 4/5

Holtz's The Little Giant Book of Dinosaurs (henceforth TL) is better than one might think based on the cover (which originally turned me off). In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why I think that is.

1) In my very 1st review, I describe Gardom/Milner's The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs as "the "Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries" exhibition in book form" ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3474599046 ). Similarly, I'd describe TL as Holtz's "GEOL 104 Dinosaurs: A Natural History" course (fall semester 2000) in children's book form. More specifically, TL covers all the same subjects (albeit MUCH more condensed) in almost exactly the same order.

2) In reference to "almost exactly", the only major differences are that TL 1) profiles ~60 dinos, & 2) mostly covers biology/ecology/behavior in the profiles. In other words, TL reminds me of Norell's The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3528027045 ), especially in terms of putting each dino in perspective ecologically & with its relatives (E.g. See the Holtz quotes).

At this point, you may be wondering why only 4/5 stars? For 1, there are several examples of misediting throughout TL (E.g. "All dinosaurs[...]are descendants of the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon or Megalosaurus"; Should read: "Iguanodon and Megalosaurus"). For another, most of the ornithischians & some of the theropods are depicted with wonky anatomy &/or a derivative look (E.g. The Gastonia reminds me of Sibbick's "Normanpedia" Euoplocephalus & even has an ankylosaurid head). Otherwise, TL is very good & I recommend reading it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved).

Quoting Holtz:

The first and most primitive known armored dinosaur, Scutellosaurus, was small, had a small head and short arms, and walked on its hind legs. It had hundreds of small armor plates or scutes covering its back and tail. If a small predator tried to attack it, the plant eater could curl up with its armored tail wrapped around its body. If the small predator tried to bite into its back or tail, it probably couldn't cut through the armor and might even break a tooth trying. All these small armor plates probably made Scutellosaurus slower than the other plant eaters that lived at the same time. The scutes would help against a small attacker, but if a bigger meat eater attacked, its much larger teeth and claws could probably get through. Something else would be needed to defend against these bigger predators.

Quoting Holtz:

Descended from Scutellosaurus or a similar dinosaur, Scelidosaurus represents the next stage in the history of the armored dinosaurs. Because little armored dinosaurs could not defend against larger predators, they had two possible ways to go. Either they could become faster or they could become larger and more heavily armored. Scelidosaurus is much larger than Scutellosaurus, and has much larger armor plates. Very few predators of its time could have pierced its thick scutes. Such armor came at a cost, however. A big animal with lots of armor plates was too heavy to run very fast. In fact, Scelidosaurus had so much armor that it probably had to walk on all fours all the time, rather than run around on its hind legs like Scutellosaurus.
From Scelidosaurus or its close relations came the two main branches of advanced armored dinosaurs: the stegosaurs and the ankylosaurs. The stegosaurs became more mobile, with a more active defense; the ankylosaurs became walking tanks.

[HD-man]

My 105th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

The best standalone story of life ( www.amazon.com/review/RNC87X5NKMCOK/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 5/5

If you want the best story of life for casual readers, get the Earth Before Us series (which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/4095195260 ) &/or Witton's Life through the Ages II: Twenty-First Century Visions of Prehistory (henceforth LA), depending on your preferences. In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why I think LA is the best standalone story of life, especially if you like Sampson's Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life (E.g. See the Sampson quote; Apparently, Witton is also "one of those people").*

1) Sampson's book takes readers on "an epic journey through time that[...begins with...]the foundations of the dinosaurian web, including the history of life and the diversity of dinosaurs, as well as the physical, ecological, and evolutionary processes that shaped the Mesozoic world". LA takes readers on a similarly epic journey, beginning with a similarly multi-part intro:
-The 1st part summarizes Knight's professional history & how it relates to LA, ending with a strong environmental message: "The early and mid-twentieth century had a vastly different view of human development, population, and our relationship with wildlife and natural environments. Growing realization about our shrinking, weakening biosphere necessitates a greater reverence for the natural world than was generally held in the 1940s, and this underscores the urgent need for its preservation[...]There has never been a more important time for understanding our place in the natural world, the evolutionary history that we are part of, and the way that organisms—including ourselves—shape the future of planet Earth." This message is apparent throughout LA, but especially closer to the end (E.g. In reference to Paraceratherium, "It is a sad fact that poaching will likely cause the final demise of the rhinocerotoid lineage, and quite possibly within our lifetimes").
-The 2nd part summarizes "the theories behind geological time, the relationships of organisms, and the paleoartistic process", & is illustrated with the geological timescale, "the general picture of life's evolution and the relationships of species on many specific branches", & a step-by-step of Witton's "methods and philosophy of reconstructing fossil animals", respectively. Said pic & step-by-step are especially noteworthy: For 1, as you may have noticed, too many dino/paleo books lack cladograms ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3528041425 ), including other story-of-life books ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/5950560092 ); For another, to quote Witton, "the paleoart process is not well known outside of a sphere of individuals with a keen interest in fossil animals, so it is worth outlining here to put the following illustrations in context."

2) To quote Sampson, "all science writing should follow Albert Einstein's dictum: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."" That's exactly what LA is. More specifically, LA is a perfect balance of in-depth & concise, providing just the right amount of technical detail without being too technical. Furthermore, there's "an appendix with notes about the paleontological data used in each image", including references to more technical sources "if more detail[...]is desired". "Paraceratherium, a Giant Rhinocerotoid" is an especially noteworthy example, given how complicated trunks are (I.e. See the Witton quotes; The 1st is from the main text, & the 2nd is from the appendix). My only gripe is several examples of misediting throughout LA (E.g. "As was discussed when we encountered the giant rhinoceratoid[...]").

*The paleoart is another main reason (which I discuss in another review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/5745771392 ). Speaking of which, my favorite part of LA is "Mesozoic Mammals" ( https://archive.ph/uY2Ws ): For 1, it reminds me of Kirk's 1989 work (I.e. A deinonychosaur is eating a mammal "against a beautiful sunset": www.goodreads.com/review/show/3748558779 ), but MUCH more up-to-date; For another, to paraphrase Witton, it's basically "a companion piece to[...Stout's "Mammals" essay, allowing...]for direct comparison of modern ideas with those of several decades ago" ( https://archive.ph/pahKh ); As you may remember, I reviewed Stout's book ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/4323522932 ).

Quoting Sampson:

Cultural historian Thomas Berry goes so far as to claim that much of our present crisis with the environment comes down to a lack of story. We currently do not have a compelling narrative that places humanity into a larger context, so our lives tend to lack a sense of meaning or greater purpose. No longer do we feel the awe, wonder, or sense of sacredness about nature typical of many preindustrial (and present indigenous) cultures. But what should the new story be? Berry's solution, supported by growing numbers of scientists, theologians, and educators, is the Great Story—sometimes called the Universe Story, the New Story or the epic of evolution—that begins with the big bang and traces our sinuous path to the present day[...]Some people view this narrative as the greatest triumph of the scientific revolution, as well as an opportunity to help heal the rift between science and religion and provide that much-needed sense of meaning and purpose. I am one of those people.

Quoting Witton:

Indricotherines are related to (or may be part of) Hyracodontidae, and they shared their gracility, short torsos, and long limbs. They would thus have been svelter than modern rhinos, and were probably relatively sprightly for their size. Indricotherines also had a reasonably long neck, though exactly how long remains to be determined: modern reconstructions still differ in this regard. Their skulls are well known and, though possessing powerful rhino-like jaws and massive teeth, they lack features we associate with the presence of rhinoceros horns. A further contrast with modern rhinoceros stems from indricotherine skull anatomy indicating a tapir-style proboscis at the end of their snouts. They likely used them to browse from trees, scooping vegetation into their mouths or stripping leaves from twigs. This may seem like a bold claim, given our lack of any fossilized indricothere soft tissues, but trunks and proboscises require significant reorganization of skull anatomy to house the demands of their musculature and nervous tissues, and we can identify these adaptations in fossil animals with well-preserved skulls.

Quoting Witton:

Numerous interpretations of Paraceratherium anatomy have existed over the last century, leading to reconstructions looking like scaled-up rhinos or robust-looking giraffes. Most recent literature seems to have found a middle ground between these two extremes, with a form resembling a gigantic, somewhat horselike creature. As noted in the main text, there is good reason to assume that Paraceratherium bore a short proboscis. Paul's (1997) skeletal was the primary anatomical reference for this painting, with some additional details taken from Prothero (2013).

[HD-man]

My 106th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

Why Jenkins, why? ( www.amazon.com/review/R39L728FLMLBKM/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 1/5

If you want good children's books about living & extinct predators, get Predator (DK Eyewitness Books) & Prehistoric Predators: The Biggest Carnivores of the Prehistoric World, respectively. Jenkins's Apex Predators: The World's Deadliest Hunters, Past and Present (henceforth AP) is not a good 1, not surprising given his other books ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3517518136 ). Obviously, there's the inaccurate, cheap-looking illustrations, but there's also the hit-&-miss text & the weird writing: Said text is especially apparent in "Apex predator face-off on land" ( https://archive.ph/cIBnG );* Said writing is especially apparent in "Deadly claw" ( https://archive.ph/xSyFU ).*

Getting back to the illustrations, this applies to both the living & extinct predators (E.g. The great white shark is all blue &, on page 7, has eyes where its nares should be). More specifically, the latter are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions, just plain outdated/abominable, or some combination of both. This is especially apparent in the non-bird dinos:
-The T. rex on the front cover & page 5 is a shameless rip-off of the Jurassic Park T. rex (which has been outdated since at least the 2000s).
-The Spinosaurus on pages 22-23 is a shameless rip-off of DK's current Spinosaurus (which has been outdated since 2014, shortly after it 1st appeared in DK's Dinosaur! (Knowledge Encyclopedias)).
-To say that the Utahraptor on pages 23 & 30 is just plain abominable would be an understatement. The best way I can describe it is as a poor man's version of "Aldrovandi's monstrous rooster" ( https://tetzoo.com/blog/2018/11/14/aldrovandis-monstrous-rooster-a-15th-century-dino-chicken ). Yes, Hartman's new-&-improved skeletal wasn't published until 2017, but the info WAS available to those who asked for it, as indicated by both Csotonyi's "Utahraptor attacking Hippodraco" & Willoughby's "The More Accurate Utahraptor" in 2014 (Google them).**

*In reference to text, it's claimed that "the big cat is probably smarter" (Probably not, for reasons discussed in another review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3524252165 ), that "Utahraptor can[...]slash with[...]its deadly claws" (Probably not, as indicated by Fowler et al. 2011), that Spinosaurus was a "land predator" (More like a semi-aquatic predator), & that it "could easily bite the big cat in half" (Probably not, as indicated by its weak bite). In reference to writing, why repeat the sidebar text in the main text? Why be so needlessly vague/generic about the pack-hunting & prey of Utahraptor?

**If you wanna support the research said skeletal is based on, I recommend googling "Utahraptor Megablock Fossil Project". I also recommend googling "Utahraptor Reconstruction Development by codylake".

[HD-man]

For those who haven't seen the "2/20/24 UPDATE":

I originally posted the following at deviantART ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/Review-update-1-5-789276373 ).

Hi everybody!

"My Serious Dino Books" used to be an Amazon Listmania! List ( https://blogevolved.blogspot.com/2013/03/introducing-hadiazmy-1st-listmania-list.html ), but then Amazon stopped doing Listmania!, so now it's a Goodreads Listopia List ( https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/198241.My_Serious_Dino_Books_Please_don_t_vote_or_add_books_ ). I've since updated previous mentions of said list accordingly (E.g. Finally, my 1st journal entry!, hence the title of this journal entry). This journal entry is just in case you haven't already seen said updates. 3 more things of note:

-1) I've also since updated the requirements for said list. They're basically the same, but more streamlined.*

-2) I've also since completed said list (Amazon stopped doing Listmania! before I could add Naish/Barrett's "Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved", among others). I like to think of it as a near perfect reading list, partly b/c of its requirements (which, to quote Dino Dad Reviews, are for "separating the paleo-wheat from the cheap-cash-in-chaff"), & partly b/c it consists of 30 popular adult dino books spanning 30 years to the month (I.e. October 1986-October 2016).

-3) I've also since noticed that the 1st & last 6 books on said list are surprisingly similar (I.e. There's a great natural history of dinos w/a terrible cover, a book titled "Flying Dinosaurs", another natural history of dinos that accompanies a dino doc series, & a book authored & illustrated by GSPaul). Funny how that worked out.

*E.g. What used to be 2 requirements is now 1: For adult "casual readers"/"the enthusiast" ( http://whenpigsfly-returns.blogspot.com/2008/04/paleo-reading-list.html ).

Cheers,
Herman Diaz

2/20/24 UPDATE: I've since replaced my Amazon Idea List (which, like Listmania!, Amazon inexplicably stopped doing🙄) w/a Goodreads Listopia List (which, on the bright side, allowed me to include more backstory😉).

[HD-man]

My 107th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

Mostly good, part 6 ( www.amazon.com/review/R3TKO2OYB6UKCU/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 4/5

As you may have noticed, I highly recommend Holtz's Dinosaurs ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3478213840 ), though not as much recently, given the lack of updates since 2015. When I 1st heard about Johnson-Ransom's Dinosaur World (henceforth DW), I was hopeful that it'd fill the void in high-quality, family-friendly dino references, given its coverage ("Over 1,200 Amazing Dinosaurs") & paleoart (which I discuss in another review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3500348586 ). Unfortunately, DW is lacking in the following ways, making it hard to recommend as a full-priced standalone dino reference.*

1) DW may be comprehensive in terms of genus coverage, but not in terms of info about each genus. I can understand wanting to minimize the wordcount (Quoting Naish: "Authors are virtually always writing to fit a limited space. They must keep to wordcount or their work will not be accepted"). However, as you can see in the preview pics, DW is less than minimal (E.g. Compare DW's Bonitasaura info to Holtz's: https://archive.ph/pTa23 ). The "Era It Lived In" parts are especially frustrating, given how easily they could be fixed. At the very least, DW's "Prehistoric Timeline" should include epochs like Holtz's "Geologic Time Scale" so that readers know what Early/Middle/Late means & thus when each genus lived (E.g. Late Cretaceous Bonitasaura lived between 100 & 66 MYA).

2) There are several weird bits of editing & writing throughout DW:
-In reference to editing, this is especially apparent in the profiles (E.g. "1.5 feet" for Kulindadromeus; Should read: "1.5 meters") & the double-page scenes (E.g. "The ankylosaurid"/"Ankylosaurids such as Edmontonia"; Should read: "The ankylosaurian"/"Ankylosaurians such as Edmontonia").
-In reference to writing, this is especially apparent in the Johnson-Ransom quote: For 1, that's not how "TLDR" is meant to be used (Google it); For another, why both "contains" & "this includes"?; Why not just "contains two prominent clades, Ornithischia[...]and Saurischia"?; For yet another, everything in between is a descriptive mess; I don't wanna be too hard on Johnson-Ransom though; He's still young & needs time "to find a conversational style that works when spoken aloud[...]perhaps unique to" him (See the Naish quote below).
-It's also worth mentioning the lack of a glossary, given how many times the same terms are defined (9 times for "cervical vertebrae", including twice on page 260).

In short, I recommend getting & reading DW if you can do so 1) at half price or less, & 2) in conjunction with Naish's work (E.g. Dinopedia, which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/4960975366 ), respectively.

*At least the title was changed from The Greatest Dinosaur Book Ever (which was WAY too superlative: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3512201621 ).

Quoting Johnson-Ransom:

WHAT IS A DINOSAUR?
 TLDR: Expect a lot of scientific terms and classifications!
 Dinosaurs were a diverse group of reptiles that came in variable shapes and sizes. Dinosaurs are also archosaurs, a clade (group) that includes birds (still-living dinosaurs) and crocodylians, which are living relatives of dinosaurs. Extinct archosaurs include dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and extinct relatives of crocodylians.
 When evaluating their phylogenetics—evolutionary relationships—dinosaurs are classified as avemetatarsalians ("bird feet"), a group of reptiles that includes dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
 Within Avemetatarsalia is Ornithodira ("bird necks"), archosaurs that transitioned from a quadrupedal (four-legged) to a bipedal (two-legged) posture. Ornithodira includes birds, other dinosaurs, and pterosaurs. Excluding the pterosaurs, birds and other dinosaurs are classified as dinosauromorphs, a slightly larger group. Birds are dinosaurs!
 Dinosauria contains two prominent clades. This includes Ornithischia ("bird hips") and Saurischia ("lizard hips").

Quoting Naish (See "ON BEING A SCIENCE WRITER": https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/publications/ ):

My own writing has improved following ruthless and sometimes blunt criticism from editors, colleagues and peers. My advice is to find a conversational style that works when spoken aloud and to know that writing rules we are taught - including those in word-processing software - ruin or derail things that work. Don't be afraid of complex sentence structure, provided you have broken the sentence into appropriate sections. Aim, however, to keep sentences and paragraphs short, and excise redundancy. Learn words and word combinations that are memorable, perhaps unique to you, and which successfully communicate a complex point or idea. And avoid late positioning of the subject within a sentence: critics will accuse you of using 'the passive voice'.

[HD-man]

My 108th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

Lazy lazy lazy ( www.amazon.com/review/R2CF3QF7ZYNK13/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 1/5

In the "There's No Ivy in Team" episode of Harley Quinn, Bane says, "I gave Ivy and Kite Man a very expensive pasta maker for their wedding, but they didn't get married! It's gauche to keep the gift", & Ivy says, "Yeah, and it's double gauche to ask for it back". Similarly, it may be lazy to reuse an old book review instead of writing a whole new 1, but it's at least double lazy to stick 2+ old books together & call it a new book. Minor tweaks aside (E.g. Adding "in the United States" to "in the forests of Utah"), Blasing/Woodruff's Dinosaur Encyclopedia for Kids: The Big Book of Prehistoric Creatures is just 4 older books stuck together, including Blasing's Dinosaurs! My First Book About Carnivores & Dinosaurs! My First Book About Herbivores (which, as you may remember, are terrible: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3877062213 ).

[HD-man]

My 109th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

My dream museum in book form ( www.amazon.com/review/R3VXVH7P882P8S/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 4/5

I may have been mistaken when I said that Aliki's dino books are "the best dino museum books for younger kids" ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3505618469 ). In this review, I list the 2 main reasons why I think Brenner's Dinosaurium (henceforth Ium) may be best & should be read in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Howard's Dinosaur Empire!, which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/4095195260 ).

1) Remember what I said about Michard's The Reign of the Dinosaurs ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3520821385 )? Similarly, Ium is like a cross between Aliki's Dinosaurs Are Different & Gardom/Milner's The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs:
-Like Gardom/Milner's book, Ium is a natural history of dinos with a day-in-the-life format.
-Like Aliki's book, Ium follows a group of visitors as they tour the museum & get up close to life-size dino models, but better because said models are placed in walk-through dioramas (as opposed to blank voids). As someone who loves surrounding myself with natural history in general & dinos in particular, a whole museum of said dioramas seems like a dream come true.

2) As you may remember, "I like looking at Braginetz's paleoart" ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3872018127 ). Her Ium work isn't as detailed & great as her Special Dinosaurs work, but is still thoughtful & pleasing. I especially like the "hall of ages" & "hall of feeding" landscapes ( https://chasmosaurs.com/2021/07/15/vintage-dinosaur-art-dinosaurium/ ).

At this point, you may be wondering why only 4/5 stars? Unfortunately, there are several weird bits of text & writing throughout Ium, especially in "dinosaur nursery" (See the Brenner quotes): For 1, the egg shell parts are very confusingly-worded (I.e. Only amniotes lay shelled eggs; With that in mind, Brenner probably meant to say, "fish, insects, and amphibians[...]These eggs all had no shells"; Furthermore, that page's diagram of "eggs with hard shells" includes a pond slider egg, which is actually soft shelled); For another, the Orodromeus part is not only misleading/wrong, but contradicted by that page's art (which depicts the babies as being under the protection of an adult).

Quoting Brenner:

An egg holds everything a baby creature needs to grow on. Early in the history of life on earth, fish, insects, and reptiles began to be hatched from eggs. These eggs all had soft shells, so they were easily broken or washed away. After a long time, reptiles began to lay hard-shelled eggs. Those eggs were a safer place for developing young.

Quoting Brenner:

Fossils of young hatchlings were found in the maiasaur's nest. This means that the mother must have brought food for the babies. In species such as Orodromeus, where the mother doesn't care for the young, the babies leave the nest right after they're born.

[HD-man]

My 110th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.

Not much to say about this book ( www.amazon.com/review/R3C6AGAJHZ61H/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 1/5

There isn't much to say about Jenkins's Dinosaurs: By The Numbers (henceforth DB) that I didn't already say in my reviews of Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3517518136 ) & Apex Predators: The World's Deadliest Hunters, Past and Present ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/6258535667 ), hence the title of this review. However, I will note the following things:
-As indicated by the Dilophosaurus on the front cover (For comparison: https://dinomuseum.ca/2019/04/the-real-dilophosaurus ) & the T. rex on the back, not much has changed since Jenkins's previous books. The main thing to note is that, like Pim's Dinosaurs―The Grand Tour (which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/5768799660 ), most of DB's dinos are just silhouettes, not actual reconstructions.*
-Unlike Jenkins's previous books, there IS a cladogram in DB ( https://archive.ph/OhtcS ). Unfortunately, it's a crazy mess of a cladogram for reasons that are best summarized in the 2018 version of Holtz's "Eggs Conquer the Land: Amniote Life Before the Dinosaurs" ( https://web.archive.org/web/20190528024005/https://www.geol.umd.edu/%7Etholtz/G104/lectures/104land.html ).
-It's also worth mentioning that a lot of DB's text contradicts itself (E.g. It's claimed that Velociraptor's top speed was 25 mph on page 14 & 40 mph on page 26; Also, it's claimed that the end-Cretaceous extinction killed 80% of animal species on page 32 & 75% on page 35).

*It's also worth mentioning that the silhouettes aren't even consistent. This is especially apparent with Velociraptor ( https://archive.ph/uaaVl ): Some of them are Jenkins's DB work; Others are Gabriel Lio's Dinosaur-world work ( https://web.archive.org/web/20060818150540/www.dinosaur-world.com/feathered_dinosaurs/velociraptor_mongoliensis.htm ); Still others are actually 1 of Sibbick's outdated Dromaeosaurus ( www.sciencephoto.com/media/420641/view/dromaeosaurus-dinosaur-artwork ).

[HD-man]

Better than their previous best ( https://www.amazon.com/review/R2YG8ZL43RYDFO/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 5/5

As you may have noticed, I usually review non-fiction books. That's because non-fiction books are more structured than other forms of edutainment (& thus, easier for me to review). However, I feel so strongly about Wild Kratts (henceforth WK) that I had to make an exception. In this review, I list the 4 main reasons why I think WK is currently 1 of the best (& few good) science/nature shows while using the "Raptor Roundup" episode (I.e. My favorite episode) as an example...

See "Review update #7 (Repost)!" for the rest of this review: https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/Review-update-7-Repost-1098355109

Not nearly as good as the original books ( https://www.amazon.com/review/R1A9PA105I2590/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): 2/5

As you may have noticed, I usually review non-fiction books. That's because non-fiction books are more structured than other forms of edutainment (& thus, easier for me to review). However, I feel so strongly about The Magic School Bus that I had to make an exception. In this review, I list the 4 main reasons why I think "The Busasaurus" (henceforth TB) in particular & the show in general isn't nearly as good as "In the Time of the Dinosaurs" (henceforth Time) in particular & the original books in general.

See "Review update #8 (Repost)!" for the rest of this review: https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/Review-update-8-Repost-1098450873

For those who didn't notice, I updated my 7th & 8th reviews. 4 more things of note:
-1) For those who haven't seen or don't remember TB:

-2) For better educational dinos from around the same time & channel😉:

-3) For all its faults, TLW still has more realistic herbivore behavior than does TB 🤪 (E.g. Compare TB's Triceratops to TLW's Stegosaurus:

).
-4) Obviously, TB's T. rex scene is very JP-ish, but it's also very JW-ish in a surprisingly-prescient way that I only just realized😮

[HD-man]

My 111th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Like"/"Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Like"/"Helpful" votes it can get b/c it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.

Happy 15-year anniversary! ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/6971603936 ): 5/5

As you may have noticed, I'm a big fan of Sampson's work in general & Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life (henceforth DO) in particular. In fact, DO has been so influential that I've used it as a basis for comparison in 5 of my reviews, including my very 1st review.* With that in mind, I wanna celebrate DO's 15-year anniversary by pointing you to said reviews & adding 2 more thoughts as well:
-1) DO "is a Natural History of Dinos & thus the best kind of non-encyclopedic dino book" ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3519227469 ). Furthermore, while not as recent as Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, DO still deserves to be listed as 1 of the best adult NHDs for reasons discussed elsewhere ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Top-4-natural-histories-of-dinos-758236511 ).
-2) As you may remember, there's "a multi-species scene by Skrepnick at the beginning of every chapter." While shrink-wrapped by modern standards, I love Skrepnick's art style for reasons discussed elsewhere ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/4968650005 ).

*Said reviews are of the following books:
-1) Gardom/Milner's The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3474599046
-2) Bonner's Dining With Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3507230419
-3) Hone's The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3510412805
-4) Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3522479251
-5) Witton's Life through the Ages II: Twenty-First Century Visions of Prehistory: www.goodreads.com/review/show/6242530008

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

I recently started reading a book called Otherlands, by Thomas Halliday, and I knew I had to recommend it to you. It's absolutely a must read in my opinion.