All Yesterdays---A Very Intriguing Book

[suspsy]

http://io9.com/5965389/a-book-that-will-make-you-question-everything-you-know-about-dinosaurs

How did dinosaurs look? The only way any of us know is from looking at images created by paleoartists, people who specialize in imagining extinct creatures by studying their skeletons. The problem is that skeletons only tell us part of the story, revealing little about layers of body fat, skin type, coloration, and behavior. Now, a new book called All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals — half science, half-science fiction — offers us a radical new way of looking at dinosaurs, based on contemporary scientific speculation. We have an incredible gallery of the paleoart from the book.

Written by paleoartists C.M. Kosemen and John Conway, with an introduction by renowned paleontologist Darren Naish, All Yesterdays is the kind of wonderful, provocative thought experiment that only exists at the nexus of science and art. The book corrects a lot of misconceptions from famous dinosaur art, such as work by Charles Knight, and then heads off into new speculations based on all the "unknown unknowns" of paleontological reconstruction. As Naish writes in the book's introduction:

It should be noted that there are some disagreements at the level of reconstructing skeletons and musculature, and that improvements and tweaks are frequently being made. We mostly agree on the positions of muscles, for example, but the sizes of some of the muscles involved are variable in living animals and there is sometimes no reliable way of determining their size in fossil animals . . .

We have little to go on, but what we know suggests that, yes, integumentary coverings may have effectively obscured much of the underlying anatomy that we've worked so hard to reconstruct. Notably, dinosaurs found with soft tissues (namely skin impressions and feathers) are flamboyant. Feathered dinosaurs are not only covered in feathers (with feathering extending from the middle of the snout all the way to the tip of the tail and even down to the ankles or toes), they have especially long, showy feathers growing off their arms and hands, the end parts of their tails, and even (in cases) from their thighs, shins and feet. Fossil mammals with body outlines and fur show a thick halo of tissues surrounding the skeleton, meaning that the skeleton was deeply submerged and effectively invisible in the live animal, as is typically the case in modern species. We are therefore presented with a huge diversity of 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' – the gate is open for all manner of bizarre possibilities as goes the life appearances of fossil animals.

It is these speculative possibilities that John Conway and C. M. Kosemen have explored in this book.

Palaeontologists and palaeoartists talk about these sorts of ideas all the time-about the possibility that extinct animals were insanely flamboyant, that they had super-sized genitalia, or that they were insulated from the cool or even cold environments they sometimes inhabited by fat, thick skin, or fuzzy coats-but this is the first time ideas of this sort have been extensively discussed in print . . .

Those ideas are pretty nifty. Personally, I'm not so sure Leaellynasaurua had sheep fur, but I like the look. The randy Stegosaurus isn't so farfetched, as male animals in heat do sometimes attempt to mate with females of other species. But it's the illustrations of the baboon, cow, and cat that are the most thought-provoking. What would our interpretation of these animals be like if we only had fossils to work with?

Would we give an elephant skull a trunk if no one had ever seen a real one?

[tyrantqueen]

Ewww, definitely not a book for me then. Pass

[Patrx]

I've been wondering when someone would bring this book up! Top of my Christmas list this year, this. From what I've been reading on various blogs and such, this book is really revolutionary - representing the next major shift in palaeoart. Personally, I hope these ideas really catch on. No more skin-and-bones reconstructions, no more bloodthirsty prehistoric goblins where real, flesh-and-blood animals should stand in all their great complexity and absurdity. 

[Gryphoceratops]

I have yet to see it in person but it looks like a really fun book.  I hope not to many people bash it for the wrong reasons.  Its mainly supposed to make us really consider how much it is that we still don't know (and may never know) about long extinct animals.  Supposedly there is a furry iguana in there too haha. 

[Gwangi]

I'm really interested in this book but why does Amazon only have a Kindle version? 

[Patrx]

Fear not, a paperback version does exist!

[Takama]

If only it were Hardcover

[Gwangi]

Fear not, a paperback version does exist!

Thanks. Quite the price tag though. More expensive than "Dinosaur Art" with a soft cover and fewer pages. I'm not happy about this.

[Himmapaan]

Fear not, a paperback version does exist!

Thanks. Quite the price tag though. More expensive than "Dinosaur Art" with a soft cover and fewer pages. I'm not happy about this.

You must have had a very good deal with Dinosaur Art to have got it cheaper!

But it should be pointed out that All Yesterdays is a self-published book by the authors, rather than it having been taken up by a commercial publisher, hence the greater expense. The earnings made from selling books like these seldom do more than cover the expenses of publication to begin with, if the book isn't a smash hit success. It's why there's an electronic version, and why it isn't in hardback.

[Gwangi]

Fear not, a paperback version does exist!

Thanks. Quite the price tag though. More expensive than "Dinosaur Art" with a soft cover and fewer pages. I'm not happy about this.

You must have had a very good deal with Dinosaur Art to have got it cheaper!

But it should be pointed out that All Yesterdays is a self-published book by the authors, rather than it having been taken up by a commercial publisher, hence the greater expense. The earnings made from selling books like these seldom do more than cover the expenses of publication to begin with, if the book isn't a smash hit success. It's why there's an electronic version, and why it isn't in hardback.

I got "Dinosaur Art" for $20 on Amazon. I understand what you're saying though and for that reason I'll probably end up getting it...after the holidays...with Christmas money.

[Himmapaan]

Wow, that was a good deal! 

This book will be worth everyone's while, if you have an interest in palaeontological art at all. It might even be considered as a movement towards a paradigm shift.

[paleofreak]

I'm really interested in this book but why does Amazon only have a Kindle version? 

Has anybody bought the Kindle version? I'm considering it. Do the illustrations look good? Thanks.

[wings]

...Do the illustrations look good?...

Depends on what you like really, the book is mainly illustrated by Conway and Kosemen. You can find some samples of their works here (http://johnconway.co/palaeo and http://nemo-ramjet.deviantart.com/gallery/).

[dinohunter000]

Yes the Kindle version works beautifully

[suspsy]

Well, I received the book for Christmas and I can say that it is quite, quite enjoyable. A few spelling errors here and there, but that is pretty common when a book is self-published. The real attraction is the art. My favourite dinosaur pictures are the slumbering Tyrannosaurus rex, the Therizinosaurs that look like pine trees, the mud-rolling Camarasaurus, and the Stegosaurus attempting to mate with a young Haplocanthosaurus.

But the coolest section is hands-down the last one, which features all the freaky renditions of existing animals. If you think the baboon, the cat, and the cow in the article look weird, you should get a load of the swans, the hippo, and the sperm and bowhead whales!

[Brontozaurus]

I got this book for Christmas.

This book kicks arse. It's honestly one of the most thought-provoking books on palaeontology that I've ever read, because it makes it really obvious how bound we are by 'traditions' when it comes to palaeoart. There's the fluffy Leallynasaura, yeah, but there's also things like sleeping Tyrannosaurus and a beautiful painting of a Tenontosaurus which is not being devoured by Deinonychus.

If anything, All Yesterdays is the reason I spent a lot of time drawing Aerosteon with an inflatable throat display.

[Himmapaan]

I meant to post this but forgot: here are the videos of the talks given by the authors at the launch. Enjoy.

[Sharptooth]

Best dinosaur book of the last 10 years?

Well, i've yet to buy it and read it, but for what i've seen or read on the net it's definitely worth every penny... Finally a book which tries to get past the memes of the last 20 years of paleoart and it does with an helluva lot of style and competence (and as a guy who LOVES etology, well, another reason to buy this book)!

One of the must buys of '13 for me 

[paleoferroequine]

This book is right up my alley.. I got it in the Nook version.  I don't have a Nook but I have the Nook app for PC and Android tablet. Problem is that on both all the illustrations are cut in half or are cut in half and repeated. .  Fortunately I can read it with a Firefox web app and it displays properly.  Still kind of annoying.  But great book. 

Look, spiky bits.

[Sharptooth]

That Trike is badass!