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A review by samporter
Otherlands: Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday

4.0

"As far as extinction is concerned, the absolute climate is not to blame, nor is the direction of change. It is the rapidity of change that is important. Communities of organisms need time to adapt - if too much change is thrust upon them at once, devastation and loss is the common response."

(Yes, I'm one of those people that incorporate quotations into Goodreads reviews now!)

Whilst this quotation is informative, jarring and relevant, Thomas Halliday's aim in Otherlands isn't to preach about the acceleration of human-induced climate change...yet my mind kept jumping to the thought when reading it.

Instead, Halliday takes us on an exciting journey through pre-history; starting from the Ice Age 20,000 years ago and leading us back 550 million years to the Ediacaran period. Halliday divides the book into chapters of about fifteen to twenty pages which each cover a specific pre-historic period and location. This creates a pleasant pace of reading and helps to break down a somewhat dense topic.

But Halliday's book is far from dense! His lively depictions of extinct ecosystems make the book feel more animated than an ordinary, non-fiction textbook. His narrations of the weather patterns, geography and flora and fauna of these eons gone by give the book a documentary-style feel. I especially enjoyed reading about the anatomy and behaviour of extinct organisms and, admittedly, found myself sometimes scanning over sections about geography (this has more to do with my personal interests rather than Halliday's writing). If you decide to read this book, I'd recommend searching up pictures of the flora and fauna described in each chapter so that you don't miss out on cool organisms such as this one!
What is hallucigenia? | BBC Science Focus Magazine
Hallucigenia (Source: Science Focus)

My other piece of advice to future readers of this book is to not get stuck on complicated scientific details. If there's something you don't fully understand then move on. Prioritise enjoyment! It worked well for me. Even just being able to comprehend the magnitude of time that existed before Sapiens is mind-altering. If you read this book and then follow it up with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind then you will be up to date with the timeline from life's beginnings on Earth until now - how cool!

I should also book-end my earlier comments on how this book helped contextualise my understanding of climate change. Halliday offers a great insight into current climate change issues in the epilogue of this book - it's not sensationalised, cynical or overly optimistic. Rather, it is grounded in the science of prehistory.

"Unlike past occasions when a single species or group of species has fundamentally altered the biosphere - the oxygenation of the oceans, the laying down of coal swamps - our species is in an unusual position of control over the outcome. We know that change is occurring, we know what will happen if it continues, we know that we can stop it, and we know how. The question is whether we will try."

(Shoutout to Sin for recommending and lending me this book) ♥