John R. Horner

This book was given to me by my father many years ago. Why? I'm not sure. I guess like most kids, I was into dinosaurs and earning about them, like animals. Maybe I was doing a report on them at the time. Either way, somehow I ended up with this book and I can't seem to remember how.

After finally reading this years later, I actually found this interesting. I think the time this was given to me it would be over my head. Needless to say, this book is actually an easy read. This was obviously written for the everyday person rather then a dinosaur-know-it all.

I'm still interested in dinosaurs I discovered. Maybe it's because I'm a duck owner I have an interest in learning all things ducks. Oddly, this book talks about duckbilled dinosaurs. That made me really happy. This book includes some nice (mostly black-and-white) images of the dinosaurs too. I can see they do look like ducks in someways.

Last year I read Jane Goodall and this book kind of reminded me of her book. I'm not really interested in science or science books, but when animals are involved, then I seem to be actually want to read science books.… (més)

This is a horribly written book. There is a ridiculous amount of completely irrelevant filler, a few interesting dinosaur bits and pieces that have nothing to do with the book title (and presumably subject) and then a magazine article length section on "how to build a dinosaur" by fiddling with chicken genomes, along with how the general public is going to freak out about it. The author spends the entire first chapter babbling about a town in the middle of nowhere, how to get there, local gossip and a bit of local history i.e. irrelevant filler. Then there is a section on finding evidence of dinosaur blood cells and collagen, with some pointless pot-shots at creationists (they might be crazy but do you really have to include it in the book, especially since it doesn't accomplish anything?), and too much details about the scientists personal life. The sections dealing with the techniques used was interesting, but there was too little substance and far too much filler. The writing is also simplistic but overly verbose, and got boring after a while.

NOTE: The book was published in 2009, so some of the scientific data discussed may well be out of date by now, especially anything related to genetic alterations.… (més)