Zeraph M. reviewed on 10/30/2013

This was a really terrible book. It was barely edited and contained grammatical and spelling errors. The continuity was poor, the chapters didn't bear much resemblance to each other in terms of content, and the text didn't flow comfortably from one chapter to another. It appears to be a hastily assembled account of an unfinished excavation that has been pieced together with other information about dinosaurs and paleontological practices. The text jumps from bare-bones basics of paleontology to extremely detailed and poorly explained technical information.

For someone who is a dedicated dinosaur nerd, this book does have value. It details the ways in which skin impressions and soft tissue fossils contribute to paleontologists' understanding of how dinosaurs lived and what they looked like. It discusses in great detail the technical aspects of excavation, including building 3D maps of a dig site, blanketing a fossil for transportation, the importance of doing critical work in controlled lab environments, the use of sophisticated scanning equipment, and the process of building steel support structures for lifting a fossil. It contains some limited information about hadrosaurs.

However, this book is not likely to be interesting to someone who's looking for a nice, interesting read on a topic they only have a casual interest in. It is boring, uneven, and lacks the type of personal flair and color that might have otherwise elevated the narrative and increased readability.

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