Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

Thomas Halliday

Feb 2022 · Sold by Random House

About this ebook

“Immersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth—from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago.”—The Economist

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE • “One of those rare books that’s both deeply informative and daringly imaginative.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Prospect (UK)

The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page.

This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life. 

Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history.

Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.

Ratings and reviews

Traveling backward in time, this book creates glimpses into worlds that existed thousands or millions of years ago. It shows us moments when dramatic change was underway—all these transition helping to create the Earth we live in today. The order in which the story is told makes it more poignant. Instead of a triumphant march from a barren planet to the rise of humans, it creates more of a sense of how magnificent each of these worlds was in their own right. Humans were not the end game. And yet, as the epilogue points out, we've reshaped the Earth to meet our needs. Humans are so good at exploiting resources, we've left little behind for other species. That's not something to be ashamed of—that's evolution. But if we don't become better skilled at taking care of our fragile ecosystem, we could soon reshape the Earth in ways that don't serve us. That's the ultimate message of this book. It's a warning but also an expression of hope. Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I have read many popular books on paleontology. This is the only one that describes the whole of each place in time. I could visualize the land, the water, the plants, the animals and feel like I was there. I highly recommed this book.

About the author

Thomas Halliday is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist. He holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, and is a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum. His research combines theoretical and real data to investigate long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. Thomas was the winner of the Linnean Society's John C. Marsden Medal in 2016 and the Hugh Miller Writing Competition in 2018.