Yet another of the myriad of "history of life" pop-science books, I think what makes this particular one stand out are the auto-biographical elements interspersed with the scientific topics. Without these elements, the book would have been fairly generic, despite Fortey's readable and engaging writing style.

Many other books cover the same ground scientifically, most significantly of the books I have read being Don Prothero's Evolution: What The Fossil's Say And Why It Matters, and Nick Lane's Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. Both of these books cover the science in more detail, as well as with more depth, than Fortey's book. They are also much more up to date. Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything incorporates the history of science and biographical elements in a much greater depth than Fortey, and with an element of humor that Fortey usually lacks.

There was one other issue that bothered me continually as I was reading. Fortey constantly refers to such things as the "chain of life", the "ladder of evolution", higher and lower animals, and so on. While this may be a popular science book, that does not mean that the author should incorporate what amounts to lay-audience mistaken conceptions of how evolution works. Perhaps Fortey felt that a popular science book was not the place to address such philosophical issues, but plenty of other authors do so without much issue. There is no "chain of being", and there are no such thing as higher and lower animals. These are holdovers from the 19th century. Fortey should know better.

I really wanted this book to be better, and while it certainly isn't bad, it falls short of the other books I mentioned. It wouldn't be the first thing I would recommend to someone who was interested in learning about the history of life, paleontology, or evolution. There are better options. That said, if you are already well acquainted with the science, it's worth reading for the insights into how science is conducted by scientists, as well as the vivid descriptions of past ecosystems and organisms.