Thomas Halliday takes us on a stroll back in time, 550 million years to be exact, leading us through the incredible landscapes of the Earth’s different epochs. Halliday’s beautifully immersive writing made it so easy to visualise the fauna and flora of each epoch, learning how different species would have interacted, what they would’ve eaten and where they would’ve lived.

In the introduction Halliday says he wanted the book to be read as a ‘naturalists travel book’ & he definitely achieved that much. It was as if he was writing as a time traveller, describing what he saw on his field trips to the Creataceous or the Silurian. 

It was wonderful to feel totally immersed in a world that has always felt so alien to me. I usually struggle reading books of this genre as they usually start at the beginning of life as we know it, the Ediacaran, working their way forwards to the present day. Otherlands however, goes in the opposite direction and I found that much easier to follow & visualise.

I think the magic of this book is how much detail is described about each species Halliday talks about, and the variety of species too. He talks of all forms of life, in all types of habitats. Mammals, insects, fish & marine mammals, birds, fungi, plants - even ferns, mosses, liverworts & lichens!

I must say it took me quite a long time to get through this book. I found it very slow to read, purely because of how much detail there was in each chapter. I wanted to take everything in and get the full experience, and it was definitely worth it - even though I had to speed read the last 90 pages before it was due back to the library…

On another note, reading this book led me to rewatching ‘Primeval’, the ITV series that aired in 2007. If you’ve seen it, let me know it is one of the best, most nostalgic British TV shows I watched as a kid - and if you haven't seen it, watch it, you will not be disappointed. Primeval was one of the things that first got me interested in dinosaurs & prehistoric creatures.