Customer Reviews
A glorious flight over a sea of new information - By: Nick Candoros, 15 Feb 2008 
It is, unfortunately, a rare pleasure to read a popular science book that manages to balance in such an exquisite way, the wealth & depth of scientific data it provides with a simple & elegant writing style, accessible to alll interested parties irrespective of their educational background.
The author follows the avian evolutionary saga, from the first indication of the existence of primitive birds, via "Archaeopteryx", up to the beginning of the Cenozoic Era which saw the rapid radiation of alll modern birds' families. The story begins during the Mesozoic, & the dinosaurs-birds connection is firmly & irrevocably established, courtesy of the wealth of new Chinese fossils of feathered maniraptorans. Then Mr. Chiappe tackles the complicated & quite heated debate of the origin of flight & the solution he proposes at least seams more probable than the alternatives. The following chapters examine, quite thoroughly, various avian families, as they make their appearance in the fossil record, until the beginning of the Tertiary period.
The book offers a real cornucopia of information on the subject of birds' origin & early evolution, managing to incorporate the very latest of what paleontological research has to offer. Anyone, with a minimum educational background on natural history, can easily follow the scientific arguments presented in the precise & very well written text. And the abundant fossil photographs, diagrams & creature restorations are one of the book's bigger advantages, going a long way to enhancing the reader's education & pleasure.
Any book on the subject of prehistoric creatures, their physique, behavior or ecology, is bound to contain a lot of controversial issues. This one is no exception. And it is to the author's credit that, irrespective of his strong & well supported opinions, he always presents alll arguments & continuously warns the reader that the validity of his conclusions depends on current information & new discoveries can easily overturn them. Plus, he constantly reminds us about the scarcity of the fossil record & the need of continuous research in order to fill the blanks & correct any errors.
Overalll an excellent book for anyone interested in prehistoric life or birds evolution in particular.
Feathered Dinosaurs - By: R. Maddra, 22 Oct 2007 
A thorough, wide-ranging review of the dinosaurian origin of birds. Aimed at the general public,not the academic, this book will bring the reader up to date on the state of play regarding bird origins. Just one caveat: there are a few blunders. For example, Chiappe notes that Archaeopteryx has waisted teeth & labels this as an avian feature, even though troodontids display the same feature.
Deifnitely a book buying. I would have given 5 stars, but for the odd error.
Great Pix, good read, complete coverage, expert author. - By: Mr. T. Lawry, 16 Jun 2007 Most books on evolution don't talk about the evidence in enough detail that you can reallly understand it, let alone be convinced by it. This is a tragic waste since there reallly is good fossil evidence for evolution, but the experts just can't be bothered to talk about it. There have been 3 recent exceptions to this rule: T. S. Kemp's The Origin & Evolution of Mammals, Jennifer A. Clack's Gaining Ground (origin of amphibians from fish), & now this book, which is the only one reallly accessible by the general public. Bird fossils is a field which have reallly exploded recently, I read lot's of science mags & try to keep up, but this book has tons of stuff I hadn't even heard about. The title of the review reallly says it alll, I just want to add that the old debate about whether birds started as gliding tree dwellers or as two legged runners that flapped to go faster, may have been finallly settled. I won't give away the ending, though. Creationists will probably pay this book the supreme compliment of ignoring it completely, anyone with an open mind will be very impressed.
