Rating: 
Summary: The Making of a Paleontologist
Review: After Michael Novacek wrote _Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs_, a very successful non-specialist account of his fossil-hunting expeditions in Mongolia, he found that readers told him that they especially enjoyed his descriptions of the expeditions and life in the field, perhaps even more than the substantial paleontology he included. With that in mind, he has now written _Time Traveler: In Search of Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals from Montana to Mongolia_ (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), which does not scrimp on scientific information, but still consists mostly of stories about how paleontologists do what they do. Interested in fossils even as a boy, in graduate school he got interested in extinct insectivores, which are now represented by hedgehogs, shrews, and moles, but which were much more diverse in the past. Novacek admits that these aren't the showiest of ancient animals: "they might be more aptly called vermin than beasts." But in an evolutionary sense, they have vast importance; from such shrewlike creatures came rodents, bats, elephants, whales, and of course, humans. He shows us what sort of work he has done on the creatures, and why it has been important.The book's main attraction is his stories of field work all over the world. They are told with good humor, and occasionally with forgiveness. He starts as a novice, worried that the graduate students are going to play tricks on him, and eventually ends up leading expeditions himself, to Baja, Mongolia, the Andes, and Yemen. Reading these tales makes one realize that there truly must be a fantastically strong appeal for this sort of work, if Novacek still likes it after all the difficulties he experienced, from mildly irritating to potentially lethal. "Our hands were swollen and blistered from swinging sledges all day, and our backs were sore from cradling heavy plaster blocks as we climbed the steep slope back to the vehicles. The work was hard. But I liked the routine, I felt useful; we were a chain gang in the service of science." There are a few tales worthy of Indiana Jones, like how his party is ominously detained by the militia in Yemen. In the Andes, he is tangled in the stirrup of a horse and dragged down painfully, temporarily ruining his legs. He is bitten in the groin by the world's most deadly scorpions in Baja. He discovers that a desert can bloom into swarms of insects denser than that in a rain forest because they are attracted to sweat. There are bar fights. Shrapnel from a colleague's hammer on a specimen severs one of his arteries. "As some of my college mates would say, 'It's a lot of trouble for a few old bones.'" Novacek's animated tales and explanations of how he has done his work give genuine insight into his passion. He has included lots of real science here about plate tectonics, evolution, and much more. For those who never graduated beyond childhood dinomania, it will tell them what they missed. Best of all, this book ought to be in the hands of young people who are in the thralls of such enthusiasm, for in its pages are revealed what it is really like to be a paleontologist.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling Account of Fossil Hunter
Review: After reading Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs (Dr. Novacek's vivid account of his Mongolian expeditions), I was eager for more. Happily, Time Traveler does not disappoint and I devoured every page of this exuberant romp through the world of fossil hunting. Follow Novacek around the globe as he escapes a cave full of poisonous snakes, gets dragged over rugged mountains by a skittish horse, attends a rather curious party in the middle of Yemen, and, oh yeah, finds some incredible fossils along the way. His adventures as a paleontologist are sure to inspire anyone, young or old, to travel to the far corners of the globe in search of the past and the present. The illustrations and especially the maps are extremely useful, and always seem to pop up right when you need them. Although the book focuses primarily on Novacek's expeditions, he takes great care describing in layman's terms the scientific ideas behind his pursuits. I would recommend this to anyone with a taste for adventure - especially those who fear there is nothing left to discover on our planet. Time Traveler is sure to excite both armchair and professional explorers alike.
Rating: 
Summary: The travels began in childhood
Review: And so does Novacek's book. So right away we know that TIME TRAVELER is not merely a recounting of paleontological studies. They certainly remain as one of the main topics of discussion and the trips to Mongolia, Yemen, and Chile read like adventures rather than scientific expeditions. Interwoven throughout is Novacek's personal story and recollections. There was nothing to indicate that the ten year old who was "more of a Beaver Cleaver type than a young Indiana Jones" would eventually go on to become one of our foremost paleontologists. Novacek recounts a fairly normal, middle-class life, growing up in suburban Los Angeles. His admission that he "liked crawling around in the dirt and mud, turning over rocks, and looking at things through binoculars and microscopes" is however insufficient evidence of a budding scientist. Didn't we all do the same? The difference perhaps is that when the opportunity arose to loose himself in the world of girls and music, Novacek remained enthused with the fossilized world. His enthusiasm is still there and it's captivating. The thrill he gets from discovery, the joy of the outdoors, and the sense of adventure are all reminiscent of our own simple childhood pleasures. Novacek's willingness to share these feelings with us and the writing style which enhances it, makes this a very refreshing reading experience. It's not all fun and enjoyment however. He tells of illness and infections, insect bites and stings, and injury. Deadly places and dangerous people provided their own challenges. Science remains the serious subject connecting all the personal stories and travel adventures. As such Novacek delves into current topics in paleontology such as extinctions and loss of biodiversity, continental drift, and dinosaur and mammalian evolution. In the debate about the origins of birds he comes down firmly on the side of a dinosaurian origin. He adds his own support to the view that dinosaurs are not extinct by saying "the survivors were of course birds." On another subject where the majority of recent writers are in agreement (Bjorn Lomborg excepted), Novacek agrees that the loss of biodiversity is a critical issue. Near the end he offers a view that is far from cheerful and refreshing and as such jangles with the joie de vivre which characterized so much of the book. His statement that "paleontology should not be the only biological science in the future - the science of a dead planet" is no doubt informed by a life spent in realities of science.
Rating:
Summary: The Making of a Paleontologist!
Review: Entertaining snapshots of the author's worldwide journeys in search of bones, rocks, and all that other stuff of the dinosaur business. Growing up within shouting distance of Los Angeles's La Brea tar pits, Novacek (Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs, 1996), now curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, got bitten early by the dinosaur bug. In the late '60s, rather than follow the other members of his rock band to Woodstock, he signed on to a fossil-finding expedition with UCLA zoologist Peter Vaughn, who had jumped from the Permian to the Pennsylvanian eras (a hop of more than a hundred million years) to track down some "really neat" amphibians. This exercise in "time tripping" was all it took to hook Novacek, who himself had found a few really neat fossils on family vacations in Wisconsin and the Grand Canyon. Subsequently employed by various colleges and then the AMNH, he has spent the last four decades wandering in and out of such places as Yemen, Tierra del Fuego, and the Gobi Desert, hunting for the sometimes big, sometimes scary life forms of the distant past. Armchair travelers will enjoy Novacek's account of such venues, while would-be paleontologists will benefit from his picture of how fieldwork is conducted, breezily unfolded across a span of many anecdotes about expedition-mounting in unpredictable circumstances amid perils that range from runaway trucks on Mexican cliff faces to rabid Arabian dogs and dancing Chilean belles. For Novacek, though, any difficulties have been offset by his profession's payoffs, which include both advancing science and allowing him "to see extraordinary places and people in a world that, even during my few decades of field exploration, has become less exotic and more intimately entwined." A real pleasure for dinosaur buffs
Rating: 
Summary: I fell asleep reading this book.
Review: I had an extremely hard time getting through this book, which very much surprised me. I had read another book by Michael Novacek, which was quite good and a book I would recommend, "Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs." His current book "Time Traveler" really misses the mark. I think the main problem, is that Mr. Novacek is a Paleontologist, and a quite good one I should add, but he's not a very exciting writer. He has chosen to write about all his experiences in the feild, from the very beginning of his career and sometimes that's just not very interesting. I was bored because even Mr. Novacek sounded like he was bored in describing some of his early field excursions. He writes much more about his dangerous run-ins with the locals, than he does about the fossils he is out to find. As a matter of fact, he seems to find very little in the way of significant fossil material throughout the whole book. Other than his trip to Mongolia, which he has already written about in his previous book, I found nothing I thought was worth writing about. I guess the bottom line for me is, I highly respect Mr. Novacek as a Paleontologist, I just think he wasn't very excited with the material when he wrote this book and it shows. I am therefore afraid I cannot recommend this book. I would like to recommend a book that I have recently read, that I think is very good. "Dragon Hunter" by Charles Gallenkamp. This is adventure and excitement at it's greatest. You won't fall asleep reading this book
Rating:
Summary: A Wild and Wonderful Journey...
Review: I picked up Time Traveler completely on a whim the other day. Normally I am a reader of fiction and poetry, but the cover caught my eye and I decided to take a chance on a scientific writing. Was I surprised? Yes. Thrilled even, by the fantastic, ebullient style, the interesting tales and the creative manner in which Dr. Novacek integrated science and adventure. For the most part you'll
feel like you're reading a great novel, then you remember that all of the events really happened and the author is here to tell the tale... his brushes with death are numerous and never fail to get the heart pounding (a great workout in itself!!) Best of all, I came away with a basic scientific understanding of the expeditions themselves - how to pick a location and the reasons why certain fossils are (or aren't) found there (I can't wait to start
searching in my own backyard!) The geography of remote places like the Chilean Andes and Yemen is clarified by maps interspersed throughout the book. Dr. Novacek writes in a way that presents information to the novice and the professional alike - and the reader is left neither confused nor thirsting for more... A great read whether you're in the biz or not.
Rating:
Summary: On the trail of wonderful and odd creatures
Review: It's easy to see why Michael Novacek became a paleontologist. His enthusiasm for bits and pieces of animals that thrived millions of years ago -- not to mention his patience for scraping these out of rock and soil under often harsh conditions -- is contagious. This engaging and informative book follows the author on his adventures from the canyons and buttes of the American West to stormy Patagonia in Chile and far into the Gobi desert. Alternating between reminiscences of adventure (or misadventure) and descriptions of some of the wonderful and odd creatures of old, this book is a captivating account of one man's mission to explore the variety of life that once was.
Rating: 
Summary: A life in the field...
Review: Michael Novacek must be a very interesting person, judging from "Time Traveller," which he describes as "a book not about a life, but about a life in the field." Starting from his childhood in California, he relates the story of his start as a young paleontologist (moving from a background as an indifferent student and an unsuccessful rock musician) working in the American West and Baja California. Most of the digs take place in unpleasant locations, fraught with heat, scorpions and dreadful food. As he moves up the academic ladder, the digs become much more exotic and he heads out to Patagonia (where it is cold and windy instead of hot and accidents with horses can happen, but the food is still of varying quality), then to Yemen (where there are not even any interesting fossils to make up for the sheer awfulness of the place), Mongolia and Argentina. It appears that extreme physical fitness is a prerequisite for those wishing to enter this profession. The major fault of the book is that it appears to be written backwards. The last chapters, focussing on the extremely important discoveries made in the 1990s in Mongolia, are fascinating and move quickly. They appear to come from another, and better, book. When he writes of the importance of palaeontology and the fossil record, his prose is powerful and almost poetic. But the earlier chapters seem to meander, a collection of anecdotes about his childhood, working in the field, a bit of this and a bit of that. One has the impression that Dr. Novacek is a bit of a scatterbrain, unable to focus his attention--Looky! Old rocks! Insectivore jaws! Bikini babes! Look! Fossil fish! Ancient teeth! Yemeni bandits! Look! Picturesque Chileans! That Roy Chapman Andrews-what a guy! Hey, look! We've been in Mongolia for ten years! The chapter on Yemen is particularly odd. It describes in great detail all the problems involved in working in this near-medieval country, the dangers and the heat, but the only scientific finding is that there is really not much there to interest a paleontologist. Nonetheless, in the next chapter he writes about possibly putting together another expedition to go back, until he is distracted by Mongolia. Is this a thirst for derring-do, in the style of Andrews? His attempt to write "popular science" often feels clumsy but cannot hide the fact that many of his discoveries are significant and have contributed to many serious scientific debates. I particularly liked his writing about how the Mongolian dinosaurs may have died. Originally accepting the idea that they were buried in soft sand, he carefully describes recent work by geologists that suggests instead that heavy rains resulted in mudslides that caught the animals in the gullies where they lived. It is clearly and elegantly expressed and ultimately helps make this book worth reading. It probably would be a better book with less rock-smashing and more such thoughtful analysis.
Rating:
Summary: A life in the field...
Review: Michael Novacek must be a very interesting person, judging from "Time Traveller," which he describes as "a book not about a life, but about a life in the field." Starting from his childhood in California, he relates the story of his start as a young paleontologist (moving from a background as an indifferent student and an unsuccessful rock musician) working in the American West and Baja California. Most of the digs take place in unpleasant locations, fraught with heat, scorpions and dreadful food. As he moves up the academic ladder, the digs become much more exotic and he heads out to Patagonia (where it is cold and windy instead of hot and accidents with horses can happen, but the food is still of varying quality), then to Yemen (where there are not even any interesting fossils to make up for the sheer awfulness of the place), Mongolia and Argentina. It appears that extreme physical fitness is a prerequisite for those wishing to enter this profession. The major fault of the book is that it appears to be written backwards. The last chapters, focussing on the extremely important discoveries made in the 1990s in Mongolia, are fascinating and move quickly. They appear to come from another, and better, book. When he writes of the importance of palaeontology and the fossil record, his prose is powerful and almost poetic. But the earlier chapters seem to meander, a collection of anecdotes about his childhood, working in the field, a bit of this and a bit of that. One has the impression that Dr. Novacek is a bit of a scatterbrain, unable to focus his attention--Looky! Old rocks! Insectivore jaws! Bikini babes! Look! Fossil fish! Ancient teeth! Yemeni bandits! Look! Picturesque Chileans! That Roy Chapman Andrews-what a guy! Hey, look! We've been in Mongolia for ten years! The chapter on Yemen is particularly odd. It describes in great detail all the problems involved in working in this near-medieval country, the dangers and the heat, but the only scientific finding is that there is really not much there to interest a paleontologist. Nonetheless, in the next chapter he writes about possibly putting together another expedition to go back, until he is distracted by Mongolia. Is this a thirst for derring-do, in the style of Andrews? His attempt to write "popular science" often feels clumsy but cannot hide the fact that many of his discoveries are significant and have contributed to many serious scientific debates. I particularly liked his writing about how the Mongolian dinosaurs may have died. Originally accepting the idea that they were buried in soft sand, he carefully describes recent work by geologists that suggests instead that heavy rains resulted in mudslides that caught the animals in the gullies where they lived. It is clearly and elegantly expressed and ultimately helps make this book worth reading. It probably would be a better book with less rock-smashing and more such thoughtful analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the scientist author's excitement
Review: Michael Novacek's Time Traveler is an undeniably an excellent and informative survey of the scientific search for ancient mammal and dinosaur remains around the world. Chapters include plenty of paleontology but also capture the scientist author's excitement as he participates in digs which reveal new information about these early creatures.
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