In this book Baxter tells the tale of the rise and fall of human kind as a series of snapshots into the lives of various members of the human evolutionary lineage. From Purga, first of the primates, scurrying between the legs of dinosaurs shortly before the Chicxulub impact through to Ultimate, the last, scratching out an existence on a neo-pangea, 500 million years hence. I found this a thoroughly entertaining read, if not a terribly uplifiting one (there are no happy endings here), and is one of the best books I have come across in a long while. If I were forced to level criticism I might suggest that it is in places overly anthropomorphic. Also, that some of the themes, from the first half of the book in particular, are slightly repetitive, but I guess one could argue that the fundamentals of life generally boil down to a handful of criteria; eat, don't be eaten, reproduce etc... Overall though I would thoroughly recommend this. Great storytelling from a great storyteller.