The Tyrannosaur Chronicles will engage the casual dinosaur enthusiast and the reader desiring in-depth explanations and bibliographic detail. Hone’s careful speculation, his clear prose and his occasional whimsy make this an illuminating and enjoyable guide to the lifestyle of everyone’s favorite theropod.
Mr. Hone does a good job of explaining the long odds against a carcass becoming fossilized in the first place and the astronomical odds against the skin and other soft tissues being preserved. For paleontologists to rediscover and make sense of an entire superfamily of extinct species across tens of millions of years seems nearly miraculous ... At times, Mr. Hone becomes too focused on the details and neglects to bring aspects of the story to life. It’s intriguing to know that tyrannosaurs had hollow, pneumatic bones. But his explanation of how the hollow spaces in the bones functioned as part of the respiratory tract left me baffled ... this book is a useful introduction to some of the most wonderfully terrifying animals ever to walk the Earth.
...the chief strong point of his book is how earnestly it puts substance ahead of flash; The Tyrannosaur Chronicles is much more than just a celebration of the most charismatic of dinosaurs – it's also an in-depth look at what we know about them, and how we know it ... general readers will find this book a wealth of research and detail very unlike the typical popularist look at dinosaurs – indeed, sometimes it's a bit dauntingly detailed ... The Tyrannosaur Chronicles presents scientific investigation as a thrilling combination of discovery and informed guesswork.
