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Henry Gee

Goodreads Author

Born

in London, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.averyshorthistoryoflifeonearth.com

Twitter

@EndOfThePier

Genre

Science, Science Fiction, Horror

Influences

Jorge Luis Borges, JRR Tolkien, Beatrix Potter, Arthur C Clarke, J R R ...more

Member Since

January 2018

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Henry Gee's next book The Wonder of Life on earth, illustrated by Raxenne Maniquiz, is out on 5 February 2026. His other books include The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth (winner of the 2022 Royal Society Science Book Prize) and The Science of Middle earth. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages. He is represented by Jill Grinberg Literary Management and lives in Cromer, England. ...more

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Henry Gee’s books

Average rating: 3.96 · 4,599 ratings · 764 reviews · 65 distinct works • Similar authors

	A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters 4.05 avg rating — 3,154 ratings — published 2021 — 40 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution 3.91 avg rating — 483 ratings — published 2013 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire: Why Our Species Is on the Edge of Extinction 3.67 avg rating — 354 ratings — published 2025 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Futures from Nature 3.50 avg rating — 177 ratings — published 2005 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life (Comstock Books) 4.02 avg rating — 102 ratings — published 1999 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Science of Middle-Earth: Explaining The Science Behind The Greatest Fantasy Epic Ever Told! by Henry Gee (Goodreads Author), David Brin (Goodreads Author) (Foreword by) 3.55 avg rating — 96 ratings — published 2004 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The Essential Handbook for Travelers in the Mesozoic by Henry Gee (Goodreads Author), Luis V. Rey 4.27 avg rating — 56 ratings — published 2003 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome 3.67 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 2004 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Siege of Stars: Book 1 of the Sigil Trilogy 3.16 avg rating — 44 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nature Futures 2: Science Fiction from the Leading Science Journal by Henry Gee (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Colin Sullivan (Editor), Gareth D. Jones (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Henry Gee's Blog

Vertiginous Nostalgia

Against the remote possibility that neither of you has heard that I’ve written a book called The Wonder of Life on Earth, which is out next week, well, you know now. Or, rather, I co-wrote it. I did the text, but an artist called Raxenne Maniquiz painted the pictures. They aren’t attempts as realism so much as stylish and impressionistic. The book is aimed at pre-teens, who I’m sure will apprecia

Series by Henry Gee

Nature Futures (2 books)
by

Henry Gee (Goodreads Author) (Editor),

Colin Sullivan (Editor),

Gareth D. Jones (Goodreads Author) (Contributor)

3.57 avg rating — 206 ratings

Sigil Trilogy (3 books)
by

Henry Gee (Goodreads Author)

3.21 avg rating — 68 ratings

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Henry Gee wrote a new blog post Vertiginous Nostalgia Against the remote possibility that neither of you has heard that I’ve written a book called The Wonder of Life on Earth, which is out next week, well Read more of this blog post »
Jan 31, 2026 06:09AM · like
Henry Gee answered Guillermo AyalaMartinez's question: Are we alone in the Universe? Opinion of the scientific community All the elements for life are fairly common in the Universe. Life began on Earth very soon after the Earth itself formed. There are trillions of other planets in the Universe. That our Earth is the only one with life is extremely unlikely. However, n See Full Answer
Sep 19, 2025 02:20PM · 1 like · like
Henry Gee rated a book it was amazing The Mars House by Natasha Pulley	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Natasha Pulley wrote one of my favourite stories from an anthology called 'The Winter Spirits' so I pulled this one down off Audible for a listen. She's written many books -- her first novel was 'The Watchmaker of Filigree Street', a Victorian steamp ...more
Jan 28, 2025 11:02PM · like · see review
Henry Gee rated a book liked it The Life Impossible by Matt Haig (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The world has completely closed in around lonely, retired, twice-bereaved maths teacher Grace. Straitened by routine, sadness and crushing self-doubt, her world is turned upside down when she receives a letter from a lawyer saying she's been remember ...more
Jan 28, 2025 11:00PM · 1 like · like · see review
Henry Gee rated a book it was amazing The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights by Bridget Collins (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
There's nothing like an anthology of short stories to introduce you to new authors and get you out of a reading rut. This was a festive gift and what a treat it was. It contains one creepy spiderwebb'd tale each from twelve authors. Each tale is an a ...more
Jan 28, 2025 10:57PM · 1 like · like · see review
Henry Gee rated a book it was amazing Ælfred’s Britain: War and Peace in the Viking Age by Max Adams (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Max Adams is an archaeologist and writer specialising in Early Medieval Britain (that is, between the departure of Rome in 410, to the Norman Conquest) . His other books include The First Kingdom (on the early English Settlements); The King in the No ...more
Jan 04, 2025 02:18PM · like · see review
Henry Gee rated a book really liked it The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Ashlyn Greer, child of uncaring parents, divorced from a philandering husband, sees herself as a victim of circumstances. She does, however, have a gift -- she can tune in to the emotional states of the owners of books that come into her rare book st ...more
Jan 04, 2025 02:14PM · 1 like · like · see review
Henry Gee made a comment on My Top Reads Of 2024 " -- thank you very much! "
Jan 04, 2025 02:13PM · see blog post
Henry Gee rated a book really liked it Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Back in the day, I believe trainee typists were often assigned the task of typing the pangram 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'. Hence this charming novella, set on the fictional island nation of Nollop, just off the coast of the Carolina ...more
Dec 27, 2024 01:44AM · like · see review
Henry Gee rated a book really liked it Exodus (Archimedes Engine #1) by Peter F. Hamilton (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Another day, another vast epic space opera from Peter F. Hamilton. When the Earth receives a signal from aliens known only as the Elohim of plentiful terraformed worlds to inhabit in the Centauri Cluster, millions of people set forth in giant ark shi ...more
Dec 27, 2024 01:43AM · like · see review

More of Henry's books…

Quotes by Henry Gee (?)

“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”
― Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life

tags: biology, confessions-of-the-darwinists, darwin, darwinism, darwinist-confessions, evolution, fossil-record, fossils, macro-evolution, macroevolution, neo-darwinism, paleontology, science

8 likes

“Darwinism is dynamic. It is about change, not stasis; about process, not pattern; about tales, not tableaux; about becoming, not being.”
― Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life

tags: darwin, evolution

5 likes

“Natural selection is a blind and undirected consequence of the interaction between variation and the environment. Natural selection exists only in the continuous present of the natural world: it has no memory of its previous actions, no plans for the future, or underlying purpose.”
― Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life

tags: evolution

3 likes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Queereaders: Spring Reading Challenge - Official Record of Points	6	79	Jun 21, 2010 07:25AM
SciFi and Fantasy...: What Else Are You Reading in 2023?	1880	1348	Dec 31, 2023 05:15PM

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