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Epic Earth: A Wild Ride through the History of Life on Our Planet
Take an exhilarating journey through the history of Earth, from fantastical ancient creatures to marvelous modern ecosystems.
In Epic Earth, scientist Lindsay Nicole blends scientific rigor and engaging storytelling to reveal the secrets hidden within the layers of the Earth. Through lively descriptions, captivating anecdotes, and eye-catching illustrations, this book will ignite your imagination and leave you marveling at the wonders of evolution. Uncover the strange but true mysteries of the Earth,
The emergence of lifeThe existence of dinosaursThe cycles of ice agesThe rise of civilizationsAnd more!
Discover the power of resilience and adaptation as you witness Earth’s evolution. Epic Earth is a celebration of our planet and the awe-inspiring journey of life on Earth.
In Epic Earth, scientist Lindsay Nicole blends scientific rigor and engaging storytelling to reveal the secrets hidden within the layers of the Earth. Through lively descriptions, captivating anecdotes, and eye-catching illustrations, this book will ignite your imagination and leave you marveling at the wonders of evolution. Uncover the strange but true mysteries of the Earth,
The emergence of lifeThe existence of dinosaursThe cycles of ice agesThe rise of civilizationsAnd more!
Discover the power of resilience and adaptation as you witness Earth’s evolution. Epic Earth is a celebration of our planet and the awe-inspiring journey of life on Earth.
- GenresNonfictionScienceAnimals
272 pages, Hardcover
Published November 11, 2025
56 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 18, 2025
As a popular science educator, Lindsay Nikole must've felt like she had a responsibility to make this book accessible to all ages at any skill level of knowledge, though probably leaning more towards the teen to young adult demographics. Her thesis statements on pages 7 and 271 says that she wants this book to increase the reader's curiosity for paleontology or zoology, and "that understanding evolution helps us develop a deep respect for the natural world and the mechanisms that connect us biologically." After reading the second part of the last chapter, covering the Holocene, I realized another meaning to that second part of her thesis statement - how this book is not merely to delight the imagination of evolution, but also a glimpse into extinction that has taken place before time immemorable.
If I'm coming across as a snob, apologies, I am a deep fan of hers, and always find myself reading books that align to a new video (series) she posts. I guess this book serves to be a references for basically all her videos. The name of the book, I believe, must be a play on how she likes to pronounce "epoch" as "epic," haha.
For me, she succeeds in what she set out. Learning the geological timeline by name and years feels like a necessary enjoyable education about our planet, and seeing the grains of sand of past species in a beach full of ecosystems that are long forgotten by our planet has sparked a childhood wonder. Learning the alien names is a fun exercise, but wears at the vocal chords; and that's something I've realized here, that my memory of names is proportional to how well I can pronounce them and how they sound and feel like; if you want to challenge yourself in your vocalization capacities, paleozoology names is a great start.
Some issues I have with this book are:
1) On page 8, titled "The Earth's Many Eras" the acronym "GA" is used without any context, as "MA" on the page can be correctly inferred to mean "millions ago" (though it technically means "mega-annus"). But my main issue is that though the Proterozoic eon and Archean eon are correct, the Hadean eon is baffling labeled as "2.5 GA." All this caused much confusion until I looked it up online.
2) The term "annulation" on page 40 was used without much context to know what it means, and searching it up online takes some finessing to figuring it out. It's a term that I think could've been defined, even if its in a Glossary section at the back of the book - which there is one included here, though short in definitions.
There are other biological terms that lacked proper definitions, too, which could've been included in the Glossary.
3) The pages can feel really empty at times. There can be a lot of blank space, and though that can be calming, with not being overwhelmed, for people who may be young or TikTok brain-rotted; and I can understand if she ran out of time or money to illustrate them with color or images. Even if its not the creatures being discussed, I think if they were even decorated around the environments of the time and location being talked about, it could've enhanced the sublimity being discussed.
a) Since there's so much blanks space, even if she didn't illustrate them, the pages could've been decorated with more vivid descriptions. I found my imagination struggling to see what she's talking about when there weren't pictures to accommodate, which was about 50/50. Something that you'll notice is that she'll describe the proportional metrics of size, height, weight, and on rare occasions if there were melanosomes, and color, then sometimes with one or a few more defining character traits. And though this may be an issue of lack of fossil evidence, it leaves a lot to be desired.
4) As someone who is fascinated with the earliest evolution of life in the Ediacaran Period to the Cambrian, which have some of the crazies designs of animals, I was disappointed to see there were surprisingly few!
5) On page 248 she described "the rise of slavery" in the 1600s, which I think is a little disingenuous assertion when slavery has been around since at least the dawn of empires across the world, notably by Africans enslaving other Africans before the Portuguese came around, but she does admit on page 244 that "history[...] isn't really [her] thing." But I get her point, in that European powers elevated slavery at an unprecedented scale for means of capitalist profit and colonization.
Something to note, on page 272 she says "All images[...] [are] not generated by artificial-intelligence." I had to check this because many images, texts, and text boxes have a brownish tint that is commonly used in generative AI cartoons and anime pictures online. This could just be her rustic look to represent ancient times, however. Call this my AI paranoia, God knows my writing has been unfairly accused of being AI because I like to write lots and be (mostly) grammatical, or creative with my writings.
In the end, I did really enjoy this book! Her writing is distinctly how she speaks in her videos, a unique style I appreciated reading. The images and names are fun to look at and puzzle out. It's well organized, tailored towards the cool and uncommonly talked about creatures.
Fun for the whole family! Haha!
If I'm coming across as a snob, apologies, I am a deep fan of hers, and always find myself reading books that align to a new video (series) she posts. I guess this book serves to be a references for basically all her videos. The name of the book, I believe, must be a play on how she likes to pronounce "epoch" as "epic," haha.
For me, she succeeds in what she set out. Learning the geological timeline by name and years feels like a necessary enjoyable education about our planet, and seeing the grains of sand of past species in a beach full of ecosystems that are long forgotten by our planet has sparked a childhood wonder. Learning the alien names is a fun exercise, but wears at the vocal chords; and that's something I've realized here, that my memory of names is proportional to how well I can pronounce them and how they sound and feel like; if you want to challenge yourself in your vocalization capacities, paleozoology names is a great start.
Some issues I have with this book are:
1) On page 8, titled "The Earth's Many Eras" the acronym "GA" is used without any context, as "MA" on the page can be correctly inferred to mean "millions ago" (though it technically means "mega-annus"). But my main issue is that though the Proterozoic eon and Archean eon are correct, the Hadean eon is baffling labeled as "2.5 GA." All this caused much confusion until I looked it up online.
2) The term "annulation" on page 40 was used without much context to know what it means, and searching it up online takes some finessing to figuring it out. It's a term that I think could've been defined, even if its in a Glossary section at the back of the book - which there is one included here, though short in definitions.
There are other biological terms that lacked proper definitions, too, which could've been included in the Glossary.
3) The pages can feel really empty at times. There can be a lot of blank space, and though that can be calming, with not being overwhelmed, for people who may be young or TikTok brain-rotted; and I can understand if she ran out of time or money to illustrate them with color or images. Even if its not the creatures being discussed, I think if they were even decorated around the environments of the time and location being talked about, it could've enhanced the sublimity being discussed.
a) Since there's so much blanks space, even if she didn't illustrate them, the pages could've been decorated with more vivid descriptions. I found my imagination struggling to see what she's talking about when there weren't pictures to accommodate, which was about 50/50. Something that you'll notice is that she'll describe the proportional metrics of size, height, weight, and on rare occasions if there were melanosomes, and color, then sometimes with one or a few more defining character traits. And though this may be an issue of lack of fossil evidence, it leaves a lot to be desired.
4) As someone who is fascinated with the earliest evolution of life in the Ediacaran Period to the Cambrian, which have some of the crazies designs of animals, I was disappointed to see there were surprisingly few!
5) On page 248 she described "the rise of slavery" in the 1600s, which I think is a little disingenuous assertion when slavery has been around since at least the dawn of empires across the world, notably by Africans enslaving other Africans before the Portuguese came around, but she does admit on page 244 that "history[...] isn't really [her] thing." But I get her point, in that European powers elevated slavery at an unprecedented scale for means of capitalist profit and colonization.
Something to note, on page 272 she says "All images[...] [are] not generated by artificial-intelligence." I had to check this because many images, texts, and text boxes have a brownish tint that is commonly used in generative AI cartoons and anime pictures online. This could just be her rustic look to represent ancient times, however. Call this my AI paranoia, God knows my writing has been unfairly accused of being AI because I like to write lots and be (mostly) grammatical, or creative with my writings.
In the end, I did really enjoy this book! Her writing is distinctly how she speaks in her videos, a unique style I appreciated reading. The images and names are fun to look at and puzzle out. It's well organized, tailored towards the cool and uncommonly talked about creatures.
Fun for the whole family! Haha!
December 9, 2025
phenomenal (not that I expected anything less from Lindsay) I found this as engaging and easy to understand as her videos and loved how she included her narrative voice rather than just writing the facts. it was split into digestible chunks that allowed me to dip in and out without losing my place or feeling overwhelmed
December 27, 2025
I know 6 year old Morg would have LOVED this… very in line with my favorite book as a kid which was my encyclopedia of dinosaurs. Stay curious!
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