The reading from the YouTube channel Fear The Qu is great. I know this book gets a lot of criticism, and ended up wildly changed from what Dixon wanted to do on his own, but I really enjoy the final production. The vignettes of life through the ages, the nature documentary style, and even the creeping fringe scifi element of inherited memories makes for a fascinating narrative.
There’s nothing really like it, as the only other major comparable work is All Tomorrows, which has a drastically different tone and doesn’t have the varying post-humans interacting in close proximity and changing with eachother (aside from the big changes towards the end).
It was different from what Dickson wanted? How so?
All I really know is what’s in the Wikipedia page about it, which I see repeated by people who write off the book entirely.
The focus of the book was completely different than what Dixon wanted, and he’d intended it to be set in the same universe as After Man. He’s made statements about not being happy with it.
While I can completely see how a creator wouldn’t want their work, and especially their name, on a project that they envisioned completely differently I still think it’s a great book on its own merits.
Yeah I mean I loved it. I wish he had done a tie in.