After Man

[davegodfrey]

I am a massive fan of speculative zoology. I adore the whole "what if the dinosaurs hadn't died out" ideas, and like many people of my generation I owned lots of books about dinosaurs many of which were written by Dougal Dixon. Who, back in 1981 wrote "After Man: A Zoology of the Future". He also subsequently wrote "Man After Man", which is

Comments

[barrysarll]

Dixon was also involved with a Western TV show a few years back, called The Future Is Wild, which I think was a US/BBC co-production, and was great Sunday lunchtime viewing, especially when the squibbons arose.

I wasn't aware of Man After Man but its obvious precursor would seem to be Olaf Stapledon's insanely ambitious Last and First Men. Which he then summarised in about half a page of the even more so Star Maker.

[barrysarll]

Ah yes, there's Future is Wild stuff in with the models on that other link. Which has also reminded me, I'm sure White Dwarf did rules for using those running bat monsters in some game or other, back before it was all Games Workshop stuff. That may even have been where I first came across his work.

[davegodfrey]

I remember The Future Is Wild. Some of it was a bit daft, but there were some really nice bits, touching on interesting areas of evolution, like the episode on arms races, mimicry and adaptive radiations. As explained through the medium of tiny albatrosses being eaten by giant insects.

[barrysarll]

I still feel a bit sad about the poggles.

Also, I have now recovered enough from that Japanese cartoon to splutter 'WTF?' before subsiding again. It's the way they all sing along on the chorus that gets me.

[maureenlycaon]

The last third of Stephen Baxter's Evolution (the future-evolution part) also borrowed heavily from Dixon's work, both After Man and Man After Man.