
The Cretaceous Past
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Narrated by:
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BJ Harrison
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By:
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Cixin Liu
All the years of human civilization represent an infinitesimal fraction of the time since life first burgeoned on planet Earth. How likely is it, then, in those great depths of time, that humanity alone benefitted from the spark of intelligence that gave rise to culture?
This is the question posed by Hugo Award winner Cixin Liu, in his magisterial new short novel The Cretaceous Past. The answer he offers is unexpected, supposing an unlikely alliance between the largest creatures in the world of the deep past and some of the smallest. And it all begins with a toothache.
When a Tyrannosaurus rex suffers pain from meat trapped between its enormous teeth, a nearby colony of ants risks entering the great creature's maw to make their own repast from the remains of the dinosaur's most recent meal. From this humble beginning, over the course of millennia, a symbiotic civilization achieves amazing advances, facing dangers and exploiting opportunities at every turn.
In this absorbing tale, Cixin Liu manages to describe the history of successive epochs of a might-have-been world, doing for the past what Olaf Stapledon's classic Last and First Men did for the future.
©2020 FT Culture (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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. Bravo!
Its worth the listen!
FANTASTIC!!
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A parable
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really fantastic!
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Only thing that annoyed me is that supposedly all dinosaur species were intelligent and lived amongst each other. That’s as realistic as having an Earth civilization where there are kangaroos and horses working as engineers and administrators.
Extraordinary
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A wonderful alternate world
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Fascinating story
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Very creative. Well read. A refreshing change from the American SciFi.
The message is clear in any language
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Very highly recommended!
wonderful story telling!!
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The style reads a little bit more like a historical summary, rather than a character-driven story that gets you interested in the individuals. It is certainly difficult to create a sense of connection to characters in a story that jumps through so much time (although I think Adrian Tchaikovsky's book 'Children of Time' does that exceptionally well), but I enjoyed this book and would recommend it.
I do think the audio reading was just ok. The reading of the main text was fine, but the character voices sounded more like caricatures. I really am curious how it would have sounded performed by someone like Robin Miles or Adjoa Andoh. I've listened to books performed by them recently, and those felt absolutely engrossing.
Interesting listen
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An enchanting Just So story
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