Reviewed by David J. Bottjer (University of Southern California)

Stanley, S. M. 2024. T. rex, Darwin, and Adventures Out West. Dorrance Publishing Company, Pittsburgh, PA. ($36.00 cloth, $31.00 e-book.)

Paleontologist Steve Stanley is well known for the broad variety of influential books that he has published. In this context, many of us have taught and learned historical geology over the past decades using his texts on this subject. These volumes have come from Stanley’s long career studying the history and evolution of Earth and its life. Now he has provided another way to learn about these topics in his new novel that follows a group of undergraduates through college with their associated experiences and interest in geology and paleontology. In so doing, Stanley provides an entertaining way to translate the dry facts commonly found on the pages of textbooks to actual in-person ways that students and the interested public learn this information. In this way, he demonstrates how paleontology and geology commonly have unique learning experiences based in the field. During their undergraduate years, the characters in Stanley's novel learn about numerous remarkable aspects of Earth and life history, many of them through these field experiences. Within the continuous flow of the narrative, these students visit a wide variety of informative field locales, including investigating fossils of the Cincinnati Ordovician and Cretaceous chalks of Kansas, geology of the Grand Tetons, and dinosaur hunting in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana. The student experiences of learning in the field are the way many of us were drawn to this science, and while immersed in this volume I found myself reflecting on how I had become a paleontologist and geologist. Indeed, my strongest initial experiences of geology were during my undergraduate years on several adventures in western North America, where it was that I decided to become a geology major. These were reinforced later by attending the field course offered by Indiana University at their field station in Montana, where we learned how to read the rocks while also visiting places such as Glacier National Park, Yellowstone and the Black Hills. So, as Stanley has demonstrated, field experiences are a classic portal into our science. Characters in the narrative also face a number of societal issues important to activities in paleontology. These include the contrasting views that students can bring to the table on science and religion for understanding Earth and life history, and the influence of commercial fossil collecting on the science of paleontology. As a stand-alone this new book by Steve Stanley is great on its own. It could also be used as a supplementary reading for many introductory courses in earth sciences.