Reviews for Tales from the underground

The average rating for Tales from the underground based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-06 00:00:00 Christopher Shadwick "Step out into your backyard...and bring up a pinch of earth," Wolfe writes. "You will likely be holding close to one billion individual living organisms, perhaps ten thousand distinct species of microbes, most of them not yet named, cataloged, or understood." Pretty good introduction to an area of the natural world few of us think about, and usually take for granted. The book is divided into three sections, of which the first, on ancient life, I found the most fascinating, although the later chapter on Darwin and earthworms was fun. And the one on soil pathogens the most creepy -- is your tetanus shot up-to-date? That's one disease (of many, actually) that, due to its natural reservoirs, isn't ever going to be eradicate-able the way smallpox was. It was amusing to compare and contrast the author's enthusiasm for his subject with the bad rap things underground involved with rot and decay -- without which life cycles on the planet would come to a halt -- get from, say, Tolkien or the makers of the animated movie Epic. The subject apparently needs an artist to speak up for it. Copyright date 2001, which from 2015 is many hundred generations of fruit flies and not a few generations of microbiologists, so this is doubtless not the latest word on its several subjects, but it gives some good directions to go on with. Contemplating the race of bioscience since the turn of the millennium always reminds me of this Updike poem -- I swear they must all be moving just like that. Ta, L. (Later note: the Updike poem in my copy has an explanatory header between title and text that the version to which I linked lacks, to wit: "Science, Pure and Applied, by V. B. Wiggleworth, F.R.S., Quick Professor of Biology in the University of Cambridge. -- a talk listed in the B.B.C. Radio Times)

Review # 2 was written on 2013-06-29 00:00:00 Pamela Fader Excellent book!! Some of this may be old hat to others, but I certainly learned a lot about life underground!! We really are connected to everything and it is mostly bacteria and fungi holding it all together. Very interesting!! The last chapters on humanity's devastation of underground life were pretty depressing and I can't help wondering if we will continue to be so stupid!!