The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World

Written by Riley Black

Narrated by Christina Delaine

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.

Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet.

The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250839688

Riley Black

Riley Black has been heralded as ‘one of our premier gifted young science writers’ and is the critically acclaimed author of Skeleton Keys, My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, When Dinosaurs Ruled and Deep Time. Her work has appeared in Science, The New York Times, Nature, Smithsonian and more. Black also has a strong online presence, connecting with over 27,000 followers on Twitter, and has written on nerdy pop culture for websites like Slate, io9 and the Guardian. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Reviews for The Last Days of the Dinosaurs

[Lali DeRosier · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brisk narrative of a fascinating subject! Walking through time in the aftermath of an extinction event! A must read for any dinosaur enthusiast.

[Joseph Mello · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this to be an excellent audiobook. The content is both introductory through intermediate. You get drawn into the events of the cataclysm and can imagine the dinosaurs and how the extinction progressed. I like the depth and range of animals covered. Also, I appreciated the geology and science brought in to explain what was happening.

The writing was exceptional with phrases and images that linger with me. Finally, I think the narrator was outstanding.

[Andrea Author · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book provides a unique perspective on the K-Pg extinction. It offers a sort of "day in the life" experience of individual animals before and after the impact event—what the world looked like in the late Cretaceous, the horrors of the devastation, and how life recovered. It's a well-researched story of loss and hope, of how the worst day in the history of life on earth eventually led to the world as we know it.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.