Lots of amazing things happened. Imagine watching it all happen. Given the data you had at each moment, how many complete shocks awaited you?
Stephen Baxter does a very good job of evoking this in his SF anthology Vacuum Diagrams, I think, although of course we don’t know there actually were such forms of life at each stage you mentioned. :)
Ooh, I read his novel Evolution and found it to be extremely enjoyable. It’s the evolution of humans from a little ratlike mammal thing living through the KT-event, all the way through to modern humans and then speculative extension beyond—but each chapter is a narrative about some individual actual creature going through a significant event in its life, with realistic depiction of the increasing cognitive abilities (i.e. no sapient monkeys). I found it gave me an amazing subjective feeling of perspective on the evolution of primates and humans. Heartily recommended.
Stephen Baxter does a very good job of evoking this in his SF anthology Vacuum Diagrams, I think, although of course we don’t know there actually were such forms of life at each stage you mentioned. :)
Ooh, I read his novel Evolution and found it to be extremely enjoyable. It’s the evolution of humans from a little ratlike mammal thing living through the KT-event, all the way through to modern humans and then speculative extension beyond—but each chapter is a narrative about some individual actual creature going through a significant event in its life, with realistic depiction of the increasing cognitive abilities (i.e. no sapient monkeys). I found it gave me an amazing subjective feeling of perspective on the evolution of primates and humans. Heartily recommended.