Re: Dino Fiction

[ornstn@hookup.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

>A while back, Scott Horton was asking about any worthwhile dinosaur 
>fiction.  Apart from Anne McCaffrey's 'Dinosaur Planet' trilogy 
>(which I bought for the Pteranodon on the cover, enjoyed, but cannot 
>remember how good the dinosaurs were), there was another novel, about 
>20 years ago, called 'The Parasaurians'.  It was about an individual 
>who had an island where he was genetically recreating dinosaurs, and 
>the attempts of people to try and stop him. [The climax seemed to 
>involve shots being fired into a box where either tyrannosaur eggs/ 
>young where contained, and goo oozing out of the box. urg.]  Although 
>I am pretty sure it was published by Gollancz, I can't remember the 
>writer's name......but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Crichton..........

May I VERY heartily recommend "End of an Era" by Robert J Sawyer (who has
also written a trilogy about a planet of intelligent dinosaurs, "Far-Seer"
and two others, which I have not read) for the wonkiest theories ever on why
the dinosaurs became extinct and how the giant sauropods were able to grow
so large.

And as for the classics: well, it ain't modern dino science but "The Lost
World" by Conan Doyle still tops my list.  I also remember being impressed
as a youth by a novel by John Taine (AKA Eric Temple Bell) whose title
escapes me, but which involved scientists inventing a gizmo that allowed
them to view life in the Mesozoic, the rest of the story being an account of
what they saw.

For sheer hilarity, though, try "Tarzan at the Earth's Core" by Edgar Rice
Burroughs (the one where our hero is attacked by a meat-eating stegosaur
that uses its plates to GLIDE through the air towards him!).
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
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