Dinotopia Lost | ||||||||
Alan Dean Foster | ||||||||
Ace Books, 326 pages | ||||||||
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A review by A.L. Sirois
It's that time of year on Dinotopia when storms are most prevalent. Indeed, it's the climax of a six-year
cycle and the storms that lash the northern end of the island are expected to be much more violent that
usual. The book opens with groups of settlers packing up their belongings and moving away from the coast. The
action then shifts to a pirate vessel on the high seas, captained by Brognar Blackstrap of the good (bad?)
ship Condor. Blackstrap and his intellectual first mate, Priester Smiggens, lead as scurvy a band of cutthroats
as one could hope to find on the Seven Seas. (Although they utter some colorful curses these boyos never veer
off into profanity, which seems a bit odd for such hardened rogues. The marketing department must have had
family readers in mind. Yar!)
Flung ashore on the northern end of Dinotopia, the pirates find themselves on what appears to be an uninhabited
island. They set out exploring in hopes of finding fresh water and game, and almost at once run into a family of
Struthiomimuses on a camping holiday. Human chauvinism being what it is, it takes Blackstrap and his hearties some
time to realize that the struthies are not the dumb animals they appear to be. By that time, however, the
youngest female member of the family has managed to free herself. She flees, intending to reach the nearest
human city and get help.
Unfortunately, the pirates, with the struthie's family, have wandered into a region ruled by carnivorous
dinosaurs. These creatures, no less intelligent than any of the other dinos on the island, have nevertheless
rejected the idea of civilization in favor of living the savage life of their predatory ancestors. Blackstrap
and his men capture a small dinosaur to replace the escaped struthie female, but they don't realize that what
they have snagged is a baby tyrannosaurus named Prettykill, whose parents are not at all happy to find their
darling missing.
Anyway, it's all rather lightweight and undemanding. Foster has done better work, but he is obviously a pro
and knows how to stir the mix to keep the audience entertained. Decent summertime reading if you don't
question the book's assumptions too closely.
A.L. Sirois has been reading and writing science fiction since he was in single digits. He is now closer to triple digits than he cares to think about. His personal site is at http://www.alsirois.com. |
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