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Dinosaur Summer
by
Greg Bear
Fifty years after professor Challenger's discovery of the Lost World, America's last dinosaur circus has gone bankrupt, leaving a dozen avisaurs, centrosaurs, ankylosaurs, and one large raptor abandoned. Now a daring expedition plans to do the impossible: return the Jurassic giants to the wild. Two filmmakers, a circus trainer, a journalist, and a young Peter Belzoni must ...more
Paperback, 324 pages
Published
December 1st 2008
by eReads.com
(first published January 1st 1998)
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As a major dinosaur/King Kong/Harryhausen fan, I really, really wanted to love this book. It's about a boy's summer with his father, Ray Harryhausen, Willis O'Brien, and the makers of King Kong, as they close down a dinosaur circus and return to The Lost World of Arthur Conan Doyle to free the dinosaurs to the wild.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that it should have pushed all of my buttons, the writing is just too flat to engage me. The style is a rather lackluster, declarative one ...more
Unfortunately, despite the fact that it should have pushed all of my buttons, the writing is just too flat to engage me. The style is a rather lackluster, declarative one ...more
Carolyn
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
YA readers, dinosaur aficionados
Shelves:
science-fiction_alt-hist-steampunk
A solid adventure yarn, set in 1940, using the events of The Lost World as a jumping off point to create an alternate history in which live dinosaurs are a matter of fact. The main character is a 15 yo boy who accompanies his father in the group of men returning the captive dinos in the last dino circus to the wild.
I especially loved the descriptions of the colors and patterns of the dinosaurs - very vivid!
I especially loved the descriptions of the colors and patterns of the dinosaurs - very vivid!
I have ordered up EON from the library as I have to find out how an author of this caliber won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. If you removed half of the adjectives and three quarters of the similes you would cut 75 - 100 pages from the 375 page book. His use of passive tense made the what-were-supposed-to-be exciting parts ho-hum.
Terrible carnivore to herbivore ratio -- totally unbelievable ecological balance designed to make for endless action scenes where the protagonist has to run from yet another man-eating dino.
I like Greg Bear's books for their big science fiction ideas.... interstellar ecology and justice (The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars), an infinite universe created by humans living in an asteroid starship (Eon/Eternity/Legacy), genomic computers determining the course of evolution (Darwin's Radio), the world being absorbed into a unified mass of self-aware protoplasm (Blood Music), intelligent cities made of living parts (Strength of Stones), technologies that can move a planet across the galaxy (...more
What a fun read. Not the best thing Greg Bear has ever written but it is fun and exciting with interesting characters.
missed me by a mile possibly great but just felt damnably silly to me
Not really my kind of book, had to push myself to finish it.
What happened?
I picked this book up on a whim. I liked the title and the summary on the jacket. I had never read a book by Greg Bear before, but I will start reading them now.
It is a very nice story about a turn of the century traveling carnival, but their main attraction is dinosaurs. It tells of a man and his son returning the dinosaurs to the plateau where they were captured years ago. Along the way there are mishaps and not everything goes as planned when they decide to release them.
It is a very nice story about a turn of the century traveling carnival, but their main attraction is dinosaurs. It tells of a man and his son returning the dinosaurs to the plateau where they were captured years ago. Along the way there are mishaps and not everything goes as planned when they decide to release them.
I read this over the summer of 1998. It draws upon one of Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger stories. The story here was ok, but I think readers are better off going back to the original novel instead of this one. The book's premise is interesting, but it is just an "ok" book.
Mark
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Insomniacs
Recommended to Mark by:
Bought it in a library book lot.
Normally I'm a big fan of Greg Bear, but this book put me to sleep, literally. I found it very useful when I was traveling and staying in strange motel beds. I few pages and I was out like a light.
Science Fiction
Trevor
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Greg Bear is one of the world's leading hard SF authors. He sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's Famous Science Fiction.
A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.
More about Greg Bear...
A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.
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