The Homecoming

by Barry B. Longyear, Alan Clark (Illustrator)

Highly intelligent dinosaurs come back to reclaim the earth as their home.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dinosaurs

150 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1989

About the author

Barry Brookes Longyear was an American science fiction author who resided in New Sharon, Maine.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Homecoming is what would now be called a YA book about the return of the dinosaurs from outer space where they're been hiding out for the past seventy million years and have now decided they want their planet back. The fact that they're descended from terrestrial dinos is meant to be something of a surprise, so the Alan Clark illustrations are a little misplaced. It's a nice story, but just a little thin; I really preferred the shorter novelette version that appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine and then in his collection It Came From Schenectady.

[Melissa McCauley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Warning: I am going to violate my own no snark rule and be super-blunt and tell you exactly what I think about this book.

It was hard to believe that Barry Longyear, the author of “Infinity Hold” and “Sea of Glass”, both of which I LOVE (love love), penned this banal, super-white-bread tale of dinosaurs arriving in their spaceships to reclaim the Earth they left so long ago. It read like the script of one of those cheesy ‘Amazing Stories’ or ‘Outer Limits’ television shows from the 80s. The illustrations were pretty awful, too. The dinosaurs looked like creepy anorexic chickens and the human protagonist was a strange boxy capsule with legs. Don’t get me started on the two-dimensional, clichéd, 80s characters. Of course the humans win, despite the Nitolan’s overwhelming superior technology (or telekinesis, I couldn’t really understand), because the dinosaurs don’t understand humor… Wait, What?

The generous white borders around the text, the illustrations, and blank pages still barely make this story long enough to be a book. Rightfully, it belongs in an anthology. A really dated anthology that no one will ever read again and ends up gathering dust on a shelf in Goodwill. Seriously Longyear, did you really write this?

[James]

Not as epic as the descriptions make it sound, but still a good story.

I get the feeling the identity of the Nitolans as dinosaurs was supposed to be a surprise as the word dinosaur only shows up in the very last sentence, but all the summaries of the book mention dinosaurs. I suspect this story was originally published in a pulp magazine where the reveal at the end would be more surprising.

[Aero Windwalker · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Homecoming is a typical old fashion sci-fi novel that practically has no scientific detail but full of arrogance for human race and wishful self-centered thinking about our place in the universe. With dull characters from midwest "perfect white people family" in 1970s and laughable plots, I conclude the book as a long and silly fairy tale.

[Steve Lew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost.

[Tony Hinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book decades ago and rated it three stars. I've now changed my rating to four stars because the story has stayed with me, like a tattoo on my mind.

[Shanshad Whelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this years and years ago. It's the only Longyear I think I've read.