Dinosaur Planet

Dinosaur Planet #1

by Anne McCaffrey

THE MISSION

The Exploratory and Evaluation Corps of the Federated Sentient Planets had sent ARCT-10, with its mixed crew of shipbred and planet-bound technicians, to Ireta to catalogue fauna and flora and search for new energy sources. It was a simple mission. A standard crew.

THE PROBLEM

Kai and his beautiful co-leader Varian, the best xenob-vet in the business, followed all the standard procedures -- but the results of their investigations were totally unexpected. Not only were the planet's creatures larger than anyone had anticipated and the geological finds smaller, but the rescue ship had inexplicably disappeared.

THE NIGHTMARE

Then suddenly on a world of giant swamp creatures and deadly predators, a curious change had come over many of the members of the ARCT-10 crew... a change that would lead all of them, in one way or another, into the primitive darkness of a future world.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Dinosaurs, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adventure, Space

202 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968) and the first to win a Nebula Award (Best Novella, Dragonrider, 1969). Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006. She also received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her work in 2007.

Reviews

[Douglas Milewski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anne begins1978's Dinosaur Planet with a sawed-off shotgun full of technobabble, firing indiscriminately in all directions. Not satisfied with abusing readers with tedious technical detail on the first page, she continues this neutronium thick technobabble for the next 50 pages, which is 1/4 of the book. The technobabble is so thick that there isn't even any room for a plot, not even the vaporously thin plot of this book.

Somewhere around page 50, the technobabble shots simmer down to a more reasonable pace and some degree of plot and characterization moves in, much like oxygen. So I suppose that the horrific writing of the first fifty pages lets the perfectly lame writing of the remaining book seem good by comparison. But trust me, it's only good in comparison.

The plot, whichs starts around page 100, revolves around a vegetarian planetary survey which loses contact with their ship. Rather than accept that they may be marooned, they hope for the best and march onward. Meanwhile, "heavy worlders" have turned carnivore, and the meat drives them into violence. They take over the expedition, stealing everything, and attempting to murder everyone via dinosaur stampede. The leadership survives, holes up in their remaining shuttle, going into techno-sleep.

That's it.

And you'd think with a title like Dinosaur Planet that the book would be a sure-fire dino-love-fest. Nope. The expert future biologists don't even recognize the creatures as dinosaurs. Really? T-Rex is so obscure that you have to look him up?

By my educated guestimate, Anne began this book early on, abandoning it for other works. For some inexplicable reason, as she got to be a better writer, she hauled this manuscript back out and finished it, if you could call this book finished. Fortunately, every editor who saw the book rejected it until Anne got so popular that even a roadkill like this book became a viable source of income rather than a viable source of ridicule.

It's not the worst SF book that I've ever read. (Andre Norton holds that title.) However, it does make it into the annals with a silver medal and a commemorative plaque.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many kids, dinosaurs were one of my earliest obsessions. I read countless books about them; I saw robotic versions of them in museums; I played educational computer games featuring them, such as Designasaurus on my Commodore 64 and Dinosaur Safari on my first Mac; and, I had numerous toys and other memorabilia featuring prehistoric creatures. My favorite back in the day was Spinosaurus.

Though I'm not as enthralled by those long-extinct lizards anymore--partially because we know so little about them, as nobody living today has ever seen a live one--I still enjoy stories based around them sometimes. Plus, I've dedicated this month to the writings of Anne McCaffrey, as some of you already know. So, this book was right up my alley.

While a bit short--it may be among the author's briefest works--I still enjoyed the story; it wasn't Ms. McCaffrey's best, but, I still had fun with it. Now, I can't wait to read the sequel.

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1979 grade B-
2018 grade B

Series book DP1

This is a character development and world building novel with characters from various backgrounds and ages exploring a planet with plants and animals that don't really belong together. The reading is a little dry but worth it. Will I read it again? Maybe, if I live long enough. Note that the story does have a conclusion, but it is open ended. Maybe the sequel will tell us if they survive long term.

Note, the sequel does conclude the story.

[Nancy D Miz-Firefly aka Sparky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the 80's and absolutely loved it. It was an exciting adventure that kept me riveted.

[Jeffe Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a word for re-reading a book from your youth that you just LOVED and being disappointed in it as an adult. This book still has elements that sparked my imagination and interest back then, but a lot of it sadly didn't hold up. I'm still four-starring it, for all it meant to me back then, but I don't think I'd recommend it to a modern reader sadly.

[Margret Melissa (ladybug) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought I wasn't going to really like this book/series, but it really got better the last few chapters.

[Pati_B · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.95

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

abandoned to colonise the planet. But it's not the best place to be - as well as the weird and wonderful native fauna, it seems to also be populated by creatures from Earth's prehistory - namely, Dinosaurs (oh, and the precursor to the modern horse - McCaffrey likes to get her love of Equines into every book!).

And then the 'Heavy-worlder' contingent get a bit wild, amped up on mild alcohol and by witnessing the violence inherent in the wildlife, and mutiny. Leaving the softer, weaker members of the team to hide until they can be rescued.

There's lots to like about this book - it's kind of fun and who can't help but like Dinosaurs in space? The characters are ok and there's some nice, teamy dialogue to enjoy. But there's also a few thinks that niggle. There's a lot of info-dumping and a lot to take in during the first few chapters - not all of which you really need to know. The 'action' is sort of all packed into the end and, I thought, comes a bit out of the blue. And I'm not sure I can completely get behind the reasons for the reversion of the Heavy-worlders.

But that said, I was entertained and it didn't take a huge amount of time to read ... and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes in the second part.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more. It has so many fun ideas... a multi-species exploration federation, variants of humans from different types of worlds, prehistoric earth animals placed on an alien planet... the problem is that these ideas don't really shape up to anything.
McCaffrey begins to build the story (admittedly with some jargon thrown in) as a bit of a mystery - odd discoveries and missing equipment and the like. She builds things up quite a bit. Around the middle of the book, I was set for the other shoe to drop... all I could think was: the action is just around the bend. I turn the page and... turn the page and... turn the page and... she goes off into several pages about how horrible violence and meat eating are and... finally - with about 30 pages left in the book, the action starts. Then the book ends. First book of a new "series" right? Well, there is one more book (later more added), but in my opinion every book in a series should be able to stand on its own as a story. The characters continue on and to really understand them you should read the ho series, but the STORY should stand. In my opinion, this story fails that test.

[Little Timmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books. This was the first book not of that series I have read by her. I was not impressed at all. The plot seems to sluggishly flow through the story and the characters never seem to grab you. This is stated as the first book in a new series by this author but I won't be buying the rest of the series. Not recommended

[Sam (Hissing Potatoes) · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was completely unnecessary. The events were already covered, I suspect sometimes word for word, in the Planet Pirates series. There was almost no action in this book, no trajectory, no spice or flavor, no character growth whatsoever. It takes a special case to mess up literal dinosaurs in space. Boring, flat, clinical, disappointing.

[Kelly Harlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slow to start. During that time I decided I wasn't going to read the sequel. And then it finally got interesting at the end. And I almost want to read the sequel.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little sci-fi yarn!

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try to write actual book reviews and not just lists of all the stupid things about the book in question,, but I fear that if I don't watch myself, this review could be exactly that.

I picked up this book for a couple bucks at a used bookshop because my little sister thought the cover was cool. I did, too, so I picked it up. I've never read McCaffrey's Pern books, but I am slightly familiar with her due to reading her collaboration with Elizabeth Anne Scarbough, *Catalyst*, which was a simple but mildly fun read. I expected *Dinosaur Planet* to follow the same formula, and boy, I wish that it had. Before I lament, though, a (not-so-quick) note about what the book's about.

The book abruptly starts in the middle of one of an exploration team's two co-leaders call to one of the two other exploration teams in the system. We're then thrown into this world of exploration-for-energy-exploitation head first and we're soon introduced to the other co-leader (who is romantically involved with her counterpart), who is a biologist evaluating the various forms of reptilian and alien life present on the planet. We meet other members of the expedition, including a trio of children (the oldest of which being the son of the surveyors' source ship second officer), a paranoid cartographer who believes that said source ship "planted" the explorers there for life since they're not responding to hails, and a group of "heavy-worlders"; in this future, there's a stark social divide between humans born in space or in low gravity and the off-putting heavy-worlders. This divide is especially apparent between the female co-leader and the heavy-worlder geologist contingent during zoological expeditions and after she finds a race of flying creatures (which I visualized as sugar gliders but were really more like pterodactyls) that use nets to hunt and show other signs of burgeoning intelligence.

While the first two-thirds of the book deals largely with puttering around this world of "terrible lizards," the last third throws the social dynamics into high-gear once the co-leaders logic out that the heavy worlders are killing dinosaurs (they're Earth-type dinosaurs, although our characters can't spot the evidence until the end of the book, where it's presented with rather dumb evidence) for meat. At first I thought they were overreacting for them eating "scientific treasures" when they're planning on using up this planet's natural resources, but then I realized that they were horrified at the thought of eating meat in general, and that they equated the heavy-worlders' brutish and antiquated stature with their carnivorous tendencies, and then they started speculating that the heavies were engaging in physical violence in the name of sexual possession because... like I said... they eat meat. Then the heavy-worlders really turned into brutes and started trying to kill everybody. I didn't believe this sequence of events at first because it's so dumb, but I guess McCaffrey's heavy worlders really do get high off violence and wanted to take over the expedition and kill everyone because... um... they liked burgers? Hell if I know. Our vegan (or is it vegetarian?) "heroes" did escape them and holed up in a cave right by the pseudo-sentient-avians, where they eventually went in cryo-stasis to prevent personality conflicts while awaiting rescue. Their story will be continued in book two, which I can only assume will be better is it lacks the presence of certain... prejudiced beliefs that just made the final sequences of this book so ridiculous.

As you can probably gather, I don't have a lot of great things to say about this book, but I do have some positive marks. 1) The writing is simple and workman's-like but not inherently bad. If a writer with a more interesting story to tell had used this prose, I wouldn't have minded it. Also, for a few pages (74-120 ish, according to some notes), I think I actually enjoyed it. Not a lot, but somewhat. The exploration of the avians and the presence of the son of the second officer were fun. Now that we've got my niceties out of the way, time to be a bit brutal.

First, on pacing: this book's plot was strangely formatted. It starts rather starkly, dropping us right in the middle of a surveying mission without explaining who the difference races or people were. This isn't always a bad thing (some of the best-written SF leaves you to figure everything out for yourself), but this text isn't written with great concepts in mind; it's rather confusing and uninspiring to be thrown into a stew of flat characters and unfocused tecnobabble that makes you wonder if the writer even knew the technology that she was dreaming up. A dramatis personal and a glossary would've gone a long way. And as I implied in my synopsis, the final part of this novel goes by quite fast and doesn't give the character arcs any room to seem realistic. Not that these characters had much hope of being relatable with no exploration of their past and little time dedicated to sketching out their motivations, but still, the breakneck - no, cartoonish - pace doesn't help.

But most of all, it's the stupidity of this book that irks me. It's things like "These cores were dropped when humans were just single celled organisms," when referring to cores that were dropped one million years ago (when humans were, you know, hominids with a few cells a piece...) or this accomplished zoologist screaming about how cruel the eyes of an animal are when she should be being objective. Most of all, the stupidity stems from the central personality conflict that provides the book's primary conflict. It is in a weird way prejudiced, and it's so blunt and appears so un-self-aware that I almost have a hard time imagining that this book got published in its current form. Based on the other reception I've seen for this book, I might be overreacting a bit, but... I just find this incredibly stupid and, like I said, unaware. This doesn't seem thought-provoking or satirical, just thin. Thin and, frankly, unappealing. Sorry, Anne, but... that's my verdict.

Speaking of sorry, I should probably apologize for my diminutive rating (out of ten): 4.5. This a poor score, and frankly, the worst of the year so far. That how little I could see past this book's stupidity. Still, despite my myriad crusades against this book, I will buy book two if I ever see it in the wild because I have book series OCD, and I will eventually read (some of) her Pern books. For completion's sake. Otherwise, I've got a fine book on high-quality SF books to be reading and more uplifting reviews to write, so if you'll excuse me, go have a good one; from Darnoc Leadburger.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always thought the cover was interesting but never interesting enough to make me want to read it (that and the blurb on the back of the book). I finally got around to reading it because of my "dino-fic kick" I am on. Now that I have read it, about all I can say is that I read it. The character development is so-so (I personally thought some of the "more enlightened characters" were more stupid than they should have been and/or believed themselves to be). The plot is so-so. While it was a relatively fast read (total 3-4 hours), it still felt like it was moving ponderously "forward" (or "onward").

The first third or so of the book moves in one direction discovering various anomalies on this "previously unexplored planet" and then "slowly" begins changing direction. The ending is beyond disappointing. There was no "pay-off." I spend 3-4 hours reading a book, I expect some kind of satisfactory conclusion. I did not get it at the end of this book. I cannot quite say if it ends on a "cliff-hanger" or not, because the second book in the series was not printed until six or so years later. The "mystery" behind the various animals on this planet is eventually "revealed" in what comes across as an "off-hand explanation" toward the end of the book where Trizein, who I assume is one of the xenobiologists, shares how the unfamiliar creatures are former inhabitants of Earth that have been extinct for a long period of time. He says it is pretty obvious that the Thek (a long-lived race of rock-beings who sound almost like the Horta of Star Trek fame) have planted these creatures on this planet before they became extinct on Earth, but nobody knows why the Thek did this (162-163).

The author tries to make the "heavy-world" humans sound like they are "sub-human" or something. I forgot to note it, but it is mentioned that the "heavy-worlders" have to eat meat in order to survive on their planets because they cannot grow enough crops to get the nutrients they need from plant-life. The herbivores would be the ones who eat the vegetation on the heavy-gravity worlds, and the humans adapted to living on those worlds would eat the meat to get the nutrients needed for survival. Varian (one of the exploration team's co-leaders) who becomes suspicious of the heavy-worlders and what she sees as changes in their behavior really should be aware of this, especially as she spent time on a heavy-gravity world to better understand people who could be her potential crewmates on exploration vessels. Instead, the author has her being excessively stupid and judgmental and stupid (in my opinion) regarding her interactions with the heavy-worlders as well as changes she observes in their behavior. The heavy-world members of this exploration crew end up mutinying, for some reason. No valid reason is given as to why they "throw away their humanity," save that it was stupid and necessary for the plot. The implication is that the heavy-worlders are barely above savagery because of how they eat meat on their home worlds whereas "civilized society does not eat meat any longer" and because they are thrust into an environment of "extreme violence and savagery" they revert to becoming "savages" themselves. They take what they need from the expedition and then force a huge herd of hadrosaurs to stampede across the encampment in hopes of killing the "light world" members of the team. (There are some other comments made about how the heavy-worlders are tired of being mistreated by the light-worlders, how the heavy-worlders are looked down upon as unintelligent and no more than "beasts of burden." Some of the "light worlders" also make disparaging comments about the "heavy worlders," but it feels trite and contrived and not at all believable due to the timing of the comments. Even this "inner frustration and resentment over perceived slights and mistreatment" does not work in terms of justifying the mutiny, in my opinion. I really felt like there had to have been something else that "drove" or encouraged the heavy-worlders to mutiny like they did.)

Varian was an amusing hypocrite to me. Up until page 65, she is all about studying the animals and environment and how they interact while trying to interfere as little as possible with the "daily biorhythms" of the planet (as it were). Yet, when she sees what turns out to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex attacking a herd of herbivores before cornering one, she immediately becomes "proactive" and no longer seems to care about her precious version of the "Prime Directive." The carnivore (which she has taken to calling "fang face") attacks the cornered herbivore and takes a bite out of its shoulder. She has the heavy-world pilot Paskutti attack the beast with their flying sled, burning its face with the sled's thrusters before using the heat and pain to drive the creature off. Really? She assumes the creature only delights in inflicting pain on its victims and demands the carnivore be driven off. It was one of the dumber moments of the book, in my opinion.

I realize the number of other herbivores bearing similar wounds might theoretically support her assumption, but the number of injured creatures makes zero sense as well. Why would a T-Rex hunt down these creatures and then just take a bit out of one of them and then leave the wounded animal behind to go chase another animal to take another bite out of it? It makes more sense for the carnivore to kill off its "victim" and eat it as opposed to wandering around and taking bites out of its "victims"/prey.

I really hated that the book just . . . ends. The mutineers are "somewhat triumphant" (they fail to keep control of the shuttle, which makes no sense, either, considering they had the power and control and position to keep the shuttle in their possession). The survivors of the mutiny end up going into cold sleep with nothing more than a vague hope of being rescued. That's it. That's how the book ends. What. The. blue-bloody HECK kind of ending is that?!? Other than a crappy ending? The book starts in one direction: anomalies! Then it changes direction: exciting discoveries! Then it changes direction again: MUTINY!!!!!! Then, it ends.

How do the survivors of the mutiny gain control of the shuttle? The "vegetarians" are left behind in the "main building/dome" of their encampment by the heavy-worlders. Instead of taking the shuttle craft with them at that very instant, these heavy-world "geniuses" leave it behind so that it can be bashed about during the hadrosaur stamped. Why? Why would they do that? It makes absolutely ZERO SENSE!!!! It has already been said that these heavy-worlders are not stupid; they have to be extremely smart to even be on these expeditions as they serve multiple functions! Yet they are portrayed as stupid enough and short-sighted enough to leave behind the craft they need to survive on this planet to be possibly damaged during the stampede? It's stupid, lazy writing on the part of the author.

Anyway. The "vegetarians" manage to escape the dome and flee to the shuttle, using the chaos created by the stampede as cover. They escape the notice of the "carnivores" because of the "mountain of hadrosaur bodies" covering the shuttle craft used to land on the planet (which seems like it would have had to have been a bit hefty in size, by itself, considering the potential number of people who came down to the surface; I suppose the case could be made it probably made multiple trips, but it seemed like there was still ten "vegetarians" who ended up escaping in the shuttle after the mutiny occurred and subsequent dino-stampede). Just how big was this stampede, anyway? The shuttle is described as being covered under and surrounded by a "hill-high" pile of hadrosaurs (183, 188). That being the case, how in the world did Bonnard (youthful member of the crew and son of the third officer onboard their 'Mothership') manage to exit the shuttle, find the power packs he had so cleverly hidden, and haul them back to the shuttle while buried under a "hill-high" pile of dead dinos? Anyway. The survivors fly away in the shuttle under the cover of darkness to some seaside cliffs only three of the vegetarians know about. Once inside, the two leaders and the doctor unilaterally make the decision to put everybody into cold sleep (the other 7+ people have already fallen into a natural sleep).

I did find it interesting that the dinosaurs are covered in fur. I did not realize that this was a possible postulation back in the 1970s, so it was interesting to read about in this book. Either that, or I suppose it could be said the dinosaurs "evolved" a bit further to develop fur.

I liked how giant "water dinosaurs" would torpedo out of the water into the air to try and catch the "sleds" flying overhead that the scientists used. The first few times it happened were some of the "more exciting moments" of the book, to be honest. Most of the book is dialogue and kinda boring. I was almost wishing for some sort of sexual shenanigans to spice the book up a bit as it was obvious the author was not going to describe many interactions between the humans and the dinosaurs.

It was also interesting that the dinosaurs on land were described as being 'warm-blooded' since I remember reading about how dinosaurs were cold-blooded (I think that paradigm shifted in the 1980s to the now-current belief that dinosaurs were fast and warm-blooded as opposed to slow and cold-blooded). I did not mind too much that it took one of the lab rats to point out the creatures were actually surviving Earth specimens that had been transplanted onto this new planet "millions of years ago." It kinda made sense, in some respects, although one would have assumed Varian, as the lead xenobiologist, might have done some kind of "studies" via the ship's computers to and discovered this herself. But it makes sense to me because of the number of planets explored and species discovered; it would be hard for one person human born on another planet to know every species that had ever existed.

I also liked the number of alien races described as interacting with humans and making up this author's version of the "United Federation of Planets." She did a good job with the different alien species.

Overall, it was an okay book. It was a bit of a snoozer, and most of the "excitement" occurs in the last few chapters of the book. Perhaps if she had focused on "one thing" instead of mixing up the plot very fifty pages, it might have been better? In any case, I have "finally" read it and do not know if I will ever read it again. I wish it had more interactions between humans and dinosaurs, to be honest (the title and cover is a bit deceptive, in my opinion). I may try to find the sequel to see how it ends, or I may not. We shall see.

[Mýk Podgor · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good but could have used more dinosaurs

[Jarno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gemixte gevoelens. Verhaal zelf is 3,5, maar door titel die wat van de verrassing wegneemt en vervangt voor verwarring, 3.0

[Lee Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel somewhat deceived by this book title. True, the planet is full of dinosaurs, but the focus is not the dinosaurs. I was definitely hoping for more dinosaur/human conflict.

[Amy Eye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to do some good, old-school fiction, and one can hardly do better than some Anne McCaffrey. Of course everyone knows about her world of Pern, but have you been to Ireta?

A scientific team of explorers go to a new planet to explore and look for ore deposits that make life for this future race of beings possible. They explore planets all over the galaxy looking for metals that these people use to survive. Only this planet, at first, doesn't seem to have anything they are looking for. A biologist on the team, Varian, is in awe of the many varied species of life being discovered on this stinky planet (they had to use fancy nose plugs to block the stench for quite some time), but the most intelligent life on the planet she had discovered was were golden furred flying creatures she labeled "giffs".

All is going well for the diverse crew on Ireta, or so it seems. In this universe, there are beings classified as ship-bred, light worlders, or heavy worlders. The build of each is unique. The gifts of each are unique. But, the heavy worlders are by far the most removed group of the three. Kai, the leader of the expedition, and Varian notice the heavy worlders are starting to act strangly. Is it due to the effects of some rather new "distilled beverages" or could it just be their innate differences?

Things start to disappear and native wildlife is being killed or maimed. What is truely going on? What secrets is this planet hiding? Nothing seems to add up and things are becoming deadlier by the day. When the ships scientist reveals a truly remarkable and disturbing discovery about the wildlife on Ireta, the leaders will have to do some quick thinking.

As always with Anne McCaffrey's work, the writing is superb. There are a multitude in this cast that can become confusing at times if you aren't paying attention. Some of the minor characters are quite forgettable, and I'm sure I have forgotten who they are even as I write this, but even the main characters still hold a bit of mystery for me. Usually, by the time I finish a McCaffrey book, I have my favorites and characters I despise. This isn't quite the case in this book.

The plot took some time to build, and didn't really get going til the end. The way it does end did leave me reaching for the sequel, it was quite the cliff hanger, and I'm not one to abandon a story by such a phenomenal storyteller just when things are getting good. I know she has something astonishing waiting for me in Dinosaur Planet Survivors!!

[Jeneé · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a few other Anne McCaffrey books before and I've never really been able to get into her stories. I decieded to give it another try when I found Dinosaur Planet. I love dinosaurs so I thought it would be a good read. Well I was somewhat dissapointed. There are very minimal dinosaurs and they aren't really that important to the story. The actual story was ok but you can deffinitly tell that this whole book is just a set up to it's sequel "Dinosaur Planet Survivors". Everything that happens just kind of sits there at the end, there are all these mysteries that the team has to sovle and everything goes unfinished at the end. This is deffinitly not one of those books you can just not read the sequels to.

It was pretty hard to get into because there wasn't much action. And I'm probably going to end up readin the sequel just because finishing that book would be more like finishing the first.

[Garrett Calcaterra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty light, fast read. Not McCaffrey's best book. The tension throughout relies on the characters figuring out what's obvious to the readers (i.e. the dinosaurs really are dinosaurs, and the heavy worlders are planning to mutiny). Also, the notion that the heavy worlders are savages in large part because they're not vegetarians seems pretty heavy-handed. Still, it's a fun story, and the ending has a good bit of action. Nothing is resolved, mind you, so if you read it, be ready to jump into the follow-up, Dinosaur Planet Survivors.

[Coral Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very slow start littered with either made up terminology or scientific phrases I was ignorant of. Once the story kicked in it was an enjoyable little read and I raced through it. Not sure if I'll read the second book though.

[Emma Darcy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fuck eugenics

[Soho_Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never been a huge fan of fantasy novels, but I found a great love for Anne McCaffrey’s “Brainship” series, although I could never get into her dragon-based novels. Upon borrowing some of the former from a friend, they threw in a copy of the Dinosaur Planet” novels, which I had never heard of, but having had a love of dinosaurs which goes back around four decades, I didn’t object in the slightest.

Kai and Varian are the co-leaders on a exploratory vehicle which has been landed on the planet of Ireta, in a new system being explored by the Federation of Sentient planets. Their aim is to map out the planet for useful minerals and metals which might make it worth mining. But they quickly find that the planet poses some interesting questions, as there are cores in place which suggest the planet had been mapped before and the wildlife contains two distinctly different types that haven’t been found together on the same planet in all the worlds previously explored.

There is also some discontent among the crew, as they lose contact with the mothership quite early in the expedition, which leads to rumours that they have been planted, or abandoned. As this rumour spreads, some of the crew members who come from higher gravity planets and are used for heavy lifting, first revert to eating meat, which has long been banned in Federation space and then mutiny and set up on their own, knowing they can survive in a way that the rest of the crew couldn’t.

Although the novel is titled “Dinosaur Planet”, both the dinosaurs and the planet are largely incidental, and the novel is more about the developing relationships between the crew than it is about what they have found on the planet. There are some moments early on, as they find new species where they are described in depth and there is a hint of “Jurassic Park” in the dinosaurs and their interactions, but later parts reduce the dinosaurs to little more than background characters as the humanoid stories take over.

That said, some of the dinosaurs were described a little better than some of the crew, with the heavy-worlders largely blending into each other in a way that matches one of their points of dissent and the ship-bound crew doing much the same. The relationships between the team and the species who have been sent to explore other planets in the system suggest a lot of world-building has happened in the background, but little of it gets to the page, leaving a lot of questions.

Indeed, ultimately “Dinosaur Planet” feels like an episode in a longer series, as it feels that you’ve joined it part way through and you’ve missed all the answers to much earlier questions. Then, when you reach the end of the pages, it is immediately obvious that there has to be another book, as the plot doesn’t so much end as pause.

The novel is written at a decent pace and it’s a very easy read and the pages turn very quickly. But I suspect this is largely by design, as it stops the reader from having too much time to think about how thin and gappy the plot is. Whilst I enjoyed the novel for the pacing and the revelation about the dinosaurs, I was less keen on the questions about the worlds it left me with.

[Tomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Short Answer
A thoroughly uneventful and anticlimactic book. Despite being loaded with some fantastic ideas almost none of them come to fruition, and the ones that do happen too late to be of much interest.

Not recommended for anyone.

The Long Answer
I was very excited to find this book. I love fiction books that use dinosaurs, but I'll be the first to admit that most of them are quite bad. So when I heard that the legendary author Anne McCaffrey had written not one, but TWO books on a planet full of dinosaurs I was very excited. I stumbled across an old used copy in a book store and it jumped right to the top of my to read list.

The book itself starts off with a nearly impenetrable amount of lore. In the first 20-30 pages almost nothing happens, but we are taught a lot about galactic civilization, learn the details of three variations of human and two alien species, and are introduced to a pile of techno babble. All of this could easily have been peppered through the book as it became important, but instead we get it all at once.

When you finally get past that you're treated to a scientific exploration of a planet. There's no real drama or conflict, nor are the things we learn particularly interesting. We just hang out while they tag animals and scan minerals. Truly riveting stuff.

The surveyors encounter dinosaurs almost immediately, but don't realize they are dinosaurs until the book is nearly over despite being given numerous clues. Since the book is titled Dinosaur Planet the reader is left trying to guess what species is what through vague descriptions. If this information could have been useful to the characters then withholding it could have created an interesting tension, but nothing is done with it so the reader is left waiting for the main characters to catch up. The mystery of why there are dinosaurs on this planet could even be fascinating, but the reveal is so late that no one can even hypothesize about it until book 2.

This problem is rife throughout the book. The main conflict is set up is spelled out so plainly that it is painful to watch the main characters be completely oblivious to it. Again, it could be an interesting conflict, but it doesn't culminate into anything until the last few chapters, so the actual interesting outcomes are again left to the second book. This issue is compounded by the book's glacial pace. I've never been less excited to go on a geological survey.

The book does finally get interesting in the last 30 pages or so. And then kind of ends on a cliffhanger. The whole thing reads like the bloated prologue to a much longer and better book. Which almost makes sense since the back of my copy claims this was to be the first book in a trilogy. My understanding is that only one more book was published, so I'm curious if the plan changed, or if the sales weren't great because the first one was so boring that the publisher backed out of number 3. Either way, the only way I'll be reading the second book is if Wikipedia has a summary of the plot.

The book ends with a bunch of characters going to sleep. I'm not sure how they lasted that long, this book put me to sleep way before then.

Only recommended to insomniacs and masochists.

[Hank Hoeft · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-known adage for writing fiction says to “shoot the sheriff on the first page.” I don’t agree with that advice in every narrative—in my opinion it depends on the pacing and length of the story in question. Longer stories can take their time getting to the action and still be compelling. But I understand the principle: a writer needs to grab the reader’s interest soon after the story begins. Toni Morrison understood this when she began her novel Paradise with “They shoot the white girl first, but the rest they can take their time…” Anne McCaffrey not only doesn’t shoot the sheriff on the first page, she waits until the final one-fifth of the novel—the last 35 pages or so—before the action starts.

What the heck?

Don’t get me wrong—I did enjoy reading Dinosaur Planet. The characters are interesting, McCaffrey’s world-building is interesting, the various mysteries that crop up—what is causing the survey team’s isolation? What’s up with the mish-mash ecological sytem? Who surveyed the planet before, and why didn’t the current galaxy-spanning civilization remember any of it? What is causing the disturbing behavioral changes in some of the survey personnel?—are interesting, and I truly wanted to see where all this was going and how it would all meld together. But my biggest complaint is that the story hardly qualifies as a novel. When Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope was first released in 1977, it was just called Star Wars, because George Lucas wasn’t sure he’d be able to make any more installments in what he saw as a six-part story arc. But even though SWE4:ANH was smack dab in the middle of a six-movie epic, the movie had a stand-alone story arc of its own. That is, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end—it is complete in and of itself. Dinosaur Planet’s story arc is incomplete—reading it is like watching only the first three acts of a Shakespeare tragedy, like watching Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet without Acts IV or V. When I first got the Kindle app on my i-Pad, I was excited by all the free e-books out there, until I learned that most of the newly-written free fantasy and science fiction e-books were only the first parts of multi-book series. When I picked up Dinosaur Planet (not as an e-book, but in the original Del Rey paperback edition) and started reading it, I never expected Anne McCaffrey to commit the same storyteller’s sin of only provided the first part of the story, expecting the reader to go out and purchase the sequel just to see how things turned out.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably two and a half stars, generously.

This story takes place in the far future, within the world building/universe building Federated Sentient Planets that she uses in other novels. We start in a star system where Exploratory and Evaluation Corps have left a team of humans to explore one planet, some Thek to explore another and some of the bird people elsewhere.

Our group are the humans who are exploring a lush, Mesozoic type planet called Ireta and no one mentions dinosaurs. The humans consists of 'ship born' and 'planet born' and heavy worlders.

Ireta, the forth planet of the sun is proving a bit of a puzzle. It is not showing the valuable mining and geology deposits they were expecting and then they find markers they never planted themselves, which are way old. The heavy-worlders are starting to revert from their civilised, vegetarian selves into carnivorous degenerates and eventually mutiny - and we know this because we read the back of the book.

We also know that the many large animals are dinosaurs - because we read the title and the back of the book. The xenobiologist who is meant to be incredibly experienced, does NOT know this even though Earth is a known ecosystem and someone else on staff figures it out. Embarrassing.

The mission is meant to be led by Kai, with his girlfriend and co-leader Varian as the utterly incompetent zoologist. Both of them are uniquely dense in managing the team, the missing supplies, themselves and each other. I have literally NEVER read a relationship as insipid and unconvincing as this.

While a lot of McCaffreys work is excellent, this is barely readable. Why give us a title like that and NO dinosaurs throughout? I can't even figure out how this disconnect happened and why would you keep coyly hinting about the unidentified animals without actively trying to say that Varian is incompetent I just have no idea what she was trying to do here.

When the mutiny finally happens we get a bit of much needed action and story telling, the end is kind of fun IFF and only IF you have the second book ready to go.
I would recommend the omnibus, if you decide to read this. In honestly though i can't imagine why you would want to read this unless you were working your way through all of the author's work.

[Thorin Raa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dando inicio al año con mi primer Libro Planeta de los Dinosaurios del autor Anne McCaffrey.

En el nos relata la historia de una una tripulación la cual fue destinada con varios equipos de apoyo entre ellos gigantes, personal científico y parte del personal joven que por primera vez son enviados a una exploración de un planeta que pueda ser habitado para la raza humana ya que débito a la extinción de su planeta han estado en búsqueda de uno en el cual poder habitar ya que las últimas exploraciones han dado un resultado negativo. Tan pronto aterrizan en el planeta su primera impresión es el alto nivel de oxígeno vegetación y de múltiples criaturas que lo habitan con unos tamaños colosales y bastante intimidantes ya que los mismos gigantes se sintieron abrumados a la altura de estos dinosaurios. A medida que avanzan la exploración el equipo es divido para determinar las especies la vegetación la geografía y si tienen agua potable y poder analizar el comportamiento de los animales y de que se alimentan. El equipo científico hace un descubrimiento bastante perturbador en el cual encuentra una nave espacial con unas características muy similares a las que suelen utilizar los exploradores humanos pero con una tecnología ya obsoleta recaudan toda la evidencia posible para dar informar a la nave nodriza, los gigantes encuentran que la geografía es bastante diversa y que el agua potable no es tan potable como lo pensaban ya que al consumirla se embriagaban y perdían el control de los sentidos y sacaban la parte salvaje que ellos tenían. Los jóvenes descubren que no solo ay animales herbívoros de todos los tamaños también ay unos carnívoros que logran devorar a otro animal a pocos metros de dónde ellos se encuentran, a medida que avanzan la exploración van encontrando datos y resultados bastante inquietantes. Ya que la batalla se dará entre los gigantes, los científicos y los jóvenes que luchan por sobrevivir y escapar a varios ataques entre ellos y al cual se le suma la cacería de los carnívoros ya que los detectaron como posibles presas.

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book as a young kid in the early 1980s at our local library used book sale. I started reading it but stopped. It sat on a shelf for 40 years until I saw it the other day and thought "Why didn't I ever finish reading that?". Now I know why.

Like other reviewers have stated, the techno-jargon babble in the first chapter alone made me think I was back in school being forced to learn chemistry or physics when it overwhelming and not interesting to me. It may be this lack of interest that didn't help me grasp all of the characters and their names/descriptions. By the third chapter, I was simply skimming the sentences seeing if there was anything of importance really happening (there wasn't). McCaffrey went into too much details about things that were not needed for the story.

As a 10-12 year old when I bought this, the title and the book cover attracted me but the majority of the book had nothing to do with the D word. That's why I only made it a chapter or two in. Sitting down and forcing myself to read the book I discovered about three-quarters of the way in is where the story starts to become a little more interesting and the action begins. This is also when the "creature" encounters become more substantial and relevant. SPOILER: NOT YET EXPLAINED.

I think the author missed an ENORMOUS opportunity here. This could have been Jurassic Park before there was such a thing; she wasted too much time building up the mundane details on why they were there/what they were looking/technology they were using. The last few chapters were entertaining and I guess it did it's job since I want to read the second part that wraps up the whole story.

I read a few chapters each day while sitting on the beach. It's a quick read if you can get through the first few chapters. I probably won't read this again, but if I do, it'll be to see if maybe I was being distracted by bikinis and tan lines.

[Catherine Braiding · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve spent years keeping an eye out for this one in second hand book stores, because I could only ever find the sequel. And then I finally find it, and settle in with a cup of tea and a new Anne McCaffrey, and am appalled to discover that the dinosaurs are a minor background detail in a book full of space-racial bullshit.

You see, humans who comes from heavy-gravity worlds are just different to those of us from ‘civilised’ earth-normal gravity worlds (or generational space-goers). They’re stronger, and better suited to doing the heavy lifting and other menial tasks (as opposed to the other crew, who are all specialists of one sort or another). And while they are sensibly vegetarian like all members of the Federation, there are rumours that they don’t always keep to the code on their home worlds while no one else is looking.

Given a chance, when exposed to witnessing a T-Rex take down a ... actually I’m not sure, but it was some badly-described veggiesaurus, they ‘revert’ to their natural states, becoming aroused by the violence (it’s assumed they’re sexually as well as physically aroused, and all ‘mating’ like rabbits behind closed doors that night). They sneakily sneak around and take to hunting dinosaurs and eating them, something that repulses all the non-heavy worlders, who also hold all the officer positions in the crew.

As they go to confront them, there’s a mutiny and who cares because it’s just in their nature for blackfellas to behave like that, am I right?

You can have one star for giving the pteranodons fur, but the rest of this book is bad even for the time period. I don’t know why I expected better of the author.