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A review by xterminal
Love in the Time of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene
4.0
Kirsten Alene, Love in the Time of Dinosaurs (Eraserhead Press, 2010)
Okay, here's the checklist: monks practicing magical martial arts, dinosuars with large-bore weaponry, surgeons who have to improvise with whatever extra parts they have handy, sentient thought-clouds, interspecies forbidden love (even if it is never consummated, which would have made for an interesting scene, at least from the perspective of logistics). If you have even ONE of these things in a novel, you have already amped up the coolness factor. Put them all in? See for yourself by picking up a copy of Love in the Time of Dinosaurs, an outrageous trip of a novella set in an alternate-universe Asia (we're never told, but one assumes Tibet) where feral dinosaurs known as Jeremy have been waging war for years with a band of warrior monks holed up in a monastery with impenetrable walls. All continues on as it had been until a nameless monk meets Petunia, a trachodon who belongs to a peace-loving dinosaur sect who lives at the top of a nearby mountain and falls in love with her. Could their romance bring an end to this terrible war?
Of course I'm going to complain (as I do with most bizarro I read) that the damn thing's too short. There are acres of different things Alene could have explored with this conceit, and any of them would have been great. But despite that, what's here is wonderful, not just because of the cool factor but also because Alene digs into her characters enough to allow us some moments of genuine emotion as events unfold. It's pretty tough to write a warrior monk (a nameless one at that) in such a way as to make a reader identify with his trials and tribulations, but it works here, and it works very well.
Pure and simple: I loved this. Guessing you will too. Very much worth it despite its brevity. ****
Okay, here's the checklist: monks practicing magical martial arts, dinosuars with large-bore weaponry, surgeons who have to improvise with whatever extra parts they have handy, sentient thought-clouds, interspecies forbidden love (even if it is never consummated, which would have made for an interesting scene, at least from the perspective of logistics). If you have even ONE of these things in a novel, you have already amped up the coolness factor. Put them all in? See for yourself by picking up a copy of Love in the Time of Dinosaurs, an outrageous trip of a novella set in an alternate-universe Asia (we're never told, but one assumes Tibet) where feral dinosaurs known as Jeremy have been waging war for years with a band of warrior monks holed up in a monastery with impenetrable walls. All continues on as it had been until a nameless monk meets Petunia, a trachodon who belongs to a peace-loving dinosaur sect who lives at the top of a nearby mountain and falls in love with her. Could their romance bring an end to this terrible war?
Of course I'm going to complain (as I do with most bizarro I read) that the damn thing's too short. There are acres of different things Alene could have explored with this conceit, and any of them would have been great. But despite that, what's here is wonderful, not just because of the cool factor but also because Alene digs into her characters enough to allow us some moments of genuine emotion as events unfold. It's pretty tough to write a warrior monk (a nameless one at that) in such a way as to make a reader identify with his trials and tribulations, but it works here, and it works very well.
Pure and simple: I loved this. Guessing you will too. Very much worth it despite its brevity. ****