The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán | 2015 | Tor Books | Hardcover $26.99
A world made by the Eight Creators on which to play out their games of passion and power, Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often brutal place. Men and women live on Paradise as do dogs, cats, ferrets, goats, and horses. But dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden – and of war. Colossal planteaters like Brachiosaurus; terrifying meateaters like Allosaurus and the most feared of all, Tyrannosaurus rex. Giant lizards swim warm seas. Birds (some with teeth) share the sky with flying reptiles that range in size from batsized insectivores to majestic and deadly Dragons. Vast armies of dinosaur-mounted knights engaged in battle. And during the course of one of these epic battles, the enigmatic mercenary Dinosaur Lord Karyl Bogomirsky is defeated through betrayal and left for dead. He wakes, naked, wounded, partially amnesiac – and hunted.
Disclosure statement: I received a digital ARC of this title from the publisher.
I wish I liked this book more than I did.
Come on, it’s a high fantasy set in a world where people ride DINOSAURS into battle (and keep them as pets and have otherwise domesticated them). Knights in shining armor who ride goddamn dinosaurs… what’s not to love?
Despite my everlasting passion for epic high fantasy stories, I’m not really a big fan of most battle scenes — and this book (especially at the beginning) involves several of them.
Most of the characters seemed flat to me. A couple of them did get to be more compelling as the story went on, but I really couldn’t make myself care about the fate of most of them. Even the main female character, the emperor’s daughter, seemed more like a vehicle for romance and court intrigue than a fully fleshed out character at first, although I do think she improved as the book went on.
And I’m feeling pretty chill right now, so I won’t go on a rant about my frustration with yet another epic fantasy that features only a single, somewhat boring female POV character. You’re welcome.
The world this book is set in is literally called Paradise. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of disease or natural disasters as far as I can tell, and humans can live to be over 300 years old. The danger is all either human-to-human or supernatural-to-human. I’m not sure why, but this rubbed me the wrong way.
That said, I did like the sort of alternative history — the book is basically set in a Europe where Spain, now called the Empire of Nuevaropa, basically took over everything and other countries are either subject to it or part of its empire. England, now Anglaterra, is called “Pirate Island” in a nod to its past attempts to defeat the Spanish fleet at sea. I liked that characters come from all over this version of Europe, too.
That said, what it lacks in character detail/originality, it makes up for in setting detail/originality. This book includes a fully fleshed out world and I was delighted by all the little tidbits of dino biology and the history of the various nations.
The pacing is nearly perfect, too. Even though this book is well over 400 pages, not a single bit of it drags and I never felt like I might get too bored to finish. So despite my complaints above, I read the whole thing and mostly enjoyed it!
I also really liked the artwork by Richard Anderson. Each chapter is preceded by a lovely illustration as well as a short definition of particular dinosaur species.
Links:
- Victor Milán’s official website
- Richard Anderson’s official website
- First chapter available free at Tor.com
- Other Tor.com articles tagged for this book
Publication information: Milán, Victor. The Dinosaur Lords. New York: Tor Books, 2015. EPUB.
Source: Electronic format review copy provided by publisher via Edelweiss.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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