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2.89 AVERAGE
2.89 AVERAGE
The Dinosaur Lords is a solid 3 star read. Although the book has dinosaurs, it isn't about dinosaurs. This isn't the story of a man and his dinosaur trying to make it against the odds.
Rather, The Dinosaur Lords is about the politics of Emperor Felipe of Nuevaropa and surrounding lands. There are four main characters: Rob, Karyl, Melodia, and Jaume. Rob is the rogue, Karyl is the old general, Melodia is the spoiled princess, and Jaume is the bisexual knight. That's essentially what it boils down to.
The dinosaurs act like dinosaurs. Sadly, it's not like Dinotopia! No talking dinosaurs with monocles.
The planet, I believe, is referred to as Paradise, and there's the implication that the people have traveled here from somewhere else. It's not clear if it's something like Anne McCaffrey's Pern in which space travelers from Earth end up regressing and forget their human history.
There's a definite European influence on the characters and the culture. Spain is the dominant influence in the area of the main characters. I am guessing it parallels to the 1400s approximately? However, it's not an exact replica of early to mid 20th century Spain, so there is some creativity.
Dinosaurs are definitely present. The beginning has a large dinosaur battle in which a trex and an allosaurus face off. There aren't legions of these huge carnivores on the battlefield; they're restricted to knights. It would have been interesting to read about a 1,000 trexs going at it, but I doubt it would end well for any side. Not to mention probably rather uncontrollable from a military standpoint.
If you're wondering how in the world someone could ride a trex, control it, and fight with a sword, the explanation is that when the dinosaurs hatch, the knight is the first person they see, so they view the knight as a mother.
There is a really great set-up and world, but the characters and the story fall flat. The characters are rather one-dimensional. It's easy to guess what they will do because they are stereotypical fantasy characters.
I think Melodia was the most developed. It seemed like she had the most page time? Even so, she had little agency and just served as a way to give perspective at the Emperor's court. Her group of female companions were confusing. There were too many of them. Five or six? Maybe only two were distinct. As the main female character, she is a let down. Whiny, spoiled princess girl is way overdone.
The politics were not well written. At the end you realize that there has been some complex plotting, but it's never revealed or hinted to by the reader.
Rob and Karyl always appear together for the most part. They didn't have much time on their own for the reader to get a chance to understand what's going on in their head. They're set up as an unlikely pair, but that relationship isn't explored.
Jaume wasn't developed too well either. He's presented as this interesting poet and lover, but I found him kind of boring.
Any minor or supporting characters were weak in development and forgettable. There was too much focus on keeping a rapid pace that all the characters just got swept along.
There was mention of dangerous Grey Angels that are something akin to gods, but they don't have much of a role. I assume this is a set-up for the next book?
There are two dinosaur povs, I think, but they are super short. I had to google a lot of dinosaur names. There are drawings at the beginning of the chapters, but they don't typically correspond with the little blurb that may be about a specific dinosaur. It would have been cool to have drawings of different dinosaurs as an appendix.
There is a short rape scene, probably less than a page. I don't know if it does anything for the character it happens to. Said character appears to go right back to normal. In that case, the scene is somewhat gratuitous. Don't have a rape scene if it's not for a specific reason!
There are a lot of dinosaurs biting humans, and I distinctly remember a velociraptor running away with an arm.
By the end things were getting interesting for many of the characters. The writing style was decent, it kept me reading throughout and engaged. There's a lot of simple sentences and short paragraphs. The pace did well from this, but there wasn't enough time spent on the characters or fleshing out the story.
Rather, The Dinosaur Lords is about the politics of Emperor Felipe of Nuevaropa and surrounding lands. There are four main characters: Rob, Karyl, Melodia, and Jaume. Rob is the rogue, Karyl is the old general, Melodia is the spoiled princess, and Jaume is the bisexual knight. That's essentially what it boils down to.
The dinosaurs act like dinosaurs. Sadly, it's not like Dinotopia! No talking dinosaurs with monocles.
The planet, I believe, is referred to as Paradise, and there's the implication that the people have traveled here from somewhere else. It's not clear if it's something like Anne McCaffrey's Pern in which space travelers from Earth end up regressing and forget their human history.
There's a definite European influence on the characters and the culture. Spain is the dominant influence in the area of the main characters. I am guessing it parallels to the 1400s approximately? However, it's not an exact replica of early to mid 20th century Spain, so there is some creativity.
Dinosaurs are definitely present. The beginning has a large dinosaur battle in which a trex and an allosaurus face off. There aren't legions of these huge carnivores on the battlefield; they're restricted to knights. It would have been interesting to read about a 1,000 trexs going at it, but I doubt it would end well for any side. Not to mention probably rather uncontrollable from a military standpoint.
If you're wondering how in the world someone could ride a trex, control it, and fight with a sword, the explanation is that when the dinosaurs hatch, the knight is the first person they see, so they view the knight as a mother.
There is a really great set-up and world, but the characters and the story fall flat. The characters are rather one-dimensional. It's easy to guess what they will do because they are stereotypical fantasy characters.
I think Melodia was the most developed. It seemed like she had the most page time? Even so, she had little agency and just served as a way to give perspective at the Emperor's court. Her group of female companions were confusing. There were too many of them. Five or six? Maybe only two were distinct. As the main female character, she is a let down. Whiny, spoiled princess girl is way overdone.
The politics were not well written. At the end you realize that there has been some complex plotting, but it's never revealed or hinted to by the reader.
Rob and Karyl always appear together for the most part. They didn't have much time on their own for the reader to get a chance to understand what's going on in their head. They're set up as an unlikely pair, but that relationship isn't explored.
Jaume wasn't developed too well either. He's presented as this interesting poet and lover, but I found him kind of boring.
Any minor or supporting characters were weak in development and forgettable. There was too much focus on keeping a rapid pace that all the characters just got swept along.
There was mention of dangerous Grey Angels that are something akin to gods, but they don't have much of a role. I assume this is a set-up for the next book?
There are two dinosaur povs, I think, but they are super short. I had to google a lot of dinosaur names. There are drawings at the beginning of the chapters, but they don't typically correspond with the little blurb that may be about a specific dinosaur. It would have been cool to have drawings of different dinosaurs as an appendix.
There is a short rape scene, probably less than a page. I don't know if it does anything for the character it happens to. Said character appears to go right back to normal. In that case, the scene is somewhat gratuitous. Don't have a rape scene if it's not for a specific reason!
There are a lot of dinosaurs biting humans, and I distinctly remember a velociraptor running away with an arm.
By the end things were getting interesting for many of the characters. The writing style was decent, it kept me reading throughout and engaged. There's a lot of simple sentences and short paragraphs. The pace did well from this, but there wasn't enough time spent on the characters or fleshing out the story.
Não sei muito bem o que dizer. Teve momentos que eu gostei e teve momentos que eu tava bem indiferente com tudo.
I picked up this book thinking if it took itself too seriously, I would still have fun laughing at it. But I was blown away, it was thrilling and creative, well-written... I was singing it's praises for 500 pages: courtly intrigue, feisty heroine, sassy hero, fae, gods, dinosaurs! Could not wait to get my hands on the sequel... And then 40 pages from the end the story fumbled so much, I had to knock it down a star :/. Trigger warnings, character assassinations, swiftly followed by poop jokes...? What?! It felt like the author wrote the /last/ 40 pages earlier, when he was less sure of what he wanted to do. And the plot choices seemed to only be there because... *shrug*... that's what you do in the fantasy genre? I had come to expect better given how much fun I'd been having. I'm disappointed the story went awry. Maybe the sequel can save it.
Rape scene thrown in for no reason, ruined the book for me. Would have returned it but I waited too long (kindle). Sorry I gave this author my money.
Dinosaurs, humorous writing, and an intriguing bit of world-building that I won't spoil mixed with some awkward writing, impossible-to-follow pseudo-Spanish and French nomenclature, and initially shallow characters. Enough to get me to want to read the next book, but just barely.
Author sexualizes things/people randomly for seemingly no reason or purpose
Maybe it's the promise of the story being a mix of Game of Thrones and Jurassic Park or maybe it's just me but this book promised a lot and just gave an eh kind of story. I really wanted to like this and while I did enjoy some of the story lines a lot of fell flat for me. It wasn't a hard read but I'm not sure that I will continue with the rest of the books in the series.
Would have given it a 4 but why did the author feel the need to have the main female protagonist raped?
Fantasy does not mean rape
Fantasy does not mean rape
The book started out very slow, but definitely picked up towards the end. Honestly, I had difficulty getting into the book and am not sure I would read the next book in the series.
"Guerras começam quando você quer, mas não acabam quando você deseja."