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A review by branomir
The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán
3.0
Well...this is a book of opposites if I ever did read one. I hardly know where to start.
Okay, so to begin, I'm a big dino geek and I'm a big fantasy geek, so I really did enjoy the concept and was quick to look for this book when I first came across it. While Milan didn't do a horrible job with it by any means, it is more than fair to say, he (or someone) could really have done a lot better. There's so much to cover here that I'm going to cut this review in different sections to make it easier to wrap my own head around and make sure I don't forget anything. All right, here goes and in no particular order:
Characters
The characters in the book were okay. I didn't consider them stereotypes as I've seen some people state in their reviews. They were fun to read about for the most part, the dialogues were pretty good and the mixing of personalities were entertaining. Character growth however was unfortunately very lacking which made them become somewhat annoying by the end of the book. I definitely prefer a story with a bit more development.
My biggest complaint was about the only female protagonist in the book, Melodia. The concept for the character again was good, she had a lot potential, however she didn't reach it at all. (this seems to be the running theme of the book, great on ideas, less so in execution) It seems as if Milan went out of his way to confirm every cliché about male authors writing female characters. Our female protagonist seemed to be naked for about half the book and when she did have on clothes there were so little of them they seemed hardly worth mentioning. Not an opportunity was wasted to remind us of her gorgeous body either and she spends most of the first half of the book complaining about how horny she is. All in all it was very cringe worthy. Also, there was a side character whose only purpose in the entire novel was to be sexy and have sex with. That's it. I wonder if this author knows any women in real life that he is not related to.
World Building/Background
The world of Paradise seems to be an alternative setting of Europe where Spain was the main ruling power and Spanish has consequently had a strong influence on the languages spoken. Milan's strength was bringing this world alive through rich use of intricate detail making it very much feel like a real place with a real culture and real history. How all of this came into being and how we have Humans, modern animals and prehistoric animals all coexisting was never satisfactorily explained in the book. However, seeing as this is announced as a part one of six, I'm willing to let it slide for now.
Writing
Oh boy. This was one of the book's biggest flaws. If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would be "arrogant". Milan knows a lot of big words and he's darn proud of it. It gets annoying quickly. He uses unnecessarily inflated sentences to the point where it becomes confusing and unclear just what exactly he is trying to say. He throws in a hell of a lot of technical terms without explaining them, mostly where weapons, armour and clothing are concerned. I can't remember the last time I read a book where I had to look up so many words and I wouldn't say I have that much of a limited vocabulary. His overuse of bad and farfetched similes also gave me a headache, sometimes giving detailed descriptions of something or some event just so he could use it in a simile later on. Chapters ending at random moments was another problem. A thing which sometimes, by splitting the action, ruined what would have otherwise been good pacing in the story. How all this got past the editor I’ll never understand. He/she deserves to be fired for this. Then again, maybe the poor soul didn't know where to begin and gave up before starting. In a way, I feel sorry for them.
Names for places and things are another issue. When using other languages, mainly Spanish, they tended to okay. But in English? The revolutionaries in the opening chapter who are led by several princes apparently are named "the princes' party". The princes' party? Really?! That's the best you can come up with? Read that again and tell me it doesn't sound like princess party. Very intimidating. Same thing with the dinosaurs. Most of them have nicknames based on what they look like or do. Some of these make sense, like nosehorn or hookhorn. Others are very random and tell you nothing like "fatty" for a Protoceratops and yet others only confuse the hell out of you like "Sackbut" and "Morion". One is an instrument like a trombone and the other is a type of Spanish Helmet. Any of you knew that? I didn't. Not to mention that the dinos are called thus because their crests are supposed to resemble these two items. I know what these dinosaurs look like. They look nothing like that. Victor, take a page from what Jurassic Park did and just shorten the names like T-rex, Raptor, Packy and Compy. Works MUCH better.
Prehistoric Animals
And now we move into the dinosaurs themselves. The good news is that if your story has dinosaurs in it, there is a good chance that I will want to read it. The bad news is that I happen to know a little more about dinosaurs than the average person (mind you, I'm no palaeontologist), so if you don't do your research or just make stuff up; I'm going to be fucking annoyed about it.
Granted he does seem to know a thing or two about the subject. He uses a wide variety of species, some of which I didn't even know and he is aware of some of the finer points that a lot of people who are not into these things don't seem to realise, such as the fact that there were a lot of species that had feathers rather than scales. On other subjects he seemed to be just guessing or making weird assumptions. The one that drove me mad was Hadrosaur motion. Hadrosaurs are the most heavily featured mount in the book. They are facultative bipeds, so they can move either on two or four legs. With their hind legs being much bigger and much more powerful than their front legs, it is generally assumed that they walked on four and raised themselves on two to break into a run, probably to get away from bipedal predators. In Milan's world it is all completely random however and he would frequently have is Hadrosaurs "drop to all fours to charge". That annoyed me to no end, especially when he described their "rolling gait". Imagine being a knight trying to steady a lance on a mount that's moving about like a boat in a bad storm. It just didn't make any sense and was lazy to boot. And sometimes he would just plain make stuff up. Hadrosaurs with weaponised screams, Diplodocus being mute because they have long necks (never heard a giraffe apparently) and a fat and toothless T-Rex. He also has some other prehistoric critters running around that exist neither today nor during the time of the dinosaurs such a giant dragonflies which very different environmental conditions than humans or dinosaurs to survive, so that was odd. Also the randomness in people's ideas about animals; goats and dogs are commonplace yet it is generally accepted that sheep and wolves, which are mentioned in ancient texts, are mythical for some reason. There was just no rhyme or reason to it all sometimes, though I imagine this probably didn't bother most people as much as it did me.
Diversity
This was a welcome plus and something I did greatly enjoy in the book. Despite the fact that his protagonists aren't that diverse in gender, three males vs one female, they are diverse in other aspects as is the world around them. We see characters from both sexes in all sorts of positions and ranks as well as people from different ethnicity and LGBTQ characters. This was a breath of fresh air still missing in a lot of modern novels. He didn't do as much with it as I would have liked but I was still happy that it was there. There is a large variety in names as well, ranging from all over Europe, including my own native grounds. It was nice to read an English fantasy novel were the characters weren't either all fictional or Anglian in origin.
Content/Pacing
The book moved along nicely, it wasn't a book I couldn't put down, but for the most part enough was happening that I wasn't bored or felt like it was dragging. The overarching plot did advance rather slowly, but that's kind of what you'd expect from what is planned as a six book series. Not really something I'm that keen about (I feel like five should be the max), but not necessarily a detraction either.
Personal connection
Circling back both to "characters" and "writing", this was another problem for me. It seems like Milan has some odd ideas about how people feel, especially women. He doesn't write emotions well and it was hard to connect sometimes. I'm glad only two sex scenes were in the story. I've nothing against sex scenes myself, on the contrary, I am convinced that sometimes they are even necessary for the benefit of the story. Both of them however, were plain awful. Badly written, with an odd fixation with female pubic hair, they felt like something right out of fifty shades. The rape scene in particular was horrid and seemed very trivial for such a serious event. The worst feelings that he seemed to come up with for the victim during were "frustration and anger". Really? Not to mention she seemed to have shaken it off in the next scene. Now I can respect a strong female character, but surely there would be some internal turmoil at least after what happened?! Especially considering who the character is and how she is used to being treated.
In conclusion, this book has a tonne of great ideas and concepts but a lot of problems with the execution of them. Milan is lucky I like dinosaurs as much as I do otherwise this might have been a two star, two and a half max. It's not a book I'd recommend but I wouldn't dissuade you to read it either. Personally I'm invested enough to want to continue the series, but I doubt that afterwards I'll ever read anything by Victor Milan ever again.
Okay, so to begin, I'm a big dino geek and I'm a big fantasy geek, so I really did enjoy the concept and was quick to look for this book when I first came across it. While Milan didn't do a horrible job with it by any means, it is more than fair to say, he (or someone) could really have done a lot better. There's so much to cover here that I'm going to cut this review in different sections to make it easier to wrap my own head around and make sure I don't forget anything. All right, here goes and in no particular order:
Characters
The characters in the book were okay. I didn't consider them stereotypes as I've seen some people state in their reviews. They were fun to read about for the most part, the dialogues were pretty good and the mixing of personalities were entertaining. Character growth however was unfortunately very lacking which made them become somewhat annoying by the end of the book. I definitely prefer a story with a bit more development.
My biggest complaint was about the only female protagonist in the book, Melodia. The concept for the character again was good, she had a lot potential, however she didn't reach it at all. (this seems to be the running theme of the book, great on ideas, less so in execution) It seems as if Milan went out of his way to confirm every cliché about male authors writing female characters. Our female protagonist seemed to be naked for about half the book and when she did have on clothes there were so little of them they seemed hardly worth mentioning. Not an opportunity was wasted to remind us of her gorgeous body either and she spends most of the first half of the book complaining about how horny she is. All in all it was very cringe worthy. Also, there was a side character whose only purpose in the entire novel was to be sexy and have sex with. That's it. I wonder if this author knows any women in real life that he is not related to.
World Building/Background
The world of Paradise seems to be an alternative setting of Europe where Spain was the main ruling power and Spanish has consequently had a strong influence on the languages spoken. Milan's strength was bringing this world alive through rich use of intricate detail making it very much feel like a real place with a real culture and real history. How all of this came into being and how we have Humans, modern animals and prehistoric animals all coexisting was never satisfactorily explained in the book. However, seeing as this is announced as a part one of six, I'm willing to let it slide for now.
Writing
Oh boy. This was one of the book's biggest flaws. If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would be "arrogant". Milan knows a lot of big words and he's darn proud of it. It gets annoying quickly. He uses unnecessarily inflated sentences to the point where it becomes confusing and unclear just what exactly he is trying to say. He throws in a hell of a lot of technical terms without explaining them, mostly where weapons, armour and clothing are concerned. I can't remember the last time I read a book where I had to look up so many words and I wouldn't say I have that much of a limited vocabulary. His overuse of bad and farfetched similes also gave me a headache, sometimes giving detailed descriptions of something or some event just so he could use it in a simile later on. Chapters ending at random moments was another problem. A thing which sometimes, by splitting the action, ruined what would have otherwise been good pacing in the story. How all this got past the editor I’ll never understand. He/she deserves to be fired for this. Then again, maybe the poor soul didn't know where to begin and gave up before starting. In a way, I feel sorry for them.
Names for places and things are another issue. When using other languages, mainly Spanish, they tended to okay. But in English? The revolutionaries in the opening chapter who are led by several princes apparently are named "the princes' party". The princes' party? Really?! That's the best you can come up with? Read that again and tell me it doesn't sound like princess party. Very intimidating. Same thing with the dinosaurs. Most of them have nicknames based on what they look like or do. Some of these make sense, like nosehorn or hookhorn. Others are very random and tell you nothing like "fatty" for a Protoceratops and yet others only confuse the hell out of you like "Sackbut" and "Morion". One is an instrument like a trombone and the other is a type of Spanish Helmet. Any of you knew that? I didn't. Not to mention that the dinos are called thus because their crests are supposed to resemble these two items. I know what these dinosaurs look like. They look nothing like that. Victor, take a page from what Jurassic Park did and just shorten the names like T-rex, Raptor, Packy and Compy. Works MUCH better.
Prehistoric Animals
And now we move into the dinosaurs themselves. The good news is that if your story has dinosaurs in it, there is a good chance that I will want to read it. The bad news is that I happen to know a little more about dinosaurs than the average person (mind you, I'm no palaeontologist), so if you don't do your research or just make stuff up; I'm going to be fucking annoyed about it.
Granted he does seem to know a thing or two about the subject. He uses a wide variety of species, some of which I didn't even know and he is aware of some of the finer points that a lot of people who are not into these things don't seem to realise, such as the fact that there were a lot of species that had feathers rather than scales. On other subjects he seemed to be just guessing or making weird assumptions. The one that drove me mad was Hadrosaur motion. Hadrosaurs are the most heavily featured mount in the book. They are facultative bipeds, so they can move either on two or four legs. With their hind legs being much bigger and much more powerful than their front legs, it is generally assumed that they walked on four and raised themselves on two to break into a run, probably to get away from bipedal predators. In Milan's world it is all completely random however and he would frequently have is Hadrosaurs "drop to all fours to charge". That annoyed me to no end, especially when he described their "rolling gait". Imagine being a knight trying to steady a lance on a mount that's moving about like a boat in a bad storm. It just didn't make any sense and was lazy to boot. And sometimes he would just plain make stuff up. Hadrosaurs with weaponised screams, Diplodocus being mute because they have long necks (never heard a giraffe apparently) and a fat and toothless T-Rex. He also has some other prehistoric critters running around that exist neither today nor during the time of the dinosaurs such a giant dragonflies which very different environmental conditions than humans or dinosaurs to survive, so that was odd. Also the randomness in people's ideas about animals; goats and dogs are commonplace yet it is generally accepted that sheep and wolves, which are mentioned in ancient texts, are mythical for some reason. There was just no rhyme or reason to it all sometimes, though I imagine this probably didn't bother most people as much as it did me.
Diversity
This was a welcome plus and something I did greatly enjoy in the book. Despite the fact that his protagonists aren't that diverse in gender, three males vs one female, they are diverse in other aspects as is the world around them. We see characters from both sexes in all sorts of positions and ranks as well as people from different ethnicity and LGBTQ characters. This was a breath of fresh air still missing in a lot of modern novels. He didn't do as much with it as I would have liked but I was still happy that it was there. There is a large variety in names as well, ranging from all over Europe, including my own native grounds. It was nice to read an English fantasy novel were the characters weren't either all fictional or Anglian in origin.
Content/Pacing
The book moved along nicely, it wasn't a book I couldn't put down, but for the most part enough was happening that I wasn't bored or felt like it was dragging. The overarching plot did advance rather slowly, but that's kind of what you'd expect from what is planned as a six book series. Not really something I'm that keen about (I feel like five should be the max), but not necessarily a detraction either.
Personal connection
Circling back both to "characters" and "writing", this was another problem for me. It seems like Milan has some odd ideas about how people feel, especially women. He doesn't write emotions well and it was hard to connect sometimes. I'm glad only two sex scenes were in the story. I've nothing against sex scenes myself, on the contrary, I am convinced that sometimes they are even necessary for the benefit of the story. Both of them however, were plain awful. Badly written, with an odd fixation with female pubic hair, they felt like something right out of fifty shades. The rape scene in particular was horrid and seemed very trivial for such a serious event. The worst feelings that he seemed to come up with for the victim during were "frustration and anger". Really? Not to mention she seemed to have shaken it off in the next scene. Now I can respect a strong female character, but surely there would be some internal turmoil at least after what happened?! Especially considering who the character is and how she is used to being treated.
In conclusion, this book has a tonne of great ideas and concepts but a lot of problems with the execution of them. Milan is lucky I like dinosaurs as much as I do otherwise this might have been a two star, two and a half max. It's not a book I'd recommend but I wouldn't dissuade you to read it either. Personally I'm invested enough to want to continue the series, but I doubt that afterwards I'll ever read anything by Victor Milan ever again.