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A review by janiedean
The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán
3.0
Fact is: I am very picky with fantasy novels and I was probably one of the few people who never was much into dinosaurs, so in theory such a premise shouldn't have piqued me, but knowing [a:Victor Milán|4601681|Victor Milán|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422563171p2/4601681.jpg]'s work from his short Wild Cards stories (and his Wild Cards single book) and having thoroughly enjoyed it, I figured I could try these books out and man, was I not disappointed. (I am writing this after finishing all three books so it's colored by having read the next two.)
First, the only negative factor one could say about this first book is that it maybe takes a bit to find its footing because of the obvious need to plant the worldbuilding and introduce the characters and there's a lot of politics talk that might be a bit hit and miss, but that's a given for any fantasy book of this scope and size so it was a necessary price to pay that anyway paid off in the second half when things started going underway.
On the positives: I actually am in awe of the amount of work that must have gone into these series and (I'll probably say more on that in the reviews for the next two since they expanded on most things I liked about it) I absolutely dig this re-imagined Medieval Europe - I like how you can recognize exactly who is who and what historical events might be referenced, but it's all done very freshly and with a lot of room for surprising a reader. (Also, as an Italian, I am absolutely delighted that one of the characters who comes from this-world-Italy has a law degree given that we had one of the first law universities in the world during the Middle Ages... but I digress.)
As for the characters, they *all* get better in the next installments (which is why this one has only three stars), but what I had here was more than enough to keep me hooked - the main four (Rob - who's most likely my favorite out of all the cast-, Karyl, Jaume and Melodìa) are all solid characters whose storylines I thoroughly enjoyed and whose evolutions I found very well-penned (I especially enjoyed Rob and Karyl's adventures admittedly, but I definitely dug Jaume's background and Melodia's development), while the minor characters cast was also very well-conceived and written (admittedly most of my minor faves are in between Jaume's Companions) and the antagonists were also all fairly interesting, even if again, they all got better in the next installments as well. From the character work point of view, I found everyone very engaging.
Ah, and of course it definitely delivers when it comes to the dinosaurs. As stated, I'm no dinosaur nerd so a lot of that got lost on me I'm afraid, but I definitely learned a lot, I really liked how the dinosaurs aren't just there for show but are full part of this world up to language choices and these books definitely got me at least interested in the aforementioned dinosaurs when Jurassic Park couldn't back in the day. Ah, and Milán can definitely write his battle scenes. He writes really great battle scenes. If everything you asked of this book (without going into worldbuilding, diversity in the cast and so on) is knights fighting on dinosaurs you're getting that in spades, but it's really more than just knights on dinosaurs.
All in all, I greatly enjoyed this first installment - it does suffer a bit from the problems most first installments of huge series have namely that it takes a while for the story to kick in fully, but the next two books more than amply make up for it and it's definitely a good start to a really enjoyable triad.
Also
[SPOILER for the ending]
I am ABSOLUTELY intrigued by how Milán has decided to work in the theological part of this universe - there's enough of fairly known figures and mythological elements (archangels? apocalypses? Aphrodite? Faeries?) but they're so different that you can't know exactly where this entire thing is going and I absolutely couldn't wait to find out until I got to the next two installments. No spoilers, but I was not disappointed.
First, the only negative factor one could say about this first book is that it maybe takes a bit to find its footing because of the obvious need to plant the worldbuilding and introduce the characters and there's a lot of politics talk that might be a bit hit and miss, but that's a given for any fantasy book of this scope and size so it was a necessary price to pay that anyway paid off in the second half when things started going underway.
On the positives: I actually am in awe of the amount of work that must have gone into these series and (I'll probably say more on that in the reviews for the next two since they expanded on most things I liked about it) I absolutely dig this re-imagined Medieval Europe - I like how you can recognize exactly who is who and what historical events might be referenced, but it's all done very freshly and with a lot of room for surprising a reader. (Also, as an Italian, I am absolutely delighted that one of the characters who comes from this-world-Italy has a law degree given that we had one of the first law universities in the world during the Middle Ages... but I digress.)
As for the characters, they *all* get better in the next installments (which is why this one has only three stars), but what I had here was more than enough to keep me hooked - the main four (Rob - who's most likely my favorite out of all the cast-, Karyl, Jaume and Melodìa) are all solid characters whose storylines I thoroughly enjoyed and whose evolutions I found very well-penned (I especially enjoyed Rob and Karyl's adventures admittedly, but I definitely dug Jaume's background and Melodia's development), while the minor characters cast was also very well-conceived and written (admittedly most of my minor faves are in between Jaume's Companions) and the antagonists were also all fairly interesting, even if again, they all got better in the next installments as well. From the character work point of view, I found everyone very engaging.
Ah, and of course it definitely delivers when it comes to the dinosaurs. As stated, I'm no dinosaur nerd so a lot of that got lost on me I'm afraid, but I definitely learned a lot, I really liked how the dinosaurs aren't just there for show but are full part of this world up to language choices and these books definitely got me at least interested in the aforementioned dinosaurs when Jurassic Park couldn't back in the day. Ah, and Milán can definitely write his battle scenes. He writes really great battle scenes. If everything you asked of this book (without going into worldbuilding, diversity in the cast and so on) is knights fighting on dinosaurs you're getting that in spades, but it's really more than just knights on dinosaurs.
All in all, I greatly enjoyed this first installment - it does suffer a bit from the problems most first installments of huge series have namely that it takes a while for the story to kick in fully, but the next two books more than amply make up for it and it's definitely a good start to a really enjoyable triad.
Also
[SPOILER for the ending]
I am ABSOLUTELY intrigued by how Milán has decided to work in the theological part of this universe - there's enough of fairly known figures and mythological elements (archangels? apocalypses? Aphrodite? Faeries?) but they're so different that you can't know exactly where this entire thing is going and I absolutely couldn't wait to find out until I got to the next two installments. No spoilers, but I was not disappointed.