Take a photo of a barcode or cover
paladinjane 's review for:
The Dinosaur Lords
by Victor Milán
Really, the only thing going for this book is the novelty of having knights riding dinosaurs. That's pretty cool. Unfortunately, all the rest fell apart for me.
The setting is interesting, if a bit poorly conceived. It seems that in this world, humans terraformed a planet and decided to bring back dinosaurs. There are only 5 mammals on this world; inexplicably, ferrets are one of the five. The humans on this world know the animals of our world (aside from those five) as mythological creatures. As for the dinosaurs, much attention is given to describing them and how they're used in battle, but everything else is kind of set by the wayside.
Things I disliked: this book relies on idiot plotting for basically everything. It's apparently a minor miracle when someone is smart enough to think strategically or critically. The protagonists and the most dangerous of their enemies seem to have only average intelligence. Everyone else is dumb as rocks.
The evil religious sect makes no sense. The state religion seems to have some sort of free love, near-nudist sort of thing going on. However, for some reason, the evil cultists decided that every day is opposite day and the religious texts mean the opposite of what they say. Because metaphor, except that's not how metaphor works. So there's a bunch of cultists running around deciding not to practice basic hygiene as their religion instructs and being prudish about sex but working really hard to let nobles rape and pillage and enslave as they like. It's like the author decided to make a religion of everything he hates so he can set them up as the bad guys. Also, the peaceful religious sect that is an extension of state religious beliefs is considered dangerous and subversive. I guess the egalitarianism is subversive to the nobles, for obvious reasons, but it still seems poorly thought out.
There is a lot of rape in this book, including one graphic bit when it happens to one of the protagonists by one of the villains who was egged on to feel entitled to her. Lest you try to excuse this as just being further example of how evil the antagonists are, one of the protagonists is a bit gross too. Rob the dinosaur master spends his free time ogling women. For example, Rob thinks to himself, "I admire a girl who knows how to sashay, he told himself, watching the fascinating interplay of her left buttock with her right. They put him in mind of two puppies in a pillowcase." Two pages later, Rob looks down her dress as she serves him more wine. Upon hearing someone else refer to a group of women as blossoms, Rob thinks to himself, "I wonder if mine host would object if I sniffed a few?" SO GROSS.
Character development is poor. The women are usually treated as sex objects or overemotional gossips. The most competent of the lot is a kid who doesn't really do anything until the end. Most of the men are idiots too. The smart ones are good at battle and that's about it. I cannot fathom how their system of government functions at all with these people running things.
The setting is interesting, if a bit poorly conceived. It seems that in this world, humans terraformed a planet and decided to bring back dinosaurs. There are only 5 mammals on this world; inexplicably, ferrets are one of the five. The humans on this world know the animals of our world (aside from those five) as mythological creatures. As for the dinosaurs, much attention is given to describing them and how they're used in battle, but everything else is kind of set by the wayside.
Things I disliked: this book relies on idiot plotting for basically everything. It's apparently a minor miracle when someone is smart enough to think strategically or critically. The protagonists and the most dangerous of their enemies seem to have only average intelligence. Everyone else is dumb as rocks.
The evil religious sect makes no sense. The state religion seems to have some sort of free love, near-nudist sort of thing going on. However, for some reason, the evil cultists decided that every day is opposite day and the religious texts mean the opposite of what they say. Because metaphor, except that's not how metaphor works. So there's a bunch of cultists running around deciding not to practice basic hygiene as their religion instructs and being prudish about sex but working really hard to let nobles rape and pillage and enslave as they like. It's like the author decided to make a religion of everything he hates so he can set them up as the bad guys. Also, the peaceful religious sect that is an extension of state religious beliefs is considered dangerous and subversive. I guess the egalitarianism is subversive to the nobles, for obvious reasons, but it still seems poorly thought out.
There is a lot of rape in this book, including one graphic bit when it happens to one of the protagonists by one of the villains who was egged on to feel entitled to her. Lest you try to excuse this as just being further example of how evil the antagonists are, one of the protagonists is a bit gross too. Rob the dinosaur master spends his free time ogling women. For example, Rob thinks to himself, "I admire a girl who knows how to sashay, he told himself, watching the fascinating interplay of her left buttock with her right. They put him in mind of two puppies in a pillowcase." Two pages later, Rob looks down her dress as she serves him more wine. Upon hearing someone else refer to a group of women as blossoms, Rob thinks to himself, "I wonder if mine host would object if I sniffed a few?" SO GROSS.
Character development is poor. The women are usually treated as sex objects or overemotional gossips. The most competent of the lot is a kid who doesn't really do anything until the end. Most of the men are idiots too. The smart ones are good at battle and that's about it. I cannot fathom how their system of government functions at all with these people running things.