Bones of the Earth

Rating:
Summary: Complex effort that left me cold
Review: "Bones of the Earth" is nothing if not ambitious. And for dino buffs, it's a lot better than the latest "Jurassic Park" installment. Unfortunately, the dinosaur scenes are the best part-perhaps because they're the most comprehensible. The rest is a convoluted exercise in time loops and causality in which near-future scientists are given the secret of time travel (by whom and why is a major secret) but are inexplicably limited to using it only for the study of dinosaurs. The book mixes themes of predestination and existentialism with a mind-blowingly time-looped story of lust, love, and betrayal that ultimately left me too confused to care.

Overall, the theme seems to be an assertion of the value of acquiring scientific knowledge (and by implication, other life experiences) even though death will ultimately rob us of our earthly gains. "Bones of the Earth" ups that ante with the threat of a fate worse than death: being time-looped into nonexistence, so that all you are and all you've learned never existed in the first place. For scientists, that would also mean the undoing of all their research. Horrors indeed!

The idea is more interesting than the execution. There are too many poorly defined characters to keep track of (along with their past and future selves), and villains (fundamentalist Christians opposed to time travel) whose motivations simply don't stand scrutiny. The payoff, when it comes, isn't worth the wait. The dino chapters are OK. For the rest, wait for Swanick's next book.

Rating:
Summary: very good time travel novel featuring dinosaurs
Review: A good time travel novel - particularly one involving dinosaurs - is quite rare and it was a real treat to read "Bones of the Earth." Time travel can be a hard subject to tackle successfully, and so much in the popular media about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals is wrong; it is wonderful to see a science fiction author do a good job with both.

The novel begins with a scene where the protagonist, paleontologist Dr. Richard Leyster, is working in his office at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Into his office comes a stranger by the name of Griffin, bearing with him an intriguing proposal; he is to set aside his duties at what essentially is his dream job (or so he thought) and work for him on a top secret project, a project Griffin cannot reveal any information at the time about and any information Leyster uncovers working for them cannot be published. Leyster at first of course refuses. Griffin leaves Leyster's office, having placed an Igloo cooler on his desk. After Griffin left, Leyster opens it and is astounded by what he finds; the head of a very freshly killed stegosaur. After verifying that it was real Leyster does make contact again with Griffin and agrees to work on his project.

The project is indeed a most impressive one, with Griffin apparently the chief administrator for am ambitious effort to study the Mesozoic from the earliest Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous, shortly before whatever event ended the reign of the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and the various prehistoric marine reptile species. The organization manages a number of stations throughout the Mesozoic and undertakes extensive studies of the fauna of the era, uncovering a wealth of information and many new species.

Unfortunately a lot of mystery surrounds both time travel and the organization that Leyster is now working for. Both the origin of time travel and the very nature of how it works are closely guarded secrets. Leyster cannot openly publish his research, and indeed the very existence of time travel and that people have seen living dinosaurs must remain a secret from the public (though we find later that in the future it does become public knowledge and Leyster and others are free to publish their findings at that point).

Even more mysteriously there are many rules and regulations regarding time travel. Much effort is made to prevent paradoxes from forming, as apparently one can change the past to a degree, causing immense problems in the future. Griffin and his associates work hard to prevent such paradoxes from forming, a difficult task considering that researchers are recruited from the future to work on the project, working alongside with what are to them often legends, aware of books that the people of Leyster's time haven't even written yet. Sometimes there are teams where some of the researches weren't even born yet in the current time frame of the oldest members of a particular team, having come from that far into the future. There are even occasions when future versions of present day people meet and even work together, though Griffin and his subordinates keep a very tight rein on this.

There are a number of other interesting characters in the book, including notably Dr. Getrude Salley, a rather complicated individual that who while clearly loving paleontology also has a regrettable history of doing some reprehensible things to advance her research and get into the limelight. Leyster and her we find have a very complex history together, one that stretches through time and space. There is also the Old Man, an enigmatic character (whose identity is revealed later in the book), a strange, shadowy man who knows everything about the project and has ultimate authority, coming and going on whims and on projects that no one, not even Griffin, understands.

A lot happens in the book. I think the best section was when an expedition led by Leyster becomes stranded in the late Cretaceous, with Leyster and his team of graduate students having to survive in the hostile wilderness. Even while fighting for their lives and struggling to come up with some of the most basic necessities of life they still remain scientists at heart and make some amazing discoveries.

The end of the book and the ultimate origin of time travel I found to be quite surprising, though I am not sure I entirely liked it; I am still digesting it.

Although I am no scientist, I am an enthusiastic amateur and I found for the most part the science in the book was pretty good. He posits the existence of several species that we do not know from the fossil record, including a basal spinosaur that was popularly called a "fisher" (and subject to nest parasitism by an allosaur, an interesting though unsupported theory), _Geistosaurus_ (a mute hadrosaur, hadrosaurs being the famous "duck-billed" dinosaurs that are now believed by many to have been quite vocal animals), and several interesting late Cretaceous forms such as the marsh hopper (a small, vaguely raccoon-like animal that lived along river banks) and tree-divers (hand-sized crocodile relatives that had membranes that stretched between their limbs, enabling them to glide). Also included were a few I thought he did make up at first until I researched them, such as _Stygivenator_ (a highly derived late Cretaceous tyrannosaurid species, smaller than most tyrannosaurs). One problem I had though was with Swanwick depicting some dinosaurs that were not feathered as adults possessing young covered in down (such as the allosaur in the story). By my understanding of such things this is not possible, as the type of body covering a species has as a juvenile will be the same it has as an adult, and that while there were feathered dinosaurs there were no dinosaurs that were feathered while young and not feathered when mature.

An interesting book, I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: It's not Spielberg, thank god!
Review: Bones of the Earth makes for a fascinating contrast with Swanwick's previous novel, Jack Faust. While Jack Faust offered a cautionary tale about the devastating consequences of science used as a tool of domination and ambition, Bones of the Earth provides a moving portrait of the loving, selfless pursuit of knowledge as one of the most fundamental of human activities.

It's a bit of a challenging read, and there is a dizzying Van Vogtian strangeness to the story, in which we often see effects before their causes and characters confer with older or younger versions of themselves. It's not as flashy or overtly dazzling as his last few outings, but with Bones of the Earth, Swanwick delivers his most tightly plotted and finely crafted novel to date. By the end, it's clear that this is as good a book as he's ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Bones of the Earth
Review: Bones of the Earth written by Michael Swanwick is a fast-paced scifi-thriller that will keep you interested till the end with surprises. This is a time-travel/ dinosaur book that will keep you riveted. Reading the first chapter will hook you and you will not want to put the book down until you have finished it.

The book has four primary characters that interplay with each other and a host of minor characters added for spice and flavor. But, the minor character that really make the book are the dinosaurs. The time funnel is the means by which time travel is possible... Griffin, one of the main characters, has an awesome responsibility of running the time funnel project, but one day he walks into the main character's office, Richard Leyster, who is a paleontologist and has a job with the Smithsonian... also, he is running a major find, a dig with many fossil dinosaur bones that would be a life's work on its own.

Grffin brings in a dinosaur head complete with skin and the story is afoot. Leyster is presented with the fact that he can go back in time and study dinosaurs firsthand. Now, come Dr. Gertrude Salley, a brilliant scientist in her own right, relentlessly driven, fearless, and passionate to a fault. The other character is the Old Man as he is woven throughout the plot.

There are time paradoxes, dire consequences crop up, and why would unknown beings entrust humanity with the technology of time travel. You'll be uniquely engrossed in this tale as the character development comes to life. The fundamentalist christians try to stop the time funnel project, but there are twist and turns that will keep you interested till the end.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful, bittersweet, novel about dinosaurs and time travel
Review: combines several well-integrated (and rather original) SFnal ideas with some neat scientific speculation, interesting characters, a compelling plot, and a powerfully argued theme about the nature of science and the human urge to do science.

The novel concerns a program to send paleontologists back to the Mesozoic Era to study dinosaurs in their natural environment. As such it is both a dinosaur novel and a time travel novel. Perhaps unexpectedly, the thematic heart of the book is in the time travel aspect, though the dinosaur speculations are worthwhile and fun in themselves. The three main characters are Richard Leyster, a brilliant and studious scientist; Gertrude Salley, brilliant herself but manipulative and unbound by law or rules; and Griffin, the tormented administrator of the Mesozoic time travel program.

One key plot thread concerns a scheme by Christian fundamentalists to sabotage the time travel efforts, which ends up marooning a number of paleontologists in the Late Cretaceous. Griffin and his assistants try to loop back and forth through time to forestall this sabotage, but they are frustrated by the insistence of the sponsors of the time travel program that no paradoxes be created: thus anything they know to have "already happened" they cannot stop from happening. The other key thread involves Salley's attempts to subvert that law -- right at the beginning we see hints that she is trying to cause paradoxes, and her attempts continue, though her motive remains unclear to the reader for some time.

The scenes in the Cretaceous involve some well-handled "primitive survival" scenes, and some fascinating speculation about dinosaur social life and about the real causes of their extinction. The other thread involves some very clever handling of time loops and paradox, and an eventual trip far into the future to meet the Unchanging -- the mysterious beings who have offered the boon of time travel to humans. The resolution is surprising, logical, and achingly sad, or at least bittersweet. Swanwick is convincing treating human curiosity, our love of science. He is convincing treating human reactions to the possibility of fixing our past mistakes. The characters are well-drawn, particularly Griffin and his boss, the Old Man. Leyster and Salley are well done as well but a bit less fully realized -- or perhaps too clearly idealized to fit their parts. The minor characters are interesting, too. I loved the book, and I was quite moved by it.

Rating:
Summary: Time Travel for the Thinking Man
Review: Dinosaurs seem to hold an almost unnatural fascination for a great many people, from children thrill-frightened by T. Rex to paleontologists who devote their lives to determining the real facts about these former rulers of the Earth. And it is just such a determined researcher who is offered a life-time dream: the ability to go back in time and actually see the objects of his study in action. But there are a few strings attached to the offer: time travel is a secret, and he can't divulge any of his findings to the world at large, nor can he, by either action or word, be the cause of a time-wrecking paradox.

A good premise for a novel, and Swanwick does a good job of developing both the situation and his major characters. Thematically, Swanwick looks at the reasons people work beyond that of merely surviving, and the lengths some people will go to, including murder, due to their obsessions with some form of 'belief' system (in this case, the major players are the Creationists and federal bureaucrats). It is the conflict between belief systems that leads to the major story action, leaving a party of scientists stranded in the far past and forced to learn how to survive in this environment without most of today's technological marvels, while another group works to rescue the party by working into the very far future - which has its own surprises.

But there are a few problems here. For anyone other than a paleontologist who is highly familiar with the various classes and species of dinosaurs, a lot of the description of these animals will seem to be couched in almost impenetrable scientific terms (quick, off the top of your head, what's a 'hadrosaur'?). Then too, the long period when the existence of time travel was supposedly kept secret, even though there are literally hundreds of people who are engaging in it, stretched my 'suspension of disbelief' quotient. The use of cell phones in the distant past also bothered me - how is such a network initiated and controlled without all the infrastructure of wireless systems? Close attention must be paid to the various time-line trip directions and actions, else the conclusion of the book will make little sense - and time-altering paradoxes are known for creating mind- warping headaches.

In the end, though, the above problems are comparatively minor when compared to the strength of his characters and the multiple ideas, such as a new theory about both the social organization of dinosaurs and the reasons for their extinction, that Swanwick presents. A thinking man's book, written in a field replete with mass-market blockbusters most of which don't even know what science is. It's nice to able to read something that doesn't insult your intelligence and still tells an engaging story. It's easy to see why this book was nominated for the 2003 Hugo Award, and in fact I think this book is better than the book that won, Robert J. Sawyer's Hominids (though not as good as another nominee, China Mieville's The Scar).

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating:
Summary: A Clever and Fun - Although Sexually Graphic - Read
Review: I became interested in this book after seeing it on the "other books that might interest you" portion of Amazon's web site. As an avid follower of science fiction, particularly hard sci-fi, I was naturally intrigued by the plot. I'll start with the positive elements of this book.

First, the concept of time travel is a tough premise to work with, for any writer. And, for a newbie, Swanwick pulls this portion of the book off quite well. He intrigues the reader by showing possible paradoxes, causality infractions and plain and simple "fun" with temporal mechanics. The science behind this marvel is for the most part unexplained throughout the book - which is something most hard core sci-fi fans will continusouly thirst for.

Second, although I'm not a dino-guy when it comes to my fiction (unless you're talking about Jules Verne), Swanwick does a great job of tapping into the reader's inner-child (you know, the one who was fascinated by dinos as a kid). This makes the story more fun, and provides a few genuinely entertaining moments throughout the book.

Now for the negative.

What is with this author's fascination over the "F" word? I will never understand why writers feel the need to use this modern "uber-cool" gutter-mouth vernacular. It doesn't make the story seem any more "real" to me. I mean, we're dealing with live dinosaurs and time travel, it's not like the gratuitous use of this word will make me relate to the characters in a more meaningful way.

Then there are unnecessary sex scenes. Swanwick, on more than one occasion, goes from technobabble to cheesy romance novel in the space of a few, poorly written paragraphs. C'mon. We don't want this kind of junk messing up good sci-fi. If I want to read about group orgies, I'll buy an adult magazine. Please keep my sci-fi clean.

Overall, this book has a lot of wasted potential. This book could have been a great force to get kids interested in modern paleontology, but instead goes for cheap ratings among the sexually frustrated crowd. It's a good concept gone bad with inadequate writing experience and horrible language. I will not refer this book to any of my friends.

Rating:
Summary: Had a Good Beginning then Lost it!
Review: I bought this book based on Amazon's recommendation and was greatly disappointed. The first 50 pages are great then the book falls apart from there.

We have a paleonologist presented first-hand with the opportunity to study live dinosaurs via time-travel. We have interesting descriptions of time-travel possibilities and a mysterious "older woman" from the future that wants to have a romantic liaison with the paleontologist. Then I don't know what happened to the story. It seemed like there were too many boring characters introduced and I found myself not being able to remember who each of them was.

The book is compared to Jurassic Park. Other than the live dinosaur angle, I don't know how to compare them as that had a far superior story that I enjoyed through and through.

Rating:
Summary: Had a Good Beginning then Lost it!
Review: I bought this book based on Amazon's recommendation and was greatly disappointed. The first 50 pages are great then the book falls apart from there.

We have a paleonologist presented first-hand with the opportunity to study live dinosaurs via time-travel. We have interesting descriptions of time-travel possibilities and a mysterious "older woman" from the future that wants to have a romantic liaison with the paleontologist. Then I don't know what happened to the story. It seemed like there were too many boring characters introduced and I found myself not being able to remember who each of them was.

The book is compared to Jurassic Park. Other than the live dinosaur angle, I don't know how to compare them as that had a far superior story that I enjoyed through and through.

Rating:
Summary: FOR THE MOST PART, A VERY NICE READ
Review: I enjoyed this one. Of course I like time travel novels and stories and this had a bit of a different slant. The author did a nice job of his character developement and the story did take some unexpected twists. I must admit that I had a bit of a problem following the story from time to time as the story line is indeed, as others have pointed out, quite complex. On the other hand, I am not the sharpest crayon in the box, so maybe it was just me. Also, there were some very sexually graphic scenes in the book, which overall I don't mind, I enjoy a well done sex scene or two in most works. I just failed to catch how on earth they had anything to do with the story in this books case. I think the word I am looking for is "gratuitous." I do think those that got their noses out of joint due to the creationest bashing were missing the point somewhat, also the moaning over evolution has been a bit much in some of the reviews, but hey, it does not take much to offend these days it seems. All in all, while I have certainly read better, I did enjoy this one and would recommend it as a good read. AND to the reviewer here that gave away the ending of the book...shame on you!