Dinosaur Summer

Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag of fun and disappointments
Review: As somebody who spent his early adolescence watching old monster movies like "King Kong" and reading old science fiction like "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes, if you don't know), I was truly excited when I picked up "Dinosaur Summer." It was such a great idea, to treat the tale of Professor Challenger as if it actually happened. But when I was done reading it, I was curiously disappointed. I had loved the premise, and even enjoyed parts of the narrative, but when it was done, I felt like I'd been cheated. I think the mixed reviews this book has received come from this: we were led into the book expecting a kind of Golden Age science fiction, with lost worlds and intrepid professors and risks and dangers and escapes, and we were presented with a 1990s sensibility of moral and environmental failures. Nobody succeeds at much of anything in this book, which runs directly counter to the genre it's attempting to revive. I love Greg Bear's work, especially "Blood Music," but here I think he forgot the whole point of an homage: to recreate the spirit of the original work. Still, I'm glad I read "Dinosaur Summer," if only because it sent me back to the originals again (which is another goal of homage, of course).

Rating:
Summary: Slow to start, never got going
Review: Fans of the films of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Vally Of Gwangi etc.) must not miss this wonderful book. Bear has payed loving homage to those masters of the lost art of stop-motion animation in a thrilling, beautiful story that begs to be read again and again. A sequel to the original "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle, this book is tailor-made for those like myself who grew up glued to the TV on Saturday afternoons whenever the local UHF station treated us to any of the aforementioned films (often with a dog-eared copy of "Famous Monsters Magazine" clutched in our hands.).Indeed, reading "Dinosaur Summer" was like watching the lost O'Brien-Harryhausen film that you never knew existed.
But even if you have no idea who O'Brien, Harryhausen, Merian C. Cooper or Ernest Schoedsack are, if you love dinosaurs and/or adventure this book is a can't-miss winner. And as an added bonus the art of Tony DiTerlizzi found throughout the book-in B/W and Color-captures wonderfully the spirit of adventure and imagination that fuels the story.
As an aside, to those who have complained that the creatures inhabiting the plateau are not the dinos they would like to see; What do you want? More of Crichton's Velociraptors and rexes? Hey, don't tell me the Altovenator wasn't cool (and pretty darn close to the real-life Afrovenator.) Likewise, the Death Eagle is quite a remarkable beast and not too far removed from actual prehistoric counterparts in Titanis walleri, Phorusrachus, etc.
So if you love dinos but were dissapointed by some of the less-than-stellar efforts lately (Crichton's "Lost World", both page and screen, come to mind as well as JP3 and Dismal's...er...uh...Disney's "Dinosaur") "Dinosaur Summer" is just the ticket. Dig up those old "Famous Monsters" magazines, pop some popcorn and dig in!

Rating:
Summary: Not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but . . .
Review: I bought DINOSAUR SUMMER hoping to be transported to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World, but ran off to join the circus instead. It took some time for me to accept the hokey notion that if dinosaurs were re-discovered on earth, they would be nothing more than sideshow acts in a circus and people would lose interest in them. I doubt it.

I can't help comparing this to DINOSAUR WARS, another recent dinosaur science fiction offering, and first of a series. In that saga, the entire world is beset by dinosaurs and the human characters are trapped by events beyond their control. The fate of humanity is at stake. Furthermore DINOSAUR WARS' dinos are realistic depictions of known Cretaceous critters, not arbitrary creations like Bear's Venator. This means you can learn about Pachyrhinosaurus, Megaraptor and such while reading a scary and exciting adventure story. Hopp's Professor Ogilvey matches Doyle's Challenger in wit, and exceeds him in hilarity. Bear's Shellabarger and other circus and Hollywood types don't quite cut it, though not bad. Bear's addition of a kid is a good element. On the other hand, the hero of DINOSAUR WARS, Chase Armstrong and the heroine, Kit Daniels, make a convincing romantic pair who add to the overall beauty of the read -- women were almost totally lacking in DINOSAUR SUMMER, as in THE LOST WORLD. DINOSAUR WARS mixes males and females in roughly equal proportions -- rare, for an adventure story.

I thought DINOSAUR SUMMER was an enjoyable book, but whatever you do, don't miss DINOSAUR WARS and the new sequel, COUNTERATTACK.

Rating:
Summary: Formula, predictable, tired...
Review: I'm not surprised that this book has been underrated by many readers. It comes from another age, when Doyle and Burroughs were the hottest adventure writers around. It was a big challenge for Bear to satisfy the old hard-liner of "Lost World" but the "exercice de style" was achieved to the perfection. But don't be surprised if under the apparent naivete inherited from the Lost World a very clever, educated and gripping story is developping. After all, that's the Bear Touch.

Rating:
Summary: Dinosaur Summer is adventure in the great old-fashioned way.
Review: In what we are pleased to think of as our reality, such men as Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (producers of the 1933 KING KONG), special effects geniuses Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, President Harry S Truman, and circus impresario John Ringling North, to name only a few, are-or, for most of them, at least were-very real. On the other hand, such men as George Edward Challenger are inhabitants of the vast realms of fiction-in this instance, Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 classic, THE LOST WORLD.

Now Greg Bear-author of such major SF novels as MOVING MARS, EON, / (Slant), and many others, provides in his new novel DINOSAUR SUMMER a world wherein our reality and Doyle's speculative adventure collided head-on and merged, eighty-six years ago, with the return from Venezuela of the Challenger expedition-complete with real, live dinosaurs. And the result is quite a reading experience. (An added bonus: the novel is illustrated, both with fine line drawings and excellent full-color paintings reflecting a style of illustration of over fifty years ago, by Tony DiTerlizzi.)

In DINOSAUR SUMMER it's 1947, and dinosaurs are passé; a world in which they still lived lost interest in them after only a few decades (unlike our world's continuing fascination with the creatures of a vanished epoch). The last dinosaur circus still extant is out of business, its facilities sold to John Ringling North, its last remaining sad living exhibits destined for an uncertain fate...until the National Geographic steps in, offering to fund an expedition to return the dinosaurs to the massive prehistoric plateau, the tepui of El Grande, known to the nearby Indians as the sacred Kahu Hidi. Along for the ride, to preserve this quixotic journey's high points on film, are movie expert Willis O'Brien, the young Ray Harryhausen, photographer Anthony Belzoni, and Belzoni's son Peter, the novel's focal character.

I don't want to give much away, but I can say that the first half of the novel moves relatively slowly but steadily, quietly getting under way; after the expedition at last arrives at the gateway to Kahu Hidi, events really start to rock and roll like a runaway train, hurtling toward a powerful and emotionally resonant conclusion. Greg Bear, in addition to considerable knowledge of his subjects (prehistory, history, politics, movies, people), obviously has great affection for them as well.

I must have read Doyle's LOST WORLD more than a dozen times when I was a kid, my favorite movie of all time may well be the '33 KONG, and I've seen every O'Brien and Harryhausen fantasy film many times since as a result, not to mention JURASSIC Park and its sequel. That said: for readers like me, DINOSAUR SUMMER-which despite its Bradbury-esque title contains significant (and by no means gratuitous) scenes of graphic violence at its climax, and is not really for younger kids-is a real treat, and one I expect to return to again. Like Doyle's novel and KONG, it more than fulfills Cooper and Schoedsack's Three Ds-"Keep it Distant, Difficult, and Dangerous"-in a way that happens all too rarely, a way I can really prize.

-Michael E. Stamm is a clerical worker in the English Department at the University of Oregon; he has been reviewing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and genre fiction for various publications for nigh onto twenty years now.

Rating:
Summary: coming-of-age story devlolves into bad Jurassic Park rerun
Review: Jurassic Park meets Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World in this unpretentious story about a group of adventurers returning circus dinosaurs back to the wild. The first half was a pleasingly poignant story, centered around a coming-of-age-story of a boy trying to understand his father. Much of this novel had the feel of a young adult story, in a good way; I could picture myself reading it to a young nephew someday. Unfortunately, once the adventurers released the dinosaurs into their native habitat, Jurassic Park broke loose. And so I read as quickly as possible to get to the end. P.S. The illustrations are keen.

Rating:
Summary: you will love this book
Review: Okay, yes some parts of this novel are predictable. Yes the characters are not as colorful as they could be. But this is still a great novel that really captures the sense of boyhood adventure. It is the kind of work that you finish and can't get the question out of your head: "Why the heck have I ended up setting behind a desk for the rest of my life?" You want to go out and become part of something grand, make yourself an adventure, discover your own metaphorical dinosaurs. And the fun part is that it does not ignore the people who gave of this gift: Doyle, O'Brien, Cooper, Harryhausen, etc. In fact, it is as much as homage to them as it is dinosaurs.

I recommend this book. While it may not be quite as good as Jurassic Park (the novel), it is much better than Crichton's The Lost World. Heck, its what Crichton's sequel should have been!

Rating:
Summary: Slow to start, never got going
Review: This book reads like either, A) an early effort written before a good author learns pacing and plot development, or B) a movie or television treatment flushed out to book length.

We know the answer isn't A, since this book was published, and presumably written, years after Bear wrote memorable series like Eon and Forge of God. If the answer is B, well then, it's going to be a pretty darn slow moving movie.

Bear gets points for showing us interesting dinosaur behavior and for incorporating real people and famous fictional characters into the story line. But the story never takes off and soars.

Rating: If you are a dinosaur fiction nut: 3 stars
If not, 2 stars.
If you are looking for more quality fiction from the author of Eon and Forge of God, keep looking.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: This is an exciting lost world dinosaurs story. It really seems pitched at young readers rather than adults, and not only due to its teenage hero. It is not particularly uuplifting fare for kids, however, as there are many nasty people here, many disappointments, and nothing much profound to pique a grownup's interest. The adventures are rather fantastical, yet there is nothing of ethereal fantasy in this gritty story by an author who is usually among the better SF authors.

If you DO like this, note that Time Warner has once again printed a book on excreble paper. I bought the first pb issue and two years later the pages are already yellowed. Does no one save their favorite books anymore, or to read to the grandkids someday, or is TW simply contemptuous of its customers?