Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall

Star Wars meets Jurassic Park as dinosaurs return to earth from space. Action-packed adventure for all age groups.

"Solid science and pacing that never quits." --Kay Kenyon, Philip K. Dick Award nominated author of Maximum Ice

"Fills the void since Jurassic Park. And, Hopp's book may be better." --Steve Brusatte, DinoLand Review

 

It's taken me a while to write this review. After I read the book, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I then read the other reviews and found that I agreed completely with both the low and the high star reviews.

Yes, the plot is whacky, the science is at least half fantasy, as is the military reaction, and the characters' activities--not to mention the intelligent dinos waging war on humankind. But the book was a blast to read, fast paced with accessible, if somewhat one-dimensional characters.

I think what got me, besides the whole Jurassic Park meets War of the Worlds plot, is the way the author managed to weave a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor into his non-stop, dino action. For instance, when the paleontologist, one of the main characters in the book, is rounded up with some millitary men to be the intelligent dino's dinner, he thinks to himself, as the dinosaurs he's spent his whole life studying lean over him with their jaws ready to take a bite: "So this is what they mean when they say you're consumed by your work." How can you not like puns and dinosaurs in the same book???

And there are moments of real pathos, terror, anger...the author manages to get the reader to feel the whole spectrum. Yes, including, eyerolling "you've got to be kidding me" moments. There are a lot of those, it has to be admitted. And I thought the ending was the biggest eyeroller of them all, especially how the lone For Peace dino never has a moment of angst over the humans blowing away his home base where his beloved, pregnant wife was nesting. He's STILL bent on making peace with these tasty, so-called intelligent humans.

I do think that you will enjoy this book, as I did, if you park your modern outlook and knowledge of real science, and instead let yourself channel the days of Edgar Rice Burroughs and scienece fiction adventures from the pulp fiction days of yesteryear.