FANTASY REVIEW: The Dinosaur Lords - Victor Milan

Release Date: 28/07/15
Publisher:  Tor

SYNOPSIS:

A world made by the Eight Creators on which to play out their games of passion and power, Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often brutal place. Men and women live on Paradise as do dogs, cats, ferrets, goats, and horses. But dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden – and of war. Colossal planteaters like Brachiosaurus; terrifying meateaters like Allosaurus and the most feared of all, Tyrannosaurus rex. Giant lizards swim warm seas. Birds (some with teeth) share the sky with flying reptiles that range in size from batsized insectivores to majestic and deadly Dragons.

Thus we are plunged into Victor Milán's splendidly weird world of The Dinosaur Lords, a place that for all purposes mirrors 14th century Europe with its dynastic rivalries, religious wars, and byzantine politics…and the weapons of choice are dinosaurs. Where we have vast armies of dinosaur-mounted knights engaged in battle. And during the course of one of these epic battles, the enigmatic mercenary Dinosaur Lord Karyl Bogomirsky is defeated through betrayal and left for dead. He wakes, naked, wounded, partially amnesiac – and hunted. And embarks upon a journey that will shake his world.



REVIEW:

To be honest I had high hopes for this book and whilst I don’t tend to be swayed by writer endorsement I have to admit that seeing the GRRM quote upon the cover made me think I was in for a real treat.

What occurred within was sadly a mess. For me the characters were pretty two dimensional, the plot line sadly lacking and when you throw into it a small cast, as a reader I expect to get to know each one quite well so much so that I can see the reasons behind their choices as to how the plot develops. Sadly that didn’t happen here and as such I was left wondering what the hell was happening quite a lot of the time as it moved at a really dire pace.

All in a book/series I won’t be returning to in the future and whilst I found so much wrong, there were a few shining moments within as the author at least developed the various cultures within so that there were different languages and ideologies within. Sadly that wasn’t enough to save it for me, but at least I found a positive.