The only two Michael Crichton books I've read have both been unfinished drafts published after his death. I really enjoyed both of them immensely, so I don't know if I'm a huge Michael Crichton fan or a huge fan of whoever finished these books.
The only other Crichton book I've ever read, Pirate Latitudes, was a fictional, but very well-researched and real-feeling, tale of pirates in the Caribbean. Very similar to, in my opinion, On Stranger Tides, but without the Voodoo, extra-dimensional Fountain of Youth stuff, and magic. Surprisingly, I've only ever mentioned Pirate Latitudesone time on this sorry excuse for a site. And that was only a mention of books that I had on my to-read shelf. I know...I suck.
But I'm trying to do better. I'm not really doing much better, but I have at least kept the more recently-read books to be mentioned (I hesitate to call what I do a "review") in a separate stack on the to-read shelf where they can remind me what a waste of space I am. Baby steps, I suppose.
I don't remember enough about Pirate Latitudes to say anything more about that book, but the other Crichton book I've read is the much more recently published Dragon Teeth - a paleontological romp through the old west. This one I read a couple of months ago, so it's at least slightly more fresh in my memory.
The other Dinosaur book I'm going to mention is The Dinosaur Lords by the recently deceased Victor Milan, which I read just a month or two back. While it is, admittedly, completely unrelated to the Old West story in Dragon Teeth, I wanted to mention this novel with Dragon Teeth because they both involve dinosaurs (kind of a stretch for Dragon Teeth, but still). Another trait they share is authors who won't be contributing to further adventures of these characters (there are actually two more books in The Dinosaur Lords series on my reading shelf that were published before Victor Milan passed, but I haven't made it to either of those yet - I'm hoping the story was wrapped up by book three - there are some big questions in need of further exposition in the first novel).
Before I get into each book, here is another similarity they both share: maps of the locations in the stories (each one is a two-page map that I have attempted - poorly - to combine into a single image).
Dragon Teeth
Dragon Teeth is your basic fish-out-of-water, rich kid goes dinosaur fossil-hunting in the uncharted west type of story. You know, that old chestnut. The main character is extremely unlikable when we meet him.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, the elder son of Philadelphia shipbuilder Silas Johnson, entered Yale College in the fall of 1875. According to his headmaster at Exeter, Johnson was "gifted, attractive, athletic and able." But the headmaster added that Johnson was "headstrong, indolent and badly spoilt, with a notable indifference to any motive save his own pleasures. Unless he finds a purpose to his life, he risks unseemly decline into indolence and vice."
Those words could have served as the description of a thousand young men in late nineteenth-century America, young men with intimidating, dynamic fathers, large quantities of money, and no particular way to pass the time.
William Johnson fulfilled his headmaster's prediction during his first year at Yale. He was placed on probation in November for gambling, and again in February after an incident involving heavy drinking and the smashing of a New Haven merchant's window. Silas Johnson paid the bill. Despite such reckless behavior, Johnson remained courtly and even shy with women of his own age, for he had yet to have any luck with them. For their part, they found reason to seek his attention, their formal upbringings notwithstanding. In all other respects, however, he remained unrepentant. Early that spring, on a sunny afternoon,Johnson wrecked his roommate's yacht, running it aground on Long Island Sound. The boat sank within minutes; Johnson was rescued by a passing trawler; asked what happened, he admitted to the incredulous fisherman that he did not know how to sail because it would be "so utterly tedious to learn. And anyway, it looks simple enough." Confronted by his roommate, Johnson admitted he had not asked permission to use the yacht because "it was such bother to find you."
Faced with the bill for the lost yacht, Johnson's father complained to his friends that "the cost of educating a young gentleman at Yale these days is ruinously expensive." His father was the serious son of a Scottish immigrant, and took some pains to conceal the excesses of his offspring; in his letters, he repeatedly urged William to find a purpose in life. But William seemed content with his spoiled frivolity, and when he announced his intention to spend the coming summer in Europe, "the prospect," said his father, "fills me with dire fiscal dread."
Thus his family was surprised when William Johnson abruptly decided to go west during the summer of 1876.Johnson never publicly explained why he had changed his mind. But those close to him at Yale knew the reason. He had decided to go west because of a bet.
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As our entitled, unlikable protagonist gets the shaft from various parties throughout the book, he ends up in a familiar place from old west folklore - Deadwood, South Dakota. But along the way, he has a few run-ins with the natives and rogue U.S. cavalry soldiers.
"We"re done for," Morton moaned.
"Any minute now we'll hear those arrows whistling," Isaac said, "and then, when they get closer, out come the tomahawks - "
"Shut up!" Cope said. He had never taken his eyes off the cloud. "They're not Indians."
"Damn if you're not a bigger fool than I thought you were! Who else'd be - "
Isaac fell silent. The cloud was now close enough that they could resolve the riders into individual figures. Blue-coated figures.
"Might still be red men," Isaac said. "Wearing Custer's jackets. For a surprise attack."
"Not much surprise if they are."
Little Wind squinted at the horizon. "Not Indians," he pronounced finally. "Saddle ponies."
"Damn!" Cookie shouted. "The army! My boys in blue!" He leapt up shouting, waving his hands. A fusillade of lead sent him back beneath the wagon.
The army horsemen rode around the wagon, whooping Indian-style, firing their pistols into the air. Finally, they stopped, and a captain pulled up, his horse snorting. He aimed his revolver at the figures huddled beneath the wagon.
"Out, you slime. Out! By God, I've a mind to finish you right here, every last man of you."
Cope emerged, purple with fury. His fists were clenched at his sides. "I demand to know the meaning of this outrage."
"You'll know it in hell, you blackguard," the army captain said, and he shot twice at Cope, but his rearing horse threw off his aim.
"Wait, Cap'n," one of the soldiers said. By now Cope's party had all crawled from beneath the wagon and stood lined up along the wheels. "They don"t look like gunrunners."
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Once he makes it to the fabled Deadwood, he witnesses a little bit of Kung Fu-ish Chinaman-abuse, falls for Miss Emily, an old west lady of the night, meets the Earp brothers, and becomes a whole lot less entitled and more self-sufficient. Maybe not a "whole lot" more, but at least a little more.
Here's are a couple of excerpts showing the true nature of his new friend when she tries to sell him out to the local outlaws and our first introduction to the Earp brothers.
"So you said you would ask me?" he said, feeling hurt.
She looked down, as if ashamed. "I was curious myself, too."
"They really contain bones."
"I see that, now."
"I don't want them - I don't want anything to do with them - but they are my responsibility."
"I believe you." She frowned. "Now I must convince Dick. He is a hard man, you know."
"I know."
"But I will talk to him," she said. "I will see you at dinner."
THAT NIGHT IN the Grand Central dining room there were two new visitors. At first glance, they seemed to be twins, so similar was their appearance: they were both tall, lean, wiry men in their twenties, with identical broad mustaches, and identical clean white shirts. They were quiet, self-contained men who emanated a forceful calmness.
"Know who those two are?" Perkins whispered to Johnson, over coffee.
"No."
"That's Wyatt Earp and his brother Morgan Earp. Wyatt's taller."
At the mention of their names, the two men looked over at Johnson's table and nodded politely.
"This here's Foggy Johnson, he's a photographer from Yale College," Perkins said.
"Howdy," the Earp brothers said, and went back to their dinner.
Johnson didn't recognize the names, but Perkins's manner suggested that they were important and famous men. Johnson whispered, "Who are they?"
"They're from Kansas," Perkins said. "Abilene and Dodge City?"
Johnson shook his head.
"They're famous gunfighters," Perkins whispered. "Both of 'em."
Johnson still had no notion of their importance, but any visitor to Deadwood was fair game for a photograph, and after dinner he suggested it. In his journal, Johnson recorded his first conversation with the famous Earp brothers. It was not exactly a dramatic high point.
"How would you gents like a photograph?" Johnson asked.
"A photograph? Could be," Wyatt Earp said. Seen close, he was boyish and slender. He had a steady manner, a steady gaze, an almost sleepy calmness. "What'll it cost?"
"Four bucks," Johnson said.
The Earp brothers exchanged a silent glance.
"No thanks," Wyatt Earp said.
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A little later in the story, Wyatt Earp - bodyguard - steps into action.
"That's right."
The boy gave Johnson a note, and scampered away. Johnson opened it, read it quickly, and crumpled it.
"What is it?" Miss Emily asked.
"Just a good-bye from Judge Harlan."
Around nine they saw the Earp brothers coming down the street toward them. They both appeared heavily burdened. "When they were closer," Johnson wrote, "I saw that the Earps had obtained a collection of firearms. I had never seen Wyatt Earp wearing a gun before - he seldom went armed in public - but now he carried a veritable arsenal."
Earp was late because he had to wait for Sutter's Dry Goods to open, to obtain guns. He carried two sawed-off shotguns, three Pierce repeating rifles, four Colt revolvers, and a dozen boxes of ammunition.
Johnson said, "It appears you are expecting some warm work."
Earp told Miss Emily to climb into the stage; then he said, "I don't want to alarm her any." And then he told Johnson that he thought they faced "a deal of trouble, and no point in pretending it won't come."
Johnson showed Earp the note, which read:
I PROMIS YOU ARE A DED MAN TO-DAY
OR MY NAME IS NOT DICK CURRY.
"That's fine," Earp said. "We're ready for him."
Wyatt's brother Morgan had made a lucrative deal to haul firewood and was planning to stay in Deadwood for the winter, but said that he would ride with Wyatt and the stage as far as Custer City fifty miles to the south.
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Dragon Teeth is filled with loads of historical fact (the basic premise of the story is the rivalry between real-life paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh - both are characters ni the book) and reads like one of David McCullough's non-fiction historical works (of which I've read many and enjoyed each one). It's not exactly an E-ticket thrill ride - there are some dry parts here and there (as there are in real life). I'm sure I'll read it again when I get tired of buying new books - it was that enjoyable and well-written.
Funny enough, another book I recently read, Huck Out West, also links to the old west and Deadwood, South Dakota. More about that later.
Before I move on to The Dinosaur Lords, one last excerpt from Dragon Teeth - the afterword penned by Michael Crichton's wife.
His work is as relevant and engaging as ever, as demonstrated by the gigantic success of the Jurassic Park franchise, and in HBO's reimagining of his classic film Westworld.
Honoring Michael's legacy has been my mission ever since he passed away. Through the creation of his archives, I quickly realized that it was possible to trace the birth of Dragon Teeth to a 1974 letter to the curator of vertebrate paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History. After reading the manuscript, I could only describe Dragon Teeth as "pure Crichton." It has Michael's voice, and his love of history, research, and science all dynamically woven into this epic tale. Nearly forty years after Michael first hatched the idea for a novel about the excitement and the dangers of early paleontology, the story feels as fresh and fun today as it was to him then. Dragon Teeth was a very important book for Michael - it was a forerunner of his "other dinosaur story." Its publication is a wonderful way to introduce Michael to new generations of readers around the world and is an absolute treat for longtime Crichton fans everywhere.
Publishing Dragon Teeth has been a labor of love, and I want to thank the following people for their assistance in this endeavor: my creative partner, Laurent Bouzereau; Jonathan Burnham, Jennifer Barth, and the team at Harper; Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris of ICM Partners; the remarkable team at the Michael Crichton Archives; Michael S. Sherman and Page Jenkins; and, of course, our beloved son, John Michael Crichton (Jr.).
- SHERRI CRICHTON
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The Dinosaur Lords
Funny thing about The Dinosaur Lords - the blurb on the cover is from George R.R. Martin. And he makes a reference to his own series, saying "It's like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones" (lookee there, another Crichton tie-in with The Dinosaur Lords).
There's no doubt that The Dinosaur Lords is very Game of Thronesish. Very. But with a few major differences. The following excerpt is very House Lannister (Jaume and Melodia are cousins).
The herald's tabard swelled to an extra-deep breath. "Comes now the Imperial Champion, the Knight-Champion of Our Lady Bella, el Conde dels Flors, JAUME!" he bellowed.
The crowd erupted in ecstasy as Jaume rode onto the field from between the gaudy silk banners that screened the waiting contestants. It thrilled Melodia to think that her lover might be the most popular man in all Nuevaropa. Certainly the Mercedes adored him.
And why not? He was young and beautiful, his orange hair streaming, his armor and his glorious orange-brindled morion, Camellia, gleaming white. Even better, his philosophy exalted as high virtues the very sorts of pleasures the Mercedes most loved to indulge in, as pleasing to his Lady and productive of moral good.
Melodia saw no reason not to adore her handsome knight. Her heart beat a quick march on her ribs, and she found it hard to breathe.
Scowling, Montañazul stroked his moustache with a thumb. He seemed to find plenty not to adore about Jaume.
Tournament Knight-Marshal Duval, his head bare, the gold-trimmed red feather cape signifying his command of the Scarlet Tyrants draped over broad shoulders, stepped out onto the thirty meters of bare ground separating the combatants. He held out his staff and in a trumpet voice ordered both to make ready.
From the historias Melodia had always loved to read, she knew the Iron Duchess hadn't indulged in fripperies like tourney grounds when she raised her great fortress on its white stone headland to watch over the city she was rebuilding after its destruction by the pirate fleet. Felipe had ordered his lists set up in the middle of a kilometer of ground kept clear between the Firefly Palace's white stone walls and the green wall of forest inland. Wooden stands rose on either side of a field fifty meters long and thirty wide. Panels of red and blue and yellow and green fabric shaded dignitaries on the north side - nearer the palace - and the less elegant but no less festive common crowd on the south. Bright pennons bearing contestants' insignia flapped to a moderate breeze from staffs around the yard.
It was a grand sight, surely. Melodia could see none of it now. She could only switch the narrow window her vision had become between the man who she had been in love with her whole life, and the man intent on doing him all the harm he could.
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Hee's another very Lannister scene in the The Dinosaur Lords (very reminiscent of an iconic moment in the TV series and the novel form of Game of Thrones).
"Your Highness," the Pope said to Melodia over a golden tureen of strider-tail and vegetable soup. "Certain rumors have reached my ears."
For Melodia the usual dinnertime hubbub in the banquet hall was abruptly overridden by ringing silence. Hearing nothing but the drumming of her own pulse, she showed Pio an expression that was more pulling her cheeks up under her eyes than an actual smile. The eyes of the courtiers at the great table seemed to sear her skin.
Nuevaropan culture distinguished nudity from . Being nude in public could signify ritual, exaltation, an important statement, or even social superiority. Being naked in public was humiliating.
Despite the fact that she was fully dressed, in emerald silk wound in an X across her breasts and a lose brown and cream silk skirt, Melodia felt naked.
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There's no shortage of sexual references, though there's not really anything too-graphic. Non-Spanish characters are few, but there's a German one in this excerpt (another, Karyl, would seem to be Russian, and there are a couple of minor British characters mentioned).
"Bitch!" Llurdis said.
"Sow!"
"Puta!"
Melodia's stare turned from shocked disbelief to fury. The pair showed every sign of being about to launch one of their full-blown wrestling/lovemaking bouts, out here in front of Melodia's father, the gods, and everybody.
"They're like a pair of cats, really," Fanny murmured.
"Ladies," Melodia hissed, "I'm this far from having some husky men-servants grab the both of you, spank you, and throw you out on your stinging pink asses."
"Really?" Lupe said.
"You wouldn't dare!" puffed Llurdis.
"Girls," Abi said cheerfully. That itself was a warning as loud as a temple bell rung after midnight. "You may have noticed our Imperial mistress is feeling a bit testy tonight, yes? Tread warily."
Melodia gave her a glare. Then she jumped as she felt a strong, warm pressure enfold her left biceps.
She spun to find the Duke of Hornberg looming over her like a cliff. "You look like you could use a rescue," he said.
She yanked her arm away. "I can rescue myself, thank you kindly, your Grace." She shot him a withering glare. He failed to wither.
"May I steal you for this dance, then?" he asked as lightly as his basement-baritone voice and guttural Northern accent would allow.
"Well," Melodia heard herself saying, "just this one."
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The strapping German knight isn't a good dude and his subsequent actions bear this out.
Each chapter begins with a sketch of a Dinosaur, with or without a knight perched on its back, and a blurb about dinosaurs or a quote from The Histories - the tome that the world's religions and even the governments are founded upon. It's unclear what's happening elsewhere in the world, but The Histories are definitely yhr final word in this corner of Paradise.
Now, the major differences from Game of Thrones -
One, instead of Medieval England/Northern Europe being the template for most of the major players in the story, the major players in The Dinosaur Lords are Spaniards. Spanish is the primary language of the day and Spain appears to rule supreme (which did actually happen for a little while, even in our own timeline) - though it's possible that these opinions might just be those of the protagonists in the book and the actual major powers of the era are somewhere outside the scope. Who knows?
And secondly, in this timeline, Dinosaurs managed to survive and flourish into the middle ages of this universe. They're food, they're beasts of burden, they're more common than most mammals. So that puts an interesting spin on the events of the story. But, and here's one of the big twisteroos, there are clues that this isn't Earth. It's a smaller planet that was colonized by Earth natives. But who? And why?
A possible clue comes from one of the chapter header blurbs from The Histories:
Hogar, Home, Old Home - When they were done making Paradise, and found it good, the Creators brought humans, their Five Friends, and certain useful crops and herbs here from the world we call Home. Ancient accounts teach us it is a strange place. It is cold, and we would feel heavier there, and find the air much thinner. The year is 1.6 times as long as ours. We must admire the fortitude of our ancestors in dwelling on such an inhospitable world, and always praise the Creators for bringing us to our true Paradise!
- A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS
Two of the characters (the two I find the most endearing and noble) are very R.A. Salvatore-ish. Or maybe they're not, but they remind me of his characters from the Saga of the First King series (which I've probably also neglected to mention here in any detail. Most of the other characters are less endearing, but very medieval in their behavior.
Here's a really long excerpt or two or three) to show you why these guys rock.
"Stop!" the archer cried. "Hand over the hook-horn and your purses, and we'll let you leave with your lives."
Little Nell sighed resignedly as she came to a halt. Walking at her side, Rob Korrigan concurred.
The afternoon light dappled the leaf corpses that mostly hid the ruts in the indifferently maintained road, and filled Rob's nostrils with a rich, dry, small as they slowly turned into humus. A cuatralas, black as a baron's heart, glided from branch to branch, chasing a purple-and-yellow butterfly. Tiny birds twittered to one another among the leaves of tall gingkoes and false plane trees, which grew far enough apart to allow enough sunloght to filter down to sustain a thriving undergrowth of barberry, ferns and scrub oak.
Which was in turn enough to hide brigands. Like the one who'd just stepped into the road ahead, drawing a shortbow to his chest. And the pair who emerged from the bushes five or six meters to either side.
"You take care of these two," Karyl said, nodding toward the man with the spear and the one with the short sword who hovered menacingly on their flanks. "I'll deal with the archer."
"And isn't that you all over, then?" Rob murmured as his companion walked calmly forward. He neither saw how Karyl Bogomirskiy, armed solely with his sword-staff, could possibly deal with a bowman twenty-five meters off, nor doubted that he somehow would. Rob was a man who believed in fate and the Fae, and he doubted either intended such a man as Karyl to die like a stunted vexer chick in such a crappy, random way.
Nonetheless he moved to interpose the patient grey-and-blue bulk of Nell's butt between himself and the readied arrow as he pulled axe and round shield off her back.
He slid his arm through a broad swath of nosehorn leather fixed to the back of his shield to grip the narrower hand strap. He loosened the lacings of his axehead cover with his teeth and ditched it with a wrist flip.
The two brigands to either side of him seemed suddenly less eager for the encounter to proceed. His calm, crisp actions clearly took them aback. They seemed astonished that the threat of a drawn bow hadn't frozen him in place.
Rob knew the type too well. They weren't fighters, but bushwhackers, whose primary weapons were surprise and intimidation, not the implements they were suddenly holding in oddly tentative ways, as if trying to remember what they were there for. Most of their combat seasoning came from putting the boot in on a cowed or fallen foe.
Like house-shields, Rob thought - the noble class's hired, armored bullyboys, and occasionally girls. The comparison filled him with such righteous fury it pushed all trepidation right out of him.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, turning left and right to flourish Wanda at each in turn. A showman through, he made sure to let shafts of sunlight glance off her bearded grey head. "Aren't you eager to take what I've got, then?"
Nell snorted, twitched her big tail, and stamped a hind foot. It occurred to him that he might have just given the hook-horn a swat in the fanny and sent her charging straight at the archer. It would take more skill and
...
He'd have sworn the man spoke no louder than a whisper. Yet he heard him clearly as if the dark-bearded lips were almost brushing his own ear.
His opponents having opted to drop their weapons to hold on to their violated parts and moan about their sorry state, Rob risked a look down the road.
Karyl was no more than the span of his own outstretched arms from the head of the drawn arrow. Which was now describing increasingly wild figured of eight in the air.
Karyl advanced another inexorable step. The bowman shrieked like a frightened child and threw down his bow. The nocked arrow tumbled, to go notch-fist into the roadside weeds. The brigand turned and ran as fast as his spindly brown legs would carry him.
"The quiver too," Karyl called after him.
Without breaking stride the bandit shucked the strap off his shoulder and let the half-full pouch of arrows fall. He kept running until he vanished around a bend in the track.
Karyl had never drawn blade.
"Right," Rob said to the men he'd downed. He gave the one with the bloody mouth a boot in the ribs. "Help your friend and be off. Unless yon'd like some more?"
The man scrambled up. He circled wide of Rob to the aid of his partner. His hand left a broad smear of blood on the other's forearm as he dragged him to his feet. Supporting each other, the pair staggered off into the bushes and were gone.
The quiver retrieved and slung over one shoulder, Karyl bent over to lay the staff down and pick up the bow. He used his right hand; his left was swaddled to a sort of club. But Rob had glimpsed what lay beneath the stream-washed linen bandages Karyl rewrapped it with each night. He wondered if Karyl thought to hide the wrinkled pink worms of half-grown fingers from Rob, or from himself.
"Can you use this?" he asked, brandishing the bow at Rob. "It can bring some meat for the pot, and help resolve similar adventures in future."
Rob drew the corners of his mouth down toward his jaw. "Not well. I stick what I"m pointing at rather more often than I do my own foot, I suppose."
"It'll have to do."
Rob expected him to walk the bow back to him. Instead Karyl slung it over his left shoulder, recovered his staff, and simply stood by the road. After a moment Rob realized Karyl was waiting for him to get Little Nell under way and move forward to catch him up.
He finished hanging his shield back with the baggage piled on his dinosaur's back and collected the cover for Wanda's head.
"That was dead brave," Rob said as he fitted it back in place. "As brave as anything I've seen, perhaps."
Karyl grunted. "Physical valor is the most overvalued commodity on Paradise."
The shock hit Rob like a plunge in an icy mountain stream. Such a statement was practically heresy. More to the point, Rob was a bard - and celebrating physical courage was a primary stock-in-trade.
Karyl might just as well have pissed all over the ideal of Beauty. Or gold, or honor, or power - or the intrigue, fucking, and rampant bloodletting those things tended to engender. And did, in any self-respecting song or story.
Worst of all, Rob more than half-suspected the thing himself.
"How can you say that?" he blustered.
"Courage is as common as young men with more sperm in their sacks than sense in their skulls," Karyl said. "The willingness of men and women to die without question is a virtue primarily for the unworthy, who use it for their gain."
"But you were a mercenary leader! A mercenary lord. Wouldn't getting to die for your gain define the job?"
Karyl nodded. "Precisely."
"And yet without so much as lifting your hand you chased off a man with arrow nocked, drawn, and aimed," Rob said, hanging his axe behind the shield. How do you even explain such a thing?"
"In the East they say there's nothing more dangerous than one who lives as if already dead."
Rob rubbed his beard. The stresses and strains of the encounter, brief as it was, had made the sweat run briskly down his face for a spell despite the cool forest air.
"There's a thing that's easier said than done, I think."
Karyl laughed softly. "It's not hard when you've done it as often I have."
Done what?
"Died." His mouth tightened inside his neat beard. "It would come as something of a relief, I think. If it took this time."
Shaking his head, Rob grasped the lead attached to the complicated bridle fitted over Nell's head and fringe and clucked her into amiable motion.
"All good and well," he said. "But if he had loosed at you, you'd have just knocked the arrow out of the air, right? Or snatched it with your hand like those ninja blokes in Zipangu, I shouldn't wonder."
Karyl shrugged.
"Or died," he said.
...
Thanks to their earlier brush with bandits, they now possessed a shortbow and quiver of arrows. Rob's skill with these proving greater than he let on to, if only just, they brought a steadier and readier supply of fresh meat to the pot than his snares alone could.
Today both men walked. Little Nell ambled amiably behind, her gizzard stones rumbling as she digested a purple-leaf thornbush she had uprooted in passing. As usual, Rob let his companion keep a slight lead. Not out of deference - or so he told himself - but to keep an eye on him. The nearer they came to their destination, the more focused Karyl became. But along with the dreams and headaches, he was given to brooding, to such an extent that he appeared to lose the outside world entirely. Rob was far from certain Karyl wouldn't simply wander off and be seen no more.
Without warning, Karyl stopped and stood looking to his left.
"What is it?" Rob asked, running a thumb for reassurance beneath the springer-hide strap that held his axe across his back. The empire's roads were dangerous places - if mostly to the bandits unlucky enough to brace Karyl and Rob. Their whole point in coming here was that Providence was beset by predatory neighbors. And Métairie Brulée was one was of them.
Karyl pointed with his sword-staff. Around a ridge half a kilometer to the north lumbered a herd of a dozen spine-backed titans. Long, narrow creatures, green with pink undersides, the largest adults reached thirty meters and perhaps twenty tonnes. Calves a mere ten meters long froliced between their columnar legs. The giants proceeded at their customary slow, oblivious pace, stripping leaves from the scrub with peg-shaped teeth.
They had no voices: they couldn't force cries down the tremendous length of their necks. From the books of ancient lore, allegedly passed down by the Creators themselves, Rob knew they needed a system of air tubes along their neck-bones even to move the dog-sized heads at the ends of them. But when they whuffed and chuffed and farted, it carried as far as a shout. You could hear them coming.
Karyl took off his woven-straw hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His left hand, its fingers mostly grown out but still weak, wrapped in a bandage to protect the soft, pink skin from sunburn. Rob let Nell's lead drop so she could munch the roadside foliage, and joined Karyl to watch the monsters.
Rob knew dinoasaurs. Better in some ways than he knew men - and far better sadly, than he knew women, to go by his record. He'd spent his life around them. Still, the size and majesty of these animals struck Rob Korrigan speechless. He felt as if his flesh and the blood in his veins had chilled beneath his sun-warmed skin.
...
He caught the cocking of Rob's brow. "Does it strike you as frivolous, Master Korrigan, that we sit here in the comfort of our Garden discussing philosophy while such horrors happen nearby? I quite understand. But what can we do? We're not warriors. It's why we have you. For us...Paradise turns. Life goes on."
He put big hands, pale yet strong, on both men's shoulders and steered them toward benches.
"Come, friends," he said, "refresh yourselves. I'm eager to hear how your first day's training went."
"Well enough," Karyl said as Bogardus poured them light yellow wine from a silver pitcher. It was cast to resemble a mythical sea beast called a "dolphin," which much resembled a fish-lizard but possessed unnatural-looking horizontal flukes for a tail.
"The lads brightened considerably when we gave them a bit of sword-play," Rob said, emptying his cup at a draft. Bogardus refilled it without even setting the pitcher down.
"I'll want to train most of them on weapons closer to whatever tools they're used to using," Karyl said after wetting his throat with a sip. "Time's short."
Bogardus nodded. "If the raiders have gotten bold enough to attack St. Cloud, it's shorter even than we feared. Refugees streamed into town all day. They're sheltering with families there now, poor souls."
"Why haven't the Brokenhearts raided Providence town, I wonder?" Rob said. "It's the fattest target by far, even in a country as rich as this."
"Everyone fears a city fight," said Karyl. "It's all at dagger range, no room to maneuver, with every window an archer's loophole, every intersection an ambush. And of course, the roof tiles."
Rob stopped his cup halfway to his lips. "'Roof tiles'?"
"I share our dinosaur master's perplexity," Bogardus said.
"Those tiles up there," Karyl said, gesturing toward the villa roof with his fully formed but still-pink left hand. "What would you say they weigh?"
"I've never thought about it," Bogardus said. "They certainly look hefty enough, don't they? They can't weigh less than five kilos apiece, or so I'd guess."
"At least," Karyl said. "Now think of them thrown down at you."
click here to show or hide the full quoted excerpt (there's a lot)
I highly recommend both books, but if you're less of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy nerd, Dragon Teeth is probably the surer bet.
Oh, and I'll get to the other mentionable stuff soon-ish. Maybe.
