- Hardcover: 321 pages
- Publisher: Time Warner Publishing (Hc) (Feb 8 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0446520985
- ISBN-13: 978-0446520980
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,977,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, in which an expedition led by Professor George Edward Challenger discovered an Amazonian plateau where dinosaurs still roamed? In Dinosaur Summer, Greg Bear assumes that Challenger's expedition really took place, and that for nearly 50 years dinosaurs have been relatively commonplace in zoos and circuses throughout the world. But the beasts are not easily kept in captivity, and slowly but surely their numbers are dwindling. Now there is only one dinosaur circus left, and it's shutting down. The dinosaur trainer wants to return his animals to the wild, so an expedition is organized to return the dinos to their nearly inaccessible plateau. Accompanying the group (which includes special-effects master Ray Harryhausen) is 15-year-old Peter Belzoni, the son of the National Geographic photographer covering the story. The boy is about to have the adventure of a lifetime.
From Kirkus Reviews
Fantasy built on a fantasyin Bear's alternative 1947, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World wasn't fiction, but fact!mingling real and imaginary characters with a quite unbelievable hodgepodge of defiantly unextinct beasties from the Carboniferous on up. Circus Lothar, the last dinosaur circus, is closing down, and its animal trainer, Vince Shellabarger, is determined to return his charges to their home, the isolated Venezuelan plateau of El Grande discovered by Professor Challenger in 1912. National Geographic's Anthony Belzoni will cover the event, assisted by his 15-year-old son Peter. Filming the cavalcade will be Willis ``OBie'' O'Brien (of King Kong fame) and special effects/animation genius Ray Harryhausen. The tough journey is made more difficult by the Venezuelan Army's quarrel with both the politicos and the local Indians. Still, the expedition reaches the rickety bridge leading on to El Grande, and most of the animals cross safely. But Dagger, a vicious predator, escapes from his cage; predictably, the bridge falls, marooning Peter, Anthony, OBie, Ray, and Billie, an Indian pursuing a spirit quest. After various adventuresthe group is menaced by critters ranging from giant salamanders and hungry therapsids to huge ``death eagles''they make it back, minus assorted limbs and teeth, bearing a couple of precious eggs. Amiable, sometimes stirring incident-packed baloney: a yarn that screams I wanna be a movie! (illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow to start, never got going,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dinosaur Summer (Mass Market Paperback)
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
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE REAL LOST WORLD REVISITED!,
By
This review is from: Dinosaur Summer (Mass Market Paperback)
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!
3.0 out of 5 stars
coming-of-age story devlolves into bad Jurassic Park rerun,
By Rex Babiera (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dinosaur Summer (Mass Market Paperback)
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.
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