The Doctor and the Dinosaurs by Mike ResnickGenre: Steampunk, Western
Series: Book 4 of Weird West Tales
Publisher: Pyr
Date of Publication: December 10, 2013
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy's Rating: 3 of 5 stars - "Meant to be sensational and a little over the top, and in that sense the book does its job and does it well. Fun and entertaining"
The Doctor and the Dinosaurs is my first venture into Mike Resnick's Weird West Tales, and actually my first exposure to the author, period. Like many kids growing up, I went through a phase in my childhood where I was just nuts for dinosaurs. I suppose a part of that love has stayed with me all this time, because when I saw the cover and description for this one I just couldn't resist.
This is the fourth book of the series starring Doc Holliday of
American Old West fame, but if I'm not mistaken, each installment can
be read on its own. We seem to be catching our protagonist at a pretty
bad time though, as the book opens on Doc bedridden and coughing out his lungs in a
sanitarium, dying of the dastardly consumption. But then he is
visited by the medicine man and great chief Geronimo, who grants him one
more year of life in exchange for a favor.
Doc
Holliday is tasked to stop two paleontologists who have been carrying
out their digs on sacred Comanche burial grounds in Wyoming. Sounds easy
enough. But that was before Doc learned that the two scientists
involved are none other than Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles
Marsh, two men who hate each others' guts and are locked in eternal
competition. Time is running out and the Comanche medicine men have made things clear: stop
desecrating their lands or they will unleash a horde of monsters, the kind our world has not seen in 65 million years.
A
crazy blend of steampunk, fantasy, alternate history and western, this
book was as much fun as I thought it would be! I've never had the pleasure
of reading a "true" dime novel from the latter half of the 1800s, but I
wouldn't be surprised if Mike Resnick is in some way emulating the spirit
and style of the popular fiction in those days. As you would expect
from the above synopsis, the book's story and characters are more
sensational than deep, with an entertaining plot that contains more
clever, snappy dialogue than exposition. Nevertheless, that's the kind
of book it was intended to be. In that sense, it does the job and does it well.
This book was also
such a treat for the part of me that still loves dinosaurs. We all know
there's no shortage of stories about the Old West featuring famous
gunfighters like Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Cole
Younger, and the list goes on. But while this series also features an
impressive list of shootists, I loved how this particular story directed its focus to another significant event that took place during America's
Gilded Age -- the Great Dinosaur Rush. For one, the hatred
between Cope and Marsh was so intense, their rivalry so frenzied, that
the two men actually spawned a period in paleontological history known
as the Bone Wars. It's fascinating stuff! I was happy to see a spotlight on this idea, and an entire
story built around it.
Is The Doctor and
the Dinosaurs a little over the top? Perhaps. But is it fun? Definitely.
I picked up this book hoping for an afternoon of fun, light reading, and
that's exactly what it delivered.
3 of 5 stars
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
