Skip to main content

story identification - Title of a sci-fi book with time-travel and sentient dinosaurs


I'm trying to remember the title of a book I read approximately 15 years ago. My memory of the plot is a bit hazy, but it centered around time-travel. If I recall correctly, in the story people would travel back in time for recreational purposes, observing some sort of protocol to avoid changing future events. One person ignores this protocol, and "corrupts" the space-time continuum.


As a result of this a race of sentient dinosaurs develop and become a major element in the plot. The few specific details that I remember about the story come from around this point. I'm fairly certain that there is mention made of the dinosaurs warring with primitive human tribes (in particular, the humans may have been described as Japanese or samurai warriors) using spears and other early weapons.


More specifically, at some point the dinosaurs capture and imprison a human woman, I believe from the future along the original, non-corrupted timeline. While in captivity she observes their culture and attempts to learn their language. The first/most prominent dinosaur she speaks with has an anthropomorphized name of "Struth", I believe, with the actual pronunciation in dino-speak being slightly different.


After some time she is given an opportunity to gain acceptance into their society by completing an initiation ritual. She is given a dull ceremonial knife and a bowl and no instructions, and is left to work out the requirements of the ritual on her own. What she eventually does is use the knife to cut her hand/arm, collecting her blood in the bowl. Once she has collected as much blood as she feels she can safely part with, she then proceeds to take the bowl and dump it out on top of the dinosaurs' elder/tribal leader.


Those are about the only specifics I remember. It's probably not much to go on, but does anyone have any idea what book this might have been?



Answer




Could this be one, or a combination, of the Dinosaur stories from Stephen Leigh produced (or reproduced) as Ray Bradbury presents?


This series seems to have some of elements you describe above, though no direct reference to to the gal who was captured and her adventure - most appear to center around a character named "Aaron Cofield" and Eckels (the latter being the one that corrupts the timeline I think).


No descriptions or reviews mention Struth, however a peep at what Google Books about Dinosaur World has to say about the book does show "Struth" as a prominently appearing term... along with SStragh, Fergie, Raajek, Frraghi, OColi, Jhenni, Eckels and "Green Town" if those also sound familiar. Descriptions of the books themselves don't necessarily support


The timing also appears right. Actual publication dates (taken from Stephen Leigh) in the order of printing are:




  • Dinosaur World (AvonNova, May 1992)

  • Dinosaur Planet (AvonNova, February 1993)

  • Dinosaur Samurai (with John J. Miller) (AvonNova, November 1993)

  • Dinosaur Warriors (AvonNova, June 1994)


  • Dinosaur Empire (with John J. Miller) (AvonNova, March 1995)

  • Dinosaur Conquest (AvonNova, October 1995)



It's probably worth mentioning that this 6 book series was based on the Ray Bradbury short story called "A Sound Of Thunder."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more