The story would have worked better if he had some disclaimer at the beginning regarding emotions in animals, literary license, etc…, and then just ran with putting emotions on the extremely well-researched animal behavior. Passages like that really gum up the storytelling. For instance, instead of just saying Raptor Red stamped her foot angrily, he’ll say something like Raptor Red was probably angry because she stamped her foot, and we know that dinosaurs stamping their foot indicated impatience, and if we believe that higher-thinking animals can feel emotions, then it was probably anger she was feeling. But the story on the sentence level is belabored by the author’s apparent need to couch everything in speculations. (This is not a spoiler, it is well-established in the first chapter). Raptor Red’s mate dies, and she reunites with her similarly widowed sister while simultaneously looking for a new mate. The overarching story that the book tells is sound. I wish that this ability to both present scientifically realistic dinosaurs and be humorous/cartoonish about them simultaneously had carried through to the writing. Look at that adorable dinosaur! Just look at him!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |