Review: The Dinosaur Lords

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book had all of the hooks that should have made it a great experience for me. It had knights...fighting while mounted on dinosaurs. It had the usual palace/court intrigue.

Early in the author reveals that it has an additional hook; people have to be killed twice before they are truly dead.

Yet the book demonstrated just how poorly it can fail to measure up to expectations. While I was expecting to read more about how knights and squires managed their dinosaur mounts, the dinos were just rolled out for the combat scenes. Then they were taken away with little interest in their care, feeding, breeding, selection, etc.

The book also trades in the sort of nonsense that suggests that a lithe character can compete with a more muscular character. In this case, the leading female protagonist imagines that she could be a knight riding a dinosaur alongside her paramour despite her being a demonstrably slender character. The knights are, as one would expect, described as being significantly larger and stronger by comparison. There is no way that she could reasonably expect to don a heavy set of armor and be able to move effectively.

On the flip side, the book does do a good job of presenting characters training and fighting effectively within their "weight class" regardless of gender.

The author, unfortunately, decided to include an unnecessary rape scene. The primary villain is well established as being evil by the time this occurs. Aside from demeaning the protagonist (the same one with visions of armor dancing in her head), the rape does nothing to alter the mechanics of the plot. The female protagonist is seized and imprisoned by the villain. She is accused of treason and expect to be found guilty and killed as a result. The rape does nothing to further diminish her in the eyes of the other characters and it does nothing to further motivate her to escape.

The author felt the need to name every location in the book twice; once in something similar to Spanish or Portuguese and once in English. This was mildly distracting. People that know enough of either Spanish or Portuguese will be able to infer the English translation. Those that do not, being fantasy readers already, will parse as they do elvish or orcish or Klingonee and move on.

At the end of the story, the need for a double death to kill a character was applied inconsistently. The entire phenomenon was largely left unexplored.

And finally, one region decided to go "socialist". This was presented as working reasonably well despite the extensive human history of socialism resulting in shortages. The one realistic aspect that the author got right was the noble that decided to abandon his title and let the region go socialist. The noble ends up being an influential member of the leadership committee for the community. One of the lower caste members observes that the change to socialism hasn't really altered his status. He did whatever the noble told him to do before the change and he does what the noble....and the rest of the committee...tells him to do after the change.

The author wades into the human sexuality arena. The characters display none of the common bonding tendencies that exist within the human condition.

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