DINO LAND BOOK REVIEWS

(Book Review, Dinosaur Wars, by Thomas Hopp, 2000, iUniverse.com, ISBN-0-595-14644-9)

Long ago I came to the realization that there were far too many dinosaur novels on the market. Even before Michael Crichton' immensely-popular Jurassic Park, the marketplace was littered with dinosaur books, ranging from silly romance-novel type volumes to novelizations of those infamous Hollywood B-List movies. At that point I decided to stop reading dinosaur novels, and instead focus on nonfiction fossil books. However, this pledge of mine ended when I set sights on Dinosaur Wars, a tremendous new novel by Thomas Hopp.

It seemed to me that dinosaur novels came in two forms: the really corny, unbelievable, unscientific ones, and the enjoyable, understandable, and semi-plausible ones. Unfortunately, the latter type was about as common as a respected White House. For dinosaur-crazed readers such as myself, Dinosaur Wars has answered our prayers.

Often described by reviewers as "Jurassic Park meets Star Wars," Dinosaur World is actually much like these two series. It combines good and exciting paleontology with a bit of equally exciting, yet speculative, science fiction action. To me, Dinosaur Wars fills the void that has remained open since Jurassic Park: The Lost World was published. And, in all reality, Hopp's book may be better.

However, Dinosaurs Wars is not exactly the most orthodox of books, even by Jurassic Park standards. Hopp, a degreed geneticist, realized that it is near impossible to clone a dinosaur from DNA found in amber. First, the DNA would be too warped, and secondly, the best amber known is much younger than the Mesozoic. Because of this impossibility, Hopp had to think of a semi-plausible way to bring dinosaurs back to life. Enter Star Wars.

In Dinosaur Wars, a race of super-intelligent, human sized dinosaurs returns from space to reclaim the home world they abandoned at the end of the Mesozoic: our world. Unlike Barney and all those sauropods, these dinosaurs have no interest in being friendly or harmless. This race of dinosaurs is destined to take back its former home, and will go to whatever measure to do so. As Hopp puts it, "now humans are the endangered species!"

But, all is not lost. As in any good novel, Dinosaur Wars has its share of heroes, coming in the form of wildlife biologist Chase Armstrong and the daughter of a rancher, Kit Daniels. These two youngsters, along with their paleontological mentor Dr. David Ogilvey, are destined to prevent the dinosaurs from taking back their world and exterminating human kind. Although they may seem doomed to fail, these three scientists are humankind's last hope, a la the group of oil drillers turned astronauts in the movie Armageddon.

Like the heroes of this movie, these three scientists go to whatever means necessary to save the world, including teaming up with a friendly dinosaur ally, named Gar the Kra. Gar and the three humans must not only face the threat of extinction, but also the wrath of a plethora of large, fierce dinosaurs. The action is faced paced, the science is up-to-date, and the story line can't be beat.

While the exciting action and well-written story are great, perhaps the most impressive feature of this book is its accurate science. Hordes of feathered dinosaurs are portrayed, and Hopp went to great lengths to insure the accuracy of his text.

Hopp is more than experienced enough to write this book. Although not a paleontologist per se, Hopp is known worldwide as one of the top biochemists. After earning a degree from Cornell University's Medical College, Hopp studied at MIT. Along with a group of scientists, he helped found one of Seattle's most successfully biotechnology companies, Immunex, perhaps most famous for the fact that Cal Ripken, Jr.'s home run in the 2001 All Star game landed near one of its billboards. In 1998, Hopp presented a paper at the Dinofest Symposium regarding the evolution of dinosaur wings, arguing that wings developed for brooding purposes.

On his website, Hopp describes Dinosaur Wars as "an old fashioned adventure saga like Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World, or George Lucas's Star Wars." Given the vast success of these books, one may think that Hopp is farfetched in his claim. However, after reading Dinosaur Wars, I must say that I agree with this statement. It is very difficult to write a better dinosaur novel than Jurassic Park, and I would be foolish to immediately christen Hopp's book as the best dinosaur novel of his generation. However, the more I read, the more I wonder…

© 2000 brusatte@theramp.net