james gurney dinotopia a land apart from time

One of the guides, a protoceratops, explains the preparations are an unfortunate necessity. The pair are guided by a group of herbivorous dinosaurs who pack shark and eel meat as an offering to the carnivores in exchange for safe passage. Is this because there are no traditionally-farmed animals on the island? Are the dinosaurs exempt from being eaten because they can talk? What about the pterosaurs, who can’t? I suspect there might be answers to these questions in the other books in the series.Īt one point, in the first title, Arthur and Will plan to travel through an area of the island inhabited by carnivorous dinosaurs. “You’ve had your last grog and your last roast mutton,” he complains. He’s portrayed as a morally dubious character who wants to leave Dinotopia. Later, the father and son meet a survivor of another shipwreck, named Lee Crabb. Arthur notes the breakfast includes “no milk, no meat and no eggs.” When Arthur and Will first wash ashore, they share a meal with the Romano family, who work at a dinosaur hatchery. More interesting is the human diet in Dinotopia. The fictionalized species is supposed to be a pterosaur. Will learning how to fly on a quetzalcoatlus skybax is a central storyline in the book. As a result, their use is closer to the domestication we’re familiar with. The pterosaurs, cousins of the dinosaurs, are depicted much more like the animals we know. Also, not all the prehistoric creatures can think and speak like we can. No small dinosaurs are riding around on humans in the way humans regularly ride on the larger dinosaurs.

Still, for the most part, the dinosaurs seem to be stuck with the menial labor. One stenonychosaurus manages a clock museum and gets in a conversation with Arthur about the nature of time! First of all, the dinosaurs can talk and seem to have human-like minds, which makes the analogy to modern animals imperfect. It does that, but the species politics are a little more complicated than I recalled. In my memory, the book transposed animal domestication onto the backs of prehistoric creatures. Unfortunately, none of the others were available, even on interlibrary loan.Ī Land Apart from Time tells the story of Arthur and Will Dennison, a father-son duo, who are shipwrecked on an undiscovered island in the 1860s, inhabited by dinosaurs and humans.

So I recently checked out the first book from the library. It’s probably not the healthiest behavior, but it’s what I do. I’ve mentioned before that when I get stressed out or start feeling down, I often use nostalgia as a salve. I think the third was published after I’d aged out of the franchise. I vaguely remember the first two entries. As a young reader, I loved James Gurney’s illustrated fantasy series Dinotopia.

James gurney dinotopia a land apart from time