World-renowned paleontologist Richard Leyster’s universe changed forever the day a stranger named Griffin walked into his office with a remarkable job offer… and an ice cooler containing the head of a freshly killed Stegosaurus.
For Leyster and a select group of scientific colleagues, an impossible fantasy has come true: the ability to study dinosaurs up close, in their own era and milieu. But tampering with time and paradox can have disastrous effects on the future and the past alike, breeding a violent new strain of fundamentalist terror―and, worse still, encouraging brilliant rebels like Dr. Gertrude Salley to toy with the working mechanisms of natural law, no matter what the consequences. And when they concern the largest, most savage creatures that ever walked the Earth, the consequences may be too horrifying to imagine.
Paleontologist Richard Leyster is studying the dinosaur-fossil discovery of a lifetime when a stranger comes into his office with an ice cooler and an offer: a mysterious and dangerous job that pays no better than Leyster’s beloved current position at the Smithsonian. He rejects the offer and the stranger departs, leaving the cooler. Leyster opens the cooler and finds the head of a just-slain stegosaur. It really is an offer he can’t refuse: a job that will allow him to study living dinosaurs. But the stranger has disappeared, and Leyster has no idea where to find him.
Expanded from his Hugo Award-winning story “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur,” Michael Swanwick’s Bones of the Earth is a time-travel novel as exciting as Jurassic Park and far more intelligent. In addition to the Hugo, Michael Swanwick has won the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. His previous books include the novels In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers, and Griffin’s Egg, and his collections include Gravity’s Angels, A Geography of Unknown Lands, and Moon Dogs, among others. –Cynthia Ward
Time Travel for the Thinking Man Dinosaurs seem to hold an almost unnatural fascination for a great many people, from children thrill-frightened by T. Rex to paleontologists who devote their lives to determining the real facts about these former rulers of the Earth. And it is just such a determined researcher who is offered a life-time dream: the ability to go back in time and actually see the objects of his study in action. But there are a few strings attached to the offer: time travel is a secret, and he can’t divulge any of…
Like all time travel stories it is easy to get … A grown ups’ version of Jurassic Park. Well written this fast paced story flew by too quickly. Like all time travel stories it is easy to get confused – I ignored worries about what epoch we were in and enjoyed the characters and plot. As with many novels I had the sense the author had grown tired of the story and wrapped things up swiftly and bit clumsily at the end. Begs for a sequel.
Simply not a good book (1.5 stars)Â