2026 read #7: Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster.*

Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster*

319 pages

Published 1996

Read from February 5 to February 10

Rating: 2 out of 5

* Denotes a reread.

Such is the sad state of dinosaur fiction that Alan Dean Foster, mercenary page-filler and franchise novelist, treats us to better prose here than we find in most novels I’ve put under that tag. Which isn’t to say it’s good prose. It’s workmanlike at best, often belaboring us with over-description. It’s the sort of storytelling that gives adverbs and introductory clauses a bad rep. Yet Dinotopia Lost’s prose still comes out ahead of Cretaceous Dawn, The Sky People, and especially Triassic. (But then, I’ve read Facebook comment sections better written than Triassic. Less misogynistic, too.)

I read Dinotopia Lost sometime around 2002, and don’t recall a single thing about it. To be fair to my past self, there just isn’t much to remember here. The Prehistoric Pulp blog describes it as “Treasure Island [thrown together with] a lighthearted Jurassic Park,” but I have to disagree; that sounds so much more interesting than what we get here. It is, in fact, astoundingly dull.

The actual plot is “What if some meanies came to utopia?” But the pirates, and the narrative, get distracted by other matters before the idea can be explored. The characters, despite pages of physical description, never develop greater depth than a cardboard standee. And bereft of James Gurney’s iconic artwork, it turns out that talking dinosaurs don’t interest me all that much. The one exception, a Deinonychus ascetic who studied martial arts and wishes to meditate his way out of samsara, arrives too late to make much difference. (It also illustrates the broad stereotypes Foster traffics in.)

Still, I’ve read so many worse things. Especially where dinosaurs are concerned. At least the dream of the nineties is alive in Dinotopia.

2026 read #6: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen.

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

379 pages

Published 2024

Read from January 29 to February 5

Rating: 4 out of 5

This year, I hope to read books I truly want to read, instead of bulking up my numbers with disposable pulp that just happens to be brief. Reading for numbers has had a regrettable effect on what I read. I’ve been completely neglecting contemporary full-length fantasy, one of my favorite categories. I think I only read a couple of them all last year. Time to change that!

My partner R read this book just about a year ago, and loved it enough to recommend it in the highest terms. After reading it, I have to concur. Van Veen’s prose is understated yet beautiful, dispassionately depicting horrors of living and dead alike. The Dutch countryside is a character all its own, vividly described, haunted by the misty ghosts of wetlands.

As an abused young girl in the aftermath of World War II, Roos becomes attached to a spirit she names Ruth. Ghosts, in van Veen’s inventive worldbuilding, only linger when the body itself does; Ruth’s body has tanned for centuries in a bog, giving her spirit the classic appearance of a bog body. A mysterious widow named Agnes purchases Roos’s autonomy from her horrid guardian. It turns out Agnes, too, is attached to an ancient spirit of her own. But that’s just the beginning of Dreadful’s Gothic turns.

My favorite thing about this book is the conceit of truly ancient ghosts. More stories should incorporate ghosts from millennia ago. But even without that particular niche interest, this is a beautifully rendered tragedy of obsession, possession, and trauma. An outstanding book.