The Dinosaur Lords: So it begins

So yesterday a text from my dear friend Roslee Orndorff awakened me (she’s a night-shift nurse, and goes to bed about when I got up.)

DINO LORDS loaded on Kindle! Now i lay me down 2 sleep..I pray the lords 4 peaceful sleep & ne’er 1 grey angel my rest 2 break if from dreams I do not wake.

Heh, heh. Lotsa luck with that!

And thanks! Made my day.

Roslee’s among my friends and fellow writers foolish kind enough to volunteer to serve as first readers on the current draft of my epic (in every sense of the word) fantasy novel, The Dinosaur Lords. This is the draft that’s gone out into the world – where, I cannot yet say. I call it my Beta version, since this is the last big draft until I get some editorial notes – as in, from somebody who’s ponying up money for it.

So what is The Dinosaur Lords, I pretend to hear you say (a literary device I stole from my good friend El Neil Smith)?

Well, it’s my cool new fantasy novel, as I reckon you worked out, that I’m all worked up about. It’s a Heroic Fantasy and a High Fantasy as well as epic. I may not use those terms with precision – at least the former; it does qualify as High Fantasy. If I offend the purists, so be it.

My first attempt at high concept (or an elevator pitch, as all the kids are calling them these days) was simple: The Renaissance. With dinosaurs.

Which is true, as far as it goes. The cultures I treated with are similar in culture and technology level to Earth’s European Renaissance – with the signal difference that there isn’t any gunpowder. However, in some minds that phrase conjured up the notion of dinosaurs as sapient (“intelligent”) beings. Which isn’t the case in my novel: they’re animals. Wild animals, monsters, beasts of burden – and war. Some are pretty smart. But animals. However delightful the image of a raptor in a ruffed collar, with a rapier at his side, that’s not my book.

So next I was inspired with: Dinosaurs – and the knights who ride them.

Which gives a more accurate picture withal, I think.

But it still doesn’t give you an idea of my story. So here’s a capsule description I cooked up:

Passions, dynasties, and armies of dinosaur-mounted knights collide in the glittering, feather-decked Empire of Nuevaropa.  When a Grey Angel, servant of the Eight Creators of the world called Paradise, launches a genocidal Crusade of a hundred thousand soulless zealots, can a fallen hero, a scoundrel, a philosopher-warrior, and an outlawed princess possibly stop them?

Want more? Naturally, you would. And I’m here to accommodate your desires!

So I’m putting up the beta version of the book – at least the beginning – right here on my Sense of Adventure blog for your perusal and enjoyment. You get a bonus extra installment today, since the first page is only the novel’s title page. Don’t omit to click on it, though – it contains useful information beyond just the, you know, title.

Then to get into the real novel, click on the Prologue.

Please feel free to let me know what you think. And please – this is important – feel free to spread the word!

What are you waiting for? Get some!

And don’t let the Grey Angels bite…

(As if you could stop them.)

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