First off, two new inductees to Victor’s Dinosaur Army Roll of Honor: Brooks Powell and Nan Silvernail. Thanks for boosting the book, kids!
Now: more dinosaurs!
Fatty:
Protoceratops andrewsi
This tubby critter is the analogue to pigs and sheep (no wool-gathering on Paradise, kiddies!) The Wikipedia entry describes them as a little bigger than I remembered: 6 feet long, two feet high at the shoulder, not quite 400 pounds. Still, the ones I describe here in the Prologue of The Dinosaur Lords free preview, and refer to throughout the book are slightly larger models – maybe eight feet, three feet high, up to 800 pounds. I call them Protoceratops robusti.
The dinosaurs of Paradise are all real dinosaurs – or at least ones science believes, as of March, 2011, to have been real. Protoceratops were real; my childhood hero Roy Chapman Andrews turned ‘em up in Mongolia in 1922. P. robusti is a hypothetical larger subspecies.
That’s one explanation. Another is that they started out as standard-issue P. andrewsi and got bred up for beef. Or, well, pork. Heft, in any event. Paradisiacal domestic dinosaurs tend to be about as easy to breed to spec as dogs. Which is why the war-duckbills you’ll be encountering straightaway in Chapter 01 tend to come in so many gaudy colors.
Next -
Plate-back:
Stegosaurus stenops
One of everybody’s childhood favorites, right? Good old Stegosaurus!
If you think I’m kidding about the Thagomizer in the mouseover up there (you do always check the mouseover, yes?), click here.
On to other news … you’ll notice – boy, will you notice – that I’ve handily provided ways for you to link your favorite posts and pages on Digg, StumbleUpon, and many more. Indeed, I apologize for the buttons’ being so danged noticeable. The Tweet This software I use to produce them is reluctant to display changed settings.
I shall persevere. It’s what I do. (Among other things, granted.)
Anyway, should you feel moved to do so, please feel free to promulgate your favorite Sense of Adventure posts and pages using those handy (if overt) buttons! Doing so, (especially with the free Dinosaur Lords preview) is a great way to improve your chances of being able to hold your own copy of the novel in your hot little hand – soon.
Thanks for your help – as well as your faith in bearing with me through lo!, the many years wandering the wilderness of no, really, I’ll finish the draft someday!
And as always – thanks for reading!
