The worst part, however, was the interplay between words and pictures.

Suddenly in this book there are small mammals who have no trouble speaking? I know it is a fantasy book, but all of the rules that were carefully set up in the first book have been broken here.

I wish Gurney had stuck with Dinosaurs for Dinotopia, and then started a separate sci-fi series to explore these interests.Īlso in the first book, Dinosaurs talk in their own language, with only a few species able to speak human language (they act as translators). I was able to suspend my disbelief for this in book 2, but now suddenly there are anti-gravity ships (some of which are gigantic!), monitors displaying live feeds from remote-controlled drone ships, robots that can talk, with floating heads, etc. This is supposed to take place hundreds (if not thousands) of years earlier, where there are giant robots powered by steam generated by sunstones. just what the reader imagines? It all breaks apart for me.Īlso, it is a prequel to the original two books, which are set in the 1800s. So the illustrations (created in the same style!) are now. This book has no correlation to the journal, and is instead supposed to be a reading of a historic scroll in Dinotopia. Gurney's magnificent illustrations are painted very loosely (over extremely tight drawings) which even gives the feel that the illustrations are part of the journal. The conceit of the first two books is rock solid - a professor and his son arrive in a strange land and document their adventures in a journal - which you are reading. Ugh! I enjoy each book in this series less and less.

Dinotopia by James Gurney