So, how was your weekend? No, don't answer that! How about a kind of Vintage Paleoart post? I haven't done that in ages.
Over the summer, I read The Ultimate Dinosaur and talked about it on Twitter.
Published in 1992 by Bantam Books, edited by Byron Priess and Robert Silverberg, and featuring art and writing by an astonishing variety of people, Ultimate Dinosaur is a pretty wild ride. It's right smack in the middle of the Dinosaur Renaissance and mere months ahead of the release of "Jurassic Park". It's also remarkably "All-Yesterdays"-y in some parts. Right away, it has a veritable roller coaster of an opening, with lovely decorations by William Stout:
You got a problem with Muppets, Dodson?
The book is divided into several chapters, each of which contains lots of paleoart, a factual (for 1992) essay about life in the Mesozoic, and a science fiction story. The latter makes this one of the more unique dinosaur books of all. Most of the stories involve dinosaurs or are at least... dinosaur-adjacent, like Dave Wolverton's "Siren Song at Midnight", illustrated below by William Parsons.
It was Mer-May, when I read the book so of course this art caught my attention. There are indeed Mermaids in the short story, as well as Euparkeria, which covers the prehistoric animal requirement. The actual story is about the coming climate apocalypse and wars over the few remaining natural resources. Fun! And yet not the biggest bummer of a story in the whole book!
I mentioned that there are some moments in the book that I can only describe as "All Yesterdays"-y. They mostly occur in the scifi stories, which almost lend themselves to "Hey, what if dinosaurs were a lot stranger than we ever suspected" speculation. The weirdest such speculation, mentioned in two stories even, is one I would have never expected: Lactating Dinosaurs.
The above excerpt comes from Gregory Benford's "Shakers of the Earth", a story about our old friend Seismosaurus, then just recently described. And in it, the big diplodocus can suckle her babies. Which she also cares for at all. (Side-rant: Anyone who grew up with "Jurassic Park" and still has a problem with feathered maniraptors can A. get off my lawn/blog, like what are you even doing here anyway, and B. ask themselves how us "Baby" and "Land Before Time" era 80's kids are coping with modern discoveries of sauropod reproductive strategies.)
And this excerpt comes to us from Barry Malzberg's bizarre "Major League
Triceratops", where the titular dinosaur ends up being weirder than
expected by specifically NOT lactating. I don't think I've ever come across this theory before or since.
Anyway, it is still 1992, and so according to this excerpt from one of the nonfiction essays by Don Lessem, Therizinosaurs and Deinocheirus were almost certainly brutal killing machines:
And since it’s 1992, the question of bird ancestry is... exactly that. Still even a question, I mean, like in this essay by Ralph Molnar. Megalancosaurus, if you're wondering, has a beaky face and those pesky collarbones - and otherwise looks very like a weird(er) Chameleon. But what really slays me is the "sometimes inane" comment:
Look at these 90’s raptors from Doug Henderson from the adjacent page!
They come ahead of one of the strangest stories in the entire book, Ray Bradbury's "Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?". It starts out very Dandelion Wine-esque and super nostalgic and cute:
Aww. Ben will
then go on to sharpen his teeth, eat extremely rare meat, scare the dog and the cat out of their minds, and mutter in his fevered sleep about primeval Antediluvian demon-reptiles waddling, rampaging, and nightmare-kiting in the deep. His Grandpa intervenes by bringing the boy to a much more wholesome obsession like, I dunno, trains. Yeah, trains! This story is copyright 1983, not 1953.
Which brings us to Harry Harrison's "Dawn of the Endless Night", here illustrated by the always awesome Wayne Barlowe. It's haunting, and the biggest bummer in the whole book and no I am not forgetting the nonfiction chapters about the actual K-P Extinction.
So... speaking of things that were actually published in the early 80's but feel like they are from decades earlier, welcome to my
West of Eden rant. This short story is kind of, if you turn your head and squint, a prequel to
the series, explaining why some small parts of the fantasy world are ruled by mammals and humans while dinosaurs and intelligent lizard-people rule everywhere else. Teenage me had a very strong need to find the novels. Seriously, intelligent lizard-people! With a female-dominant culture! And because they’re semi-aquatic they use sign language, which doesn't rely on sound, and biotechnology, which is a tech breakthrough that doesn't involve setting things on fire or putting wheels on them! Goodness, there was real thought put into this! Holy moly there’s an ENCYCLOPEDIA in the back! A big thick fantasy novel with such insanely detailed world building that there's an encyclopedia in the back! This is going to rule!Now, over the years, I've since noticed that most reviews of West of Eden focus on the world-building and not, say, the fantasy racism. Or fantasy sexism. Or actual real-life racism and sexism. It is, as the kids say, pretty cringey for it's time. Anyway, how about a strange illustration by frequent Dougal Dixon collaborator Philip Hood! I don't think context will help.
As I said, The Ultimate Dinosaur is so very unusual that I can definitely recommend grabbing a copy if you can. It also makes me long for more books combining fact, fiction, and art.
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Art of the Day!
Fanart of the Universal Osprey!
