Dinosaur Planet Survivors

Lots of backround about the world in the beginning. Slight info dump. Then dinosaurs!

I am a fan of Anne McCaffrey, and I liked this book. But I am also a fan of dinosaur stories, and there were, again, not enough dinosaurs for me in this book. Understandable, given all the starship technology, aliens and such, but with a name like Dinosaur Planet Survivors, you'd expect more, well, dinosaurs. Again I doff my hat to Hopp's Dinosaur Wars and its sequel, Counterattack, as having better coverage of the big beasties. McCaffrey gets the nod for sheer imaginativeness.

As far as sequels go, this has to be the best I've read. It is not McCaffrey's best work, but a real page turner nonetheless. Since the protagonasts wake up 40 years after the first book ended, the plot is fresh (not good guys against bad guys revisted as with many sequels). The descendants of the original bad guys may not be bad at all, and McCaffrey draws the point beautifully that "the sins of the father should not visited upon the son." In addition, McCaffrey masterfully links these books to her other series involving Sassinak! It was a great tie in and answered many questions with surprising insights. To often, authors stories take place "galaxies apart." It's nice to see an author bring separate stories/series together without writing a 15 book saga. I recommend all McCaffrey's books, particularly her non-fantasy works such as "The Lady."