The Dinosaur Knights by Victor Milan
I’m always a bit iffy about reading a second book in a series whose first book I didn’t much care for, but I guess it’s the optimist in me that overrules my better judgment. Optimism, and the fact that while rare, occasionally the second book does reward that optimism. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Victor Milan’s The Dinosaur Knights (2016). As I noted in the review of book one, The Dinosaur Lords, the pitch for the series is simple: Game of Thrones meets Jurassic Park. Simple and oh-so-alluring. Knights riding dinosaurs — what could possibly ruin that concept? Sadly, as also noted in that review, it turned out several things could, and that remains true in the sequel. Since it’s a DNF, this will be brief so as not to belabor the issues.
I struggled my way through a little more than half of The Dinosaur Knights, figuring that was enough to give it a fair shake. Some of the problems were the same ones that marred book one: flat storyline, flat characters; I just found I had no interest in what was happening or who it was happening to — I just plodded along like one of the book’s triceratops. The plodding pace wasn’t helped by the structure, which leapt about from one POV to the other with more than a few awkward/abrupt shifts, several of which felt forced — a scene shift simply for (too) obvious suspense. Throw in a few what felt like gratuitous descriptions of the female body, a bad sex scene (the writing; the sex seemed like it was going OK), and a few clunky lines, and the style/prose wasn’t going to save the book from plot and character issues. As mentioned, I finally gave up about halfway through, which may be the first time in my life I haven’t finished a book that had dinosaurs in it.
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