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rvoeller's review against another edition
I struggled to get invested in book 1 but wanted to try and continue the series because dinosaurs. About halfway through Dinosaur Knights I thought we were getting somewhere interesting before the book became dull again.
I couldn't get behind any of the characters, and the plot moved so slow. It got to the point where I was reading purely on principle, not because of my enjoyment.
I couldn't get behind any of the characters, and the plot moved so slow. It got to the point where I was reading purely on principle, not because of my enjoyment.
booksforscee's review against another edition
1.0
I feel like I can let a single quote, a single sentence speak for itself, as it says more about this absolute disaster than I ever could. Enjoy
(NSFW)
⚠️
“Love and Authority seemed to resonate from his penis”
(NSFW)
⚠️
“Love and Authority seemed to resonate from his penis”
wyrmdog's review against another edition
3.0
I am still really torn on this.
1) I love dinosaurs. Always have. As a kid I could name anything you could point at. While my skills are greatly diminished these days, I will always love them. Apatasaurs will always be Brontosaurs in my heart.
2) I love fantasy books, particularly ones that include a nice big epic battle sequence that isn't just blown off. I love the magic, the monsters, the bravery and heroism, the strength of will and sense of wonder. I really like when there is no chosen one crap and the plot can develop more sensibly. I am all for The Lord of the Rings or Dragonlance, but I have a special place reserved for the heroes of the Doomfarers of Coramonde or The Rose Sea.
3) The problem, then, lies in the characters. Lots of fantasy is populated by thin characters. World-building and plotting are always throwing their weight around and it makes it hard for characters to stand out, particularly when so many are ciphers of hairy-footed reluctants (yes, I made that word up, welcome to the use and abuse of English) or pig-keeping orphans.
The men are idealized warriors of slightly different flavors. The superhuman, the rowdy, the noble beauty. Their capability and ability to make the right decision in spite of appearances is never in doubt, even if they are wracked with it.
The women...well, let's be frank, there is A woman. Smurfette if you will, because there is a virtually gynocidal narrative at work here that seems to touch nearly every woman but her. So, Smurfette is a princess, but unlike the men-folk protagonists, she makes decisions that the author wants to make sure we understand are stupid, and uses her friends as object lessons.
Speaking of her friends, one of them has a particularly horrible and pointedly pointless death which turns into a bizarre sideshow of gratuitously anthropomorphized obscenity. While she mourns this person off and on, a male character with a decided attachment of his own is first horrified and grieving...until the end of the scene. 20 minutes later in the narrative, he acts as if she never existed. There is lip service later, but nothing that feels real. Mostly he's back to ogling women and commenting on their sexiness in his head with nary a thought for someone that we are supposed to believe he cared about.
I think it's this lack of narrative respect for the females populating the story that bothers me. I get that Rob is amisogynist chauvinist. It's impossible to miss. But the narrative itself doesn't seem to like the women it shows us much, either.
In the end, it is this one element that makes me hesitant to keep rolling with this series, but...dinosaurs...the siren call of dinosaurs and riding them into battle and...argh...this one has TRICERATOPS WAR HOWDAHS!!!! How badass is that?
Anyway, there you have it. I enjoyed this one a little more than the first but for the death of [SPOILER THAT YOU CANNOT UNHIDE], who I was hoping would be an ongoing character. I'm still angry about that part. Angry like I was when Oberyn died so stupidly in another series that shall go nameless and nearly caused me to throw my book across the room.
Well, nothing more to see here. Carry on.
1) I love dinosaurs. Always have. As a kid I could name anything you could point at. While my skills are greatly diminished these days, I will always love them. Apatasaurs will always be Brontosaurs in my heart.
2) I love fantasy books, particularly ones that include a nice big epic battle sequence that isn't just blown off. I love the magic, the monsters, the bravery and heroism, the strength of will and sense of wonder. I really like when there is no chosen one crap and the plot can develop more sensibly. I am all for The Lord of the Rings or Dragonlance, but I have a special place reserved for the heroes of the Doomfarers of Coramonde or The Rose Sea.
3) The problem, then, lies in the characters. Lots of fantasy is populated by thin characters. World-building and plotting are always throwing their weight around and it makes it hard for characters to stand out, particularly when so many are ciphers of hairy-footed reluctants (yes, I made that word up, welcome to the use and abuse of English) or pig-keeping orphans.
The men are idealized warriors of slightly different flavors. The superhuman, the rowdy, the noble beauty. Their capability and ability to make the right decision in spite of appearances is never in doubt, even if they are wracked with it.
The women...well, let's be frank, there is A woman. Smurfette if you will, because there is a virtually gynocidal narrative at work here that seems to touch nearly every woman but her. So, Smurfette is a princess, but unlike the men-folk protagonists, she makes decisions that the author wants to make sure we understand are stupid, and uses her friends as object lessons.
Speaking of her friends, one of them has a particularly horrible and pointedly pointless death which turns into a bizarre sideshow of gratuitously anthropomorphized obscenity. While she mourns this person off and on, a male character with a decided attachment of his own is first horrified and grieving...until the end of the scene. 20 minutes later in the narrative, he acts as if she never existed. There is lip service later, but nothing that feels real. Mostly he's back to ogling women and commenting on their sexiness in his head with nary a thought for someone that we are supposed to believe he cared about.
I think it's this lack of narrative respect for the females populating the story that bothers me. I get that Rob is a
In the end, it is this one element that makes me hesitant to keep rolling with this series, but...dinosaurs...the siren call of dinosaurs and riding them into battle and...argh...this one has TRICERATOPS WAR HOWDAHS!!!! How badass is that?
Anyway, there you have it. I enjoyed this one a little more than the first but for the death of [SPOILER THAT YOU CANNOT UNHIDE], who I was hoping would be an ongoing character. I'm still angry about that part. Angry like I was when Oberyn died so stupidly in another series that shall go nameless and nearly caused me to throw my book across the room.
Well, nothing more to see here. Carry on.
markmtz's review against another edition
5.0
Astonishing dinosaur battles, characters to cheer on, characters that need a severe beatdown, and Shiraa searching for her mommy! An exciting read that isn't over yet.
logarithm's review against another edition
3.0
In this second installment, things are as confusing as ever. I was a bit disappointing because the pacing is frankly weird, and there’s a lot of boring long battles. I feel like Victor Milan tried a bit too hard to be Game of Thrones with Dinosaurs instead of focusing on stuff he’s actually good at, and that’s a shame. Overall I still liked the book, because Melodia’s character gets more fleshed out and increasingly more badass, and because the ending was great and left me wanting for the third book. The conclusion to the series will make it or break it for me.
emilyyjjean's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed reading this book; I think it's a great continuation of [book:The Dinosaur Lords|19000898]. It's very interesting with lots of action, some twists, and of course...dinosaurs!
I disliked Melodia in the first one; I thought she was selfish and mean. But throughout this story she really grew in personality. There are a lot of characters in this book, and the story never got stagnant because of this. I think the author did a great job of transitioning to each individual story (allotting the right amount of time for each one) and did a superb job of bringing them together towards the end!
The only thing that slightly bothered me was the use of so many dinosaur names: scientific and slang names made up for this book. Especially when they were intermingling within the same paragraph and even sentence. I found myself searching the internet a lot to remember what name went with what dinosaur. I could remember a few slang names, but I also found myself picturing one dinosaur and then eventually finding out later that I had been picturing the wrong kind. If you're very familiar with dinosaurs I guess this wouldn't be a problem, but since I'm not strongly familiar it sometimes made the story confusing.
I really enjoyed reading the chapters that were set in Shiraa's point of view. I wish there would've been more!
All in all this was a really great story. I had my doubts at first; I thought it would be boring and worse than the first one, but I am definitely putting the third onto my 'want to read' list!
I disliked Melodia in the first one; I thought she was selfish and mean. But throughout this story she really grew in personality. There are a lot of characters in this book, and the story never got stagnant because of this. I think the author did a great job of transitioning to each individual story (allotting the right amount of time for each one) and did a superb job of bringing them together towards the end!
The only thing that slightly bothered me was the use of so many dinosaur names: scientific and slang names made up for this book. Especially when they were intermingling within the same paragraph and even sentence. I found myself searching the internet a lot to remember what name went with what dinosaur. I could remember a few slang names, but I also found myself picturing one dinosaur and then eventually finding out later that I had been picturing the wrong kind. If you're very familiar with dinosaurs I guess this wouldn't be a problem, but since I'm not strongly familiar it sometimes made the story confusing.
I really enjoyed reading the chapters that were set in Shiraa's point of view. I wish there would've been more!
All in all this was a really great story. I had my doubts at first; I thought it would be boring and worse than the first one, but I am definitely putting the third onto my 'want to read' list!
chukg's review against another edition
4.0
These books are really fun. First of all, it's knights and courtly intrigue on some other world which is mostly inhabited by dinosaurs (except for a few domesticated mammals -- and maybe some birds or bats), so knights ride to war on allosaurs or triceratops. Now this second one has basically a zombie horde in it, too, and there are unsolved mysteries of the setting, plus the viewpoint characters are good and so are the combat scenes.
janiedean's review against another edition
4.0
This second entry in the series was an absolute delight and is probably my favorite out of the three published books yet, though it might be just because the ending was less of a cliffhanger feast than the other two... and [a:Victor Milán|4601681|Victor Milán|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422563171p2/4601681.jpg] certainly managed to keep me hooked on his premise. Hell, now I'm definitely more of a dinosaur connoisseur than I was before reading book number one.
In all seriousness, this follow-up to The Dinosaur Lords absolutely benefited from having already established the characters and going straight to the plot and character build without suffering from the necessary politics and worldbuilding content that had slowed down the first slightly. Now that it's out of the way the plot absolutely benefits and I really loved the character development of all the mains - Melodìa had a fairly good arc and I appreciated that it wasn't without faults and difficulties, Rob and Karyl kept on being a delight both separately and with their odd couple dynamic and I really did love Jaume's arc even though I was hoping someone would send the poor man on vacation. And speaking of Jaume I was delighted with seeing more character development for his companions - Florian was definitely my favorite secondary character in the whole thing, but everyone else was fleshed better than in book one and I was down with all of the narrative choices. And speaking of secondary characters, Pilar also had some great material, and I really enjoyed how Falk went from fairly standard bad guy to 'extremely more complicated bad guy I can actually somehow sympathize with at times'.
More generally, I was extremely intrigued by the new worldbuilding information thrown in here (the theology is still really piquing my interest) and I absolutely loved how Milán has managed to actually have an extremely diverse cast representing most European ethnicities/countries/populations in this even if of course slightly reworked without sticking to the same three that everyone always finds in fantasy novels - in this book it was an angle lot more well-developed than the first one (who knew one main character and one minor character I won't spoil were part of a fairly misrepresented minority in most books let alone fantasy sagas?) and I loved seeing that the cast was representing nations from all over the continent. And the research was done really well on top of that! Adding that to the fact that the cast is also very diverse when it comes to sexual orientation - and I really enjoyed how this world is different from ours when it comes to acceptance of diverse sexualities -, I really appreciated how there's something for everyone in here. (Even the atheist characters! Okay, no one was going to stay atheist after angels literally came down crusading, but still it's really hard to find sympathetic atheist/agnostic characters in fiction and I liked that these books had more than one to start with.)
And of course the dinosaur content is still delivering strongly, along with the excellently written battle scenes - certainly Milán can write *those* very well. The fact that it had a strangely satisfying conclusion - all things considered - certainly added to my enjoyment. This was definitely the best of the triad, though the follow-up lived up with the comparison. I might have had a minor quibble with a few stylistic choices in sex scenes but honestly, it's really nothing in comparison to how much I enjoyed this book and where it brought the story and the characters. And the follow-up certainly didn't disappoint, either.
In all seriousness, this follow-up to The Dinosaur Lords absolutely benefited from having already established the characters and going straight to the plot and character build without suffering from the necessary politics and worldbuilding content that had slowed down the first slightly. Now that it's out of the way the plot absolutely benefits and I really loved the character development of all the mains - Melodìa had a fairly good arc and I appreciated that it wasn't without faults and difficulties, Rob and Karyl kept on being a delight both separately and with their odd couple dynamic and I really did love Jaume's arc even though I was hoping someone would send the poor man on vacation. And speaking of Jaume I was delighted with seeing more character development for his companions - Florian was definitely my favorite secondary character in the whole thing, but everyone else was fleshed better than in book one and I was down with all of the narrative choices. And speaking of secondary characters, Pilar also had some great material, and I really enjoyed how Falk went from fairly standard bad guy to 'extremely more complicated bad guy I can actually somehow sympathize with at times'.
More generally, I was extremely intrigued by the new worldbuilding information thrown in here (the theology is still really piquing my interest) and I absolutely loved how Milán has managed to actually have an extremely diverse cast representing most European ethnicities/countries/populations in this even if of course slightly reworked without sticking to the same three that everyone always finds in fantasy novels - in this book it was an angle lot more well-developed than the first one (who knew one main character and one minor character I won't spoil were part of a fairly misrepresented minority in most books let alone fantasy sagas?) and I loved seeing that the cast was representing nations from all over the continent. And the research was done really well on top of that! Adding that to the fact that the cast is also very diverse when it comes to sexual orientation - and I really enjoyed how this world is different from ours when it comes to acceptance of diverse sexualities -, I really appreciated how there's something for everyone in here. (Even the atheist characters! Okay, no one was going to stay atheist after angels literally came down crusading, but still it's really hard to find sympathetic atheist/agnostic characters in fiction and I liked that these books had more than one to start with.)
And of course the dinosaur content is still delivering strongly, along with the excellently written battle scenes - certainly Milán can write *those* very well. The fact that it had a strangely satisfying conclusion - all things considered - certainly added to my enjoyment. This was definitely the best of the triad, though the follow-up lived up with the comparison. I might have had a minor quibble with a few stylistic choices in sex scenes but honestly, it's really nothing in comparison to how much I enjoyed this book and where it brought the story and the characters. And the follow-up certainly didn't disappoint, either.
vermidian's review against another edition
3.0
I found out mid-book that the author to this book series died after finishing the third book in a planned six book series. RIP Victor Milán.
Still, this is going to be my take on the book as it stands now. And, to be honest, I liked the first book more. In the first book of any series, you can rely more on world building as it's an entirely new world to show your readers. In the second book, a lot of that novelty of new things goes away. And, honestly, what was left in this book just wasn't that entertaining. I can say that fortunately, Milán toned down his idiotic shock factor scenes somewhat. They were still there, but I didn't think they were as glaringly stupid in this book. There were no rape scenes in this book and the main characters stayed very true to form. So, if you really liked a character in the first book, you'll probably still really like them in the second book.
Unfortunately, I found that the characters did little to no growing. If they did grow, it was suddenly rather than gradually, and only ever to suit the plot. Mostly, it seems his characters only grow as the result of the death of someone they love. It's not something I particularly admired about the plot as I was really hoping the characters might develop a little more on their own and grow in more unexpected directions. I didn't get anything of the sort sadly. Melodía's "growth" in particular irked me as being unrealistic and irritating, seeing as she's still just as naive and proud at the end of the book as she is at the beginning. And Rob? He's still the same character he started out with in book one. Karyl's growth, apparently, might all be due to "magic" which is irritating.
I was just really not impressed with how the characters grew and changed. It was almost like the characters were an afterthought to the plot and then just pigeonholed into them after the fact with no real build-up. I want characters to grow because they're learning from those around them, not just all at once because it's convenient to the story line.
I again found the action sequences to be a bit muddled. In all honesty, it took actual willpower for me to read through them and not simply skip over paragraphs and pages of battle content. And you can, especially in the climax. I loved that they introduced a new enemy to the world in the form of the Grey Angels, but I also felt that the ending is a little bit of a cop out, putting almost all previous dramas to rest. I did enjoy the horde that the Grey Angel commanded, as it was really interesting to see how it all began and how it snowballed exponentially as the story went.
There was enough in the book to make me want to read the third book, but it's not likely to be high on my priority list seeing as the character simply do not change from start of book to finish. It's really kind of sad to read these stagnant characters. This book is still recommended for adult readers and only for those who have read the first book.
Still, this is going to be my take on the book as it stands now. And, to be honest, I liked the first book more. In the first book of any series, you can rely more on world building as it's an entirely new world to show your readers. In the second book, a lot of that novelty of new things goes away. And, honestly, what was left in this book just wasn't that entertaining. I can say that fortunately, Milán toned down his idiotic shock factor scenes somewhat. They were still there, but I didn't think they were as glaringly stupid in this book. There were no rape scenes in this book and the main characters stayed very true to form. So, if you really liked a character in the first book, you'll probably still really like them in the second book.
Unfortunately, I found that the characters did little to no growing. If they did grow, it was suddenly rather than gradually, and only ever to suit the plot. Mostly, it seems his characters only grow as the result of the death of someone they love. It's not something I particularly admired about the plot as I was really hoping the characters might develop a little more on their own and grow in more unexpected directions. I didn't get anything of the sort sadly. Melodía's "growth" in particular irked me as being unrealistic and irritating, seeing as she's still just as naive and proud at the end of the book as she is at the beginning. And Rob? He's still the same character he started out with in book one. Karyl's growth, apparently, might all be due to "magic" which is irritating.
I was just really not impressed with how the characters grew and changed. It was almost like the characters were an afterthought to the plot and then just pigeonholed into them after the fact with no real build-up. I want characters to grow because they're learning from those around them, not just all at once because it's convenient to the story line.
I again found the action sequences to be a bit muddled. In all honesty, it took actual willpower for me to read through them and not simply skip over paragraphs and pages of battle content. And you can, especially in the climax. I loved that they introduced a new enemy to the world in the form of the Grey Angels, but I also felt that the ending is a little bit of a cop out, putting almost all previous dramas to rest. I did enjoy the horde that the Grey Angel commanded, as it was really interesting to see how it all began and how it snowballed exponentially as the story went.
There was enough in the book to make me want to read the third book, but it's not likely to be high on my priority list seeing as the character simply do not change from start of book to finish. It's really kind of sad to read these stagnant characters. This book is still recommended for adult readers and only for those who have read the first book.
ink_soul's review against another edition
2.0
I did it! I finally finished this book! I bought it a long time ago and then stopped reading. This year, because of the pandemic and because I had finished all my other books, I decided to give this a second chance... did not take long for me to remember why I almost gave up on it.
The characters are just strange. All of them have moments of glory, funny lines and all that, but when you stop to think, it's quite hard to find any reason to sympathise with them. The women are especially dull, and this is sad since I had enjoyed Melodía's story in the first book. Here, she only makes stupid choices and goes through surreal changes.
Victor Milán has an issue with sex-related jokes, lore pieces and descriptions. A few of them work, as the "brotherly love" between Jaume and his knights; the majority, though, is forced and even disgusting.
I was never an enthusiast for anything related to dinosaurs, but the battles involving the beasts are the highlight of the story. The final battle, although longer than it should, is one of the best sequences in the book.
I did not even like the first book that much. I bought the second because I'm stubborn. Now, I really don't think I am going to read the third. Not even that final scene got me excited.
The characters are just strange. All of them have moments of glory, funny lines and all that, but when you stop to think, it's quite hard to find any reason to sympathise with them. The women are especially dull, and this is sad since I had enjoyed Melodía's story in the first book. Here, she only makes stupid choices and goes through surreal changes.
Victor Milán has an issue with sex-related jokes, lore pieces and descriptions. A few of them work, as the "brotherly love" between Jaume and his knights; the majority, though, is forced and even disgusting
Spoiler
yes, I'm thinking about Pilar's death while writing thisI was never an enthusiast for anything related to dinosaurs, but the battles involving the beasts are the highlight of the story. The final battle, although longer than it should, is one of the best sequences in the book.
I did not even like the first book that much. I bought the second because I'm stubborn. Now, I really don't think I am going to read the third. Not even that final scene got me excited.