Dinosaur Lords has medieval knights riding dinosaurs into battle. Your decision to read the book will inevitably be based not on this or any other review but on precisely how excited you feel by the phrase “medieval knights ride dinosaurs into battle.” Seriously, either you are rolling your eyes to the heavens like “Lord, what will these wacky people do next” or you’ve stopped reading and are madly one-clicking at Amazon or wherever you do your clicking. Godspeed, my fellow clickers. Godspeed.

I had high expectations of this book but they were also very simple expectations. I wanted to see knights ride into battle on dinosaurs. These expectations were met, frequently. These are graphic, violent battles and horses, dinosaurs, and people die horrible bloody deaths, so, trigger warning for violence towards people and animals. I enjoyed reading about how different dinosaurs are used in different ways, and how this involves various strategies. It’s not all Tyrannosaurus Rex all the time. Triceratopses (yes, I goggled the plural) carry “wicker fighting castles full of archers”. Hadrosaurs will stomp the shit out of anyone, but they are most feared for their “terrible, inaudible battle cry, pitched too low for the human ear to hear, but potentially as damaging as a body blow from a battering ram.” A knight’s worst fear is that he be trapped beneath his fallen dinosaur mount and slowly be crushed to death by his own dinosaur and his own armor.

As far as plot goes, there are three main storylines. The whole thing takes place on a planet which is specified as not Earth, but which is geographically and culturally analogous to the Middle Ages on Earth and seems to have been colonized long ago by humans who brought the “five friends” (horses, goats, dogs, cats, and ferrets).

The first storyline concerns Karyl Bogomirskiy, a warrior nobleman who rises from the dead (there’s magic in this book just in case we find the dinosaurs dull) and joins forces with Rob Korrigan, a Dinosaur Master, to help a group of pacifists build an army to protect their region. Meanwhile, in a country that seems based on Aztec and Mayan cultures, Princess Melodía is frustrated because she is neither taken seriously as a politician nor allowed to ride into battle with her love, Jaume. Jaume, The Count of Flowers, is sent by Melodía’s father to start a bunch of fights that he thinks will be disastrous for his Empire and the world at large. Elyse and I both liked that the biggest center of power seems located in a land analogous to South America instead of Europe. It adds yet another level of interest and amazing imagery to the story.

My problem with the book was that I wasn’t invested in the characters and I didn’t understand why I should care about any of the outcomes. Groups would ride into battle and I had only the most vague sense of why they were riding into battle and why I should care who won or even who lived. The most relatable character is Rob, who brings an everyman perspective to the story. Karyl is mysterious, Melodía is, frankly, pretty bratty, and Jaume seems to drift from lover to lover, battle to battle.

This is the first book in a new series and I assume that the characters will develop in later installments. Melodía, who longs for adventure and respect, certainly seems poised to grow up and I expect great things from her eventually. But taking this book as a single entity, there’s barely any character development and no one to attach to or relate to. Similarly, there’s politics galore but I never understood why I should care about it. The bad guys are plotting against Melodía’s father, the Emperor. So what? He seems like a shitty Emperor. And the conspirators seem like shitty people too. I don’t care who wins if my choice is shitty or shitty.

I want to give full disclosure here and say that this is a fairly complex book, and I read it during a time when I was truly incapable on focusing on anything longer than a comic strip. This means that some of my complaints about not understanding what was happening and why may have been my fault and not the fault of the author. I do think that my failure to engage with any of the characters would have been true under any circumstance. This is simply not a character-based book. Characters exist so that they can do stuff – scheme, train armies, fight, have sex, scheme. Also rape, be raped, or react to the rapes of others. Much time is passed in one of these three fashions, to a degree that I thought was cliché and unnecessary. There is minimal romance.

If you want to read this, it will have to be because you dig medieval politics, gritty Game of Thrones-style fantasy, and knights on dinosaurs. When it comes to these three things, particularly the latter two, the book excels, but warning that the emphasis here is on “grit”.

It’s rare that I can sum up my thoughts on a book by quoting a book blurb, but here’s my chance! The cover proudly bears a blurb from George R.R. Martin that says, “It’s a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones.” This is pretty accurate, with the caveat that the characters aren’t as interesting or memorable as the characters in Game of Thrones (or, for that matter, Jurassic Park). Also, as brutal as Dinosaur Lord is, no one’s killed any puppies (yet). It’s gritty, but not as dark. There’s very little romance – it’s only relevant to the interests of the Bitchery because, and I can’t stress this enough, THERE ARE KNIGHTS RIDING DINOSAURS INTO BATTLE. I’d think that would be relevant to the interests of anyone, really.

Warning: The book has potential to bring out the inner nerd. Redheadedgirl and I felt that the plural of “triceratops” needed jazzing up so here are some suggestions we’d like to submit:

Triceratopesesez

Triceratoppers

Sixceratops

Three-Horned Stompy Toesies

Tricerateese

A Stomp of Triceratops

A Stab of Tricerotop

Triceratops Cubed