7 Comments on CHRONAL ENGINE cover art!, last added: 9/7/2011
Display Comments
Add a Comment
new posts in all blogs
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 9/6/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: The Chronal Engine, dinosaurs in fiction, Blake Henry, middle grade, tween, Add a tag
I am delighted to present the cover art for CHRONAL ENGINE. The cover, like the (equally awesome) interior illustrations, was done by Blake Henry. Higher resolution pics and more information about the book can be found at the CHRONAL ENGINE page at the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt web site.
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 8/4/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: tween, time travel, dinosaurs in fiction, Lester Del Rey, Add a tag
TUNNEL THROUGH TIME is a sort of fun romp. It feels a bit old-fashioned, in large part because of the terrific old-school cover, reminiscent of Charles Knight's paintings. Also, the teen protagonists (17 and 18) could have used a bit more autonomy at times. Still, they're likeable and develop a good rapport with each other and with Doc.
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/25/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: science fiction, Tony Diterlizzi, historical fantasy, Greg Bear, dinosaurs in fiction, Add a tag
DINOSAUR SUMMER, by Greg Bear (Warner, 1998)(ages 12+) is an intriguing sequel to Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD and a nice coming-of-age story as well. It's 1947 and fifteen-year-old Peter Belzoni lives with his father Anthony, a wildlife photographer, in a tenement (his mother left them for Chicago). There's never enough money and Peter often feels like the grown-up and sometimes out of place with his adventure-loving father.
Peter's not sure how to take it when his father gets an assignment from National Geographic: covering the last performance of the last dinosaur circus in North America. It's some decades after Professor Challenger et al. came back from the lost world, launching the "Dinosaur Rush," and dinosaurs are kind of passe.
What Anthony didn't tell Peter is that there's more to the assignment than watching performing animals: the dinosaurs remaining in Otto Gluck's circus are to be returned to Venezuela, and Anthony and Peter will be going along on the expedition to document the event. Along the way, they encounter dangers from humans and wild creatures alike, and Peter comes to terms with his parents' divorce and where he is and wants to be in the world.
DINOSAUR SUMMER offers a likeable protagonist and a great premise, with a creative admixture of fictional and nonfictional dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures.
Oh, and did I mention, the cover and interior illustrations are by Tony DiTerlizzi?
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/23/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jurassic Park, dinosaurs in fiction, Terra Nova, Add a tag
At last week's Comic Con in San Diego, Steven Spielberg announced that JURASSIC PARK IV is in the works! They have a story and a screenwriter and are hoping to make it "within two or three years."
In the meantime, go check out Jurassic Park Legacy, a resource on all things Jurassic Park, and an interview at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs with its founder, Terry Alan Davis, Jr.
Also, Spielberg is producing TERRA NOVA, which premieres Monday, September 26, 2011, at 8/7c. It's the story of a family who are sent back 85 million years from a future where humanity is faced with extinction and, apparently, features all kinds of Cretaceous (and other) critters.
As producer Brannon Braga (of Star Trek: Voyager fame) put it, "we have dinosaurs we know from the fossil record but you get to make up your own dinosaurs as well." (I think the "slasher" falls into the latter category :-)).
Paleontologist John ("Jack") Horner from the Museum of the Rockies is a consultant on the show (he also did Jurassic Park).
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/19/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: time travel, robinsonnades, George Gaylord Simpson, dinosaurs in fiction, Add a tag
When you’re writing a novel in which dinosaurs and humans interact, you’ve really got only two choices: bring them to you or go to them. The classic novels THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT and THE LOST WORLD are examples of the former. There don’t seem to be as many of the latter, but one I just came across is George Gaylord Simpson’s terrific THE DECHRONIZATION OF SAM MAGRUDER (St. Martin's Press 1997). Simpson was one of the more renowned paleontologists of the 20th Century and the manuscript was found after his death in the 1980s by his daughter. It has a forward by Arthur C. Clarke and an afterward by Stephen Jay Gould.
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: dinosaurs in fiction, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 5 of 5
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 9/6/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: The Chronal Engine, dinosaurs in fiction, Blake Henry, middle grade, tween, Add a tag
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 8/4/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: tween, time travel, dinosaurs in fiction, Lester Del Rey, Add a tag
In my quest to find dinosaur-related children's and young adult fiction, I was pleased to come across this one by Lester Del Rey, who founded the Del Rey imprint at Ballantine Books, many of which I read throughout the 80s:
TUNNEL THROUGH TIME, by Lester Del Rey (Westminster 1966)(ages 10+). Bob Miller’s father has invented a “time tunnel” but when he sends paleontologist "Doc" Tom through, he vanishes. So Bob and Tom’s son Pete try to find him.
TUNNEL THROUGH TIME, by Lester Del Rey (Westminster 1966)(ages 10+). Bob Miller’s father has invented a “time tunnel” but when he sends paleontologist "Doc" Tom through, he vanishes. So Bob and Tom’s son Pete try to find him.
At first, they’re sent to the Cretaceous, where they encounter T.rex, Triceratops, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus, and “sea serpents.” (The existence of Allosaurus and "Brontosaurus" at the same time as T.rex is explained away as "our knowing less than we think," which may be the definition of "hand wave." :-)).
As they incrementally jump forward through time, they encounter woolly mammoths, the saber-toothed Smilodon, Megatherium, and primitive humans.
0 Comments on TUNNEL THROUGH TIME as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/25/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: science fiction, Tony Diterlizzi, historical fantasy, Greg Bear, dinosaurs in fiction, Add a tag
Peter's not sure how to take it when his father gets an assignment from National Geographic: covering the last performance of the last dinosaur circus in North America. It's some decades after Professor Challenger et al. came back from the lost world, launching the "Dinosaur Rush," and dinosaurs are kind of passe.
What Anthony didn't tell Peter is that there's more to the assignment than watching performing animals: the dinosaurs remaining in Otto Gluck's circus are to be returned to Venezuela, and Anthony and Peter will be going along on the expedition to document the event. Along the way, they encounter dangers from humans and wild creatures alike, and Peter comes to terms with his parents' divorce and where he is and wants to be in the world.
DINOSAUR SUMMER offers a likeable protagonist and a great premise, with a creative admixture of fictional and nonfictional dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures.
Oh, and did I mention, the cover and interior illustrations are by Tony DiTerlizzi?
0 Comments on DINOSAUR SUMMER as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/23/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jurassic Park, dinosaurs in fiction, Terra Nova, Add a tag
In the meantime, go check out Jurassic Park Legacy, a resource on all things Jurassic Park, and an interview at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs with its founder, Terry Alan Davis, Jr.
As producer Brannon Braga (of Star Trek: Voyager fame) put it, "we have dinosaurs we know from the fossil record but you get to make up your own dinosaurs as well." (I think the "slasher" falls into the latter category :-)).
0 Comments on Jurassic Park IV! as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 7/19/2011
Blog: GregLSBlog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: time travel, robinsonnades, George Gaylord Simpson, dinosaurs in fiction, Add a tag
When you’re writing a novel in which dinosaurs and humans interact, you’ve really got only two choices: bring them to you or go to them. The classic novels THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT and THE LOST WORLD are examples of the former. There don’t seem to be as many of the latter, but one I just came across is George Gaylord Simpson’s terrific THE DECHRONIZATION OF SAM MAGRUDER (St. Martin's Press 1997). Simpson was one of the more renowned paleontologists of the 20th Century and the manuscript was found after his death in the 1980s by his daughter. It has a forward by Arthur C. Clarke and an afterward by Stephen Jay Gould. The novel is set in a framework similar to that of H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE: several individuals discuss the implications of “tablets” they found, written by a human, and dated from the Cretaceous. The tablets tell the story of the time-traveling scientist Sam Magruder and his accidental transport back into time and his survival in the Mesozoic.
He encounters T.rex, sauropods, hadrosaurs, and various nasty theropods in somewhat dated representations (apparently Simpson did not take to the newfangled notion that dinosaur were active, warm-blooded, or could have feathers) and discusses his other attempts to survive -- incluidng trying to find shelter, hunt, and start a fire...
But the really intriguing thing is one of the questions posed at the beginning of the novel: one character -- the Universal Historian -- opines that, by virtue of being lost in time, Sam Magruder is more lost, more alone than any human ever has been. He argues that folks lost on desert islands or in outer space (the novel takes place a hundred years in the future) are not as lost as Sam Magruder, because they have at least the hope of rescue. And that how he reacts to it is a sign of character.
I had a few reactions to this: First, I think that in many recent robinsonnades (lost-on-a-desert-island stories) this despair over aloneness is absent. I can't actually think of one off the top of my head in which this is addressed, other than ROBINSON CRUSOE itself. Robinsonnades seem to have come to be more about physical survival than psychological.
But (second) I’m not entirely sure that Sam Magruder has absolutely no hope of rescue. Admittedly, the novel sets it up so that, according to his theory of time travel, it would be impossible for anyone to duplicate Magruder's feat, and thus reach his precise point in time and space (apparently, you cannot control the time, date, or location of "landing.").
But, of course, that’s only in his time…and in the future, presumably, there
0 Comments on Robinson Crusoe and Sam Magruder and all that... as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
Wow. fantastic, Greg. Congratulations.
Love the art work, though he almost looks like he is sneering ;)
Outstanding! can't wait to read your newest!
Fabulous cover! So excited for you.
Love the cover! It is fabulous and really pops!
I love it! Congratulations!
OOh, I love it! And it will really appeal to boys - especially MINE! SO happy for you!