The Dinosaur Knights

by Victor Milán
444 pgs  (Dinosaur Lords series #2)

There are a couple of things to be aware of, if you're considering reading Victor Milán's Dinosaur Lords trilogy. The first is that it's a fantasy series set in a world called Paradise, which resembles Europe in the 14th century. There are kings and lords and dukes, and seemingly never-ending feuds and wars between them. There are knights who fight those wars for their kings, which leads to the second thing to be aware of . . . the dinosaurs. There are dinosaurs on Paradise, and some of them have been domesticated and are used as beasts of burden and some are ridden by the knights fighting those wars. If that second thing makes your eyes roll back in your head and causes you to pass on the series without giving it a chance, you'll miss out on a pretty good story.

George R.R. Martin provided the blurb on the books' covers, in which he calls it ". . . a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones." That's not to say the series is as good as either of them, but it has its moments, and in this, the second book in the trilogy, those moments are more frequent than they were in book I.

Milán picks up right were he left off at the end of The Dinosaur Lords. Karyl Bogomirskiy and the dinosaur master Rob Korrigan are leading the efforts to defend the city of Providence, where Imperial Princess Molodia and her servant have just arrived seeking sanctuary from Duke Falk von Hornberg. And, in the west, the servants of the Creators, known as the Grey Angels, have begun to form their army by turning humans into mindless killers. All of this results in some impressive battle scenes, featuring armored triceratops, ferocious Allosaurus, and the real kings of the series--Tyrannosaurus Rex.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Dinosaur Lords

by Victor Milán
445 pgs  (The Dinosaur Lords series #1)

I feel compelled to begin with an explanation on this one. I mean, it is, after all, a book about medieval knights fighting while riding dinosaurs. So why would an educated, relatively well-rounded and socially adept person choose to pick up a book of this nature? The answer is pretty simple--it's a book about medieval knights fighting while riding dinosaurs. Let's move on.

The Dinosaur Lords takes place in the Empire of Neuvaropa, a fictional land similar in look and feel to Europe in the 14th century. The book, which is the beginning of a series Victor Milán is writing, introduces three main characters: Karyl Bogomirskly, the captain of a Triceratops army, who himself rides an allosaurous, Rob Korrigan, a dinosaur whisperer of sorts, and Melodia, a princess.

George R.R. Martin described the book as "...a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones," and that's a pretty accurate description. I don't know whether the rivalries between the different feudal lords, and the lengths they'll be willing to go to in order to defeat one another will equal those in GRRM's A Song of Fire and Ice series, but it's clear Milán is not just writing a book about battles between dinosaur-riding knights.

But let me weigh in on the dinosaur-riding knights. I was expecting the dinosaur aspect of the story to be a little campy. It's not. The fact that there are dinosaurs interwoven into the story gives it a level of appeal it wouldn't otherwise have. They're not just used for battle. They're a part of all aspects of life in Neuvaropa. They're a source of food, some have been domesticated for use working the land, they're ridden during jousting tournaments for entertainment, they're used for executions, and of course there are the wild ones to be watched out for.

Milán and his new series are legitimate additions to the genre. His characters are engaging and multi-layered, his story is intelligent and entertaining, and he inserts just the right level of fantasy and the supernatural into the world he's created to let you know that there are bigger forces at play than just those who first appear.

Oh yeah, and there are dinosaurs!

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆