Today I Bring You an Expression of Dinosaur Love, Information on How Dinosaurs Sounded, and More About a New Release!

If you remember my review of Dinosaur Lords, then you might recall the bit on Titans. While the author did not mention the name of the species, they did mention:

“They had no voices: they couldn’t force cries down the tremendous length of their necks.”

As I mentioned in that review:

That got me to start looking up animals without a voice and most links mentioned Giraffes. However, San Diego Zoo says Giraffes do have vocal cords but they make a limited number of sounds with them.

Well, today I came across an article on IFL Science titled, Dinosaurs May Have Been Cooing To Each Other! According to a new study, the “some dinosaurs might have been mumblers, and cooed with their mouth shut rather than bellowed. Think giant dove, only with gnashing teeth.”

 What will become of the iconic last roars that signal the end of Jurassic Park movies, I thought! Luckily, I read ahead and found this:

“…the ability to make squeaks and squawks without opening the bill has actually evolved separately more than 16 times in the group that contains… dinosaurs. This means that it is quite likely that at least some of the creatures that are often depicted as roaring and shouting were really making far more understated coos and chirrups.

Some I can live with!  Back to the description of Titans and how their neck-size prevents them from making noises, as mentioned in the book. However, according to the article, close-mouth vocalizations are more probable for most large-sized dinosaurs due to the size-dependency and the amount of lung pressure it would take for inflation of an elastic cavity. Spielberg has wrecked us forever. If we ever manage to make one relive, we’d probably end up nitpicking it back to extinction!

In other news, the sequel to Dinosaur Lords, is already out! Here is the cover:

A guest post from the author on Del Rey and Spectra yielded this nugget:

I build my dinosaurs according to the best paleontological information I can find. Theropods –mostly carnivorous bipeds like T. rex and Deinonychus – all have feathers, at some stage of their lives. Big plant eaters like Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, and of course monstrous sauropods like Diplodocus and (yay! she’s back!) Brontosaurus, mostly do not. And Velociraptor is the size of a coyote, not a bald monster as big as a grown man.Go here for your book excerpt. And to get much awaited for answers, visit this blog. The one that I found most useful was this one:

Anything else you would like readers to know about the world of The Dinosaur Lords and the new book, The Dinosaur Knights?

A few things:

 

1. It’s not set on Earth.  Not Earth past, not Earth present, not Earth future, not alt.Earth.  It’s set on a planet called Paradise.  
2. Paradise is a whole world, with a world’s worth of widely differing environments, ecological and cultural.  What you see in this (first, I hope) trilogy is a slice of both.  It’s far from the whole thing, although you catch glimpses of other lands and societies.
3. Dinosaurs (and pterosaurs, and marine reptiles) are animals.  Like the animals we know, some are pretty smart and some are pretty dumb.  I used to use the high concept, The Renaissance, with dinosaurs, until I realized that suggested raptors with ruffs and rapiers.  Nope, nope, nope. (And thanks again to that mysterious GRRM fellow for providing the perfect capsule summary!  Yeah, it’s right there on the cover.)
4. It’s a playground for me to tell the stories I most want to read.  If the thought of knights, or samurai, or various indigenous warriors riding dinosaurs to battle appeal to you, you might want to read ’em too.  Everyone’s invited!
5. I have an unhealthy fondness for numbered lists.
    
   I followed the blog tour and found out the author’s favorite dinosaur happens to be the Triceratops, the three books he’d take to a deserted island would be:
   1) Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
   2) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
   3) Raft Building and Provisioning for Protracted Ocean Voyages
    
   and he also held an AMA session on Reddit! In the session, he mentions that there will be at least 4 more books in the series. So excited! There was something about a giveaway but sadly, it was not open to readers outside of US/Can and I live right on the other side of the world!

 

 

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