Cretaceous Dawn

by L.M. Graziano, Michael S.A. Graziano, Michael Graziano

Book Overview

"...An adventure-filled journey... In spite of its references to hard academic science, Cretaceous Dawn is a first-class adventure story, an effortless read as engaging as vintage Jules Verne. The descriptive prose is both evocative and illuminating, and the plot has enough twists and cliffhangers to keep readers traveling on to the inevitable conclusion."--Natural History

"The Grazianos, sibling scientists, combine speculation...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0981514839
• ISBN13: 9780981514833
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Leapfrog Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A Fantastic Story!

From the very first page of Cretaceous Dawn, I was drawn in. The story of a group of people, sent 100 million years into the past sets up an incredible journey complete with accurate historical references and elaborate detail that makes you feel as though you were right beside them! Each chapter has you on the edge of your seat, begging for more until you reach the end where you'll find an incredible twist! A must-read for anyone into paleontology or physics.

More Fun Than A Barrel of Dinos!

CRETACEOUS DAWN is great sci-fi fun. Take one part time travel, one part really cool dinosaurs, and one part unusual missing-persons case. Stir together with liberal dashes of hard physics and paleontology. Fold in the excitement and tension of a classic thriller, and you have CRETACEOUS DAWN, a rollicking good time by L. M. and M. S. A. Graziano. In CRETACEOUS DAWN, physicists Dr. Yariko Miyakaro and Dr. Shanker are working to produce detectable gravitons. Instead, they are producing beetles. And very strange beetles, at that. Dr. Julian Whitney, paleontologist, is called in to study and hopefully identify these very unusual beetles. Suddenly, due to the extreme sensitivity of the graviton experiment, there is an explosion in the lab, and 4 ½ people and a dog are transported back 65 million years, to the beginning of the Cretaceous era. And so the adventure begins... CRETACEOUS DAWN is fast-paced and action-packed, drawing the reader immediately into the Cretaceous era, and firmly keeping him there. I read this book in nearly one sitting; I was so absorbed by the story. The writing is excellent - the vivid descriptions of the landscape, the dinosaurs, and the other inhabitants of the Cretaceous; the accurate but palatable scientific details; and the interesting, well developed characters. You like these people, and genuinely care about what happens to them. If you love dinosaurs, time travel, science fiction, thrillers, or detective stories, you will enjoy CRETACEOUS DAWN. This book is extremely entertaining, and quite simply, it is a good story. A gripping adventure that I, for one, could not put down. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND CRETACEOUS DAWN. Grab a copy, kick back, and have a great time.

Thoroughly enjoyable

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The context is well-researched, the characters are entertaining (including, naturally, the dog), and the action moves quickly. Once you begin to read, the story draws you in and moves you quickly through the text. Sure, there are many dinosaur books and movies out there, but this one approaches the topic from a new perspective, and the other aspects of the story make it even more appealing. I appreciated the scientific details, and the undercurrent of humor. I look forward to reading more by these authors!

As real as the Cretaceous gets

An irritating flaw of much science fiction and even historical fiction is that authors assume that if the reader is willing to suspend disbelief about one thing (say, time travel), then the author has unlimited license to change what is known about the setting of the narrative and even human nature itself. The result is too often a silly fairy tale of distorted human actions and emotions that misses the chance to explore the time and place in which the story ostensibly takes place. Not so with this well written and fast-paced book. I enjoyed Cretaceous Dawn so much, I think, because it does not twist its subject matter to fit the mold of a Hollywood dinosaur movie. Just because we live in the age of mammals today does not mean that tigers and bears crouch behind every tree. So it was also in the age of dinosaurs; then, as now, it was more truly the age of plants and insects, so it makes sense that the main characters, transported back in time, take quite a while to understand fully where and when they have arrived. This adventure tale is therefore also, in several ways, a mystery, but it is scientists who do most of the 'detective' work. Small, bright moments of discovery illuminate the larger quest just to stay alive. The authors, both scientists themselves, cleverly but delicately use this device to make sense for us of a world that is in many ways similar to our own, but differs in important aspects. One is exemplified by the acute loneliness - felt by the transplanted protagonists - of 65 million years of separation from the rest of the human race. Even an explorer on the far side of the moon is closer to home than this. Refreshingly and heart-rendingly, time travel here is much more than just a literary device to bring humans back to the cretaceous. The other distinguishing aspect of the cretaceous, of course, is dinosaurs. Oh yes, there are dinosaurs: lurking, heard, seen, smelled, and eaten, all, deliciously, realistically, in their natural habitat.