"West of Eden" by Harry Harrison (1925-2012)

 

Publisher: Bantam Books

Copyright: 1984

ISBN: None listed

I hadn't read this book for many years (actually probably closer to a few decades), and found it to be extremely interesting especially with regard to the world building that Mr. Harrison did.

The overall premise of the book is that the comet that struck the earth 65 million years or so ago and that established the end of the Cretaceous Period did not hit the Earth. Because of this the dinosaurs evolved intelligence, and the mammals also evolved in parallel (but somewhat slower as they hadn't had as long). The dinosaur evolutionary track produced a race of beings that were essentially lizard like in their overall appearance, while the humans were likely to be about the level of something like Homo erectus.

The dinosaurs developed a technology based on genetics, well the "humans" were still at the hunter gatherer stage.

Due to the advancing ice and glaciation the dinosaurs were being forced to move westward and colonize new lands. This is where they met the humans for the first time, and where ultimately war was declared between the two forces for the same land.

There are two other books in the series "Winter in Eden" and "Return to Eden", but I haven't read either of these to date.

With regard to the world-building, I felt that the humans were were portrayed quite well with regard to their hunter gatherer skills, language etc. however, I found the dinosaurs to be a little too advanced, in their ability to manipulate genetic materials and creatures to serve their purposes.

All in all, this was a very interesting book and I hope to be able to read the next two in the series sometime in the near future.