Review: Not What I Thought
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 21, 2013
<Spoiler Alert - Plot elements will definitely be discussed> Let me begin by explaining why I awarded two stars. The first is because I respect anybody who can write a book, as I can't. The second star is for a credible job of writing the story, although there were a few typos and some spots where the explanations or back story were a bit thin. Now on to the critical items. It was definitely not what I imagined it might be. I was familiar with the term, "in situ", used for the title; so I envisioned long-lost creatures somehow miraculously surviving 65 million years of time alive, to run amok in modern times, similar to the final scenes of that Jurassic Park movie. This assumption was reinforced by the cover picture of the Jurassic Park style dino skeleton.  Close, but not quite. BIG SPOILER NEXT. Never would I have imagined that the creatures that survived would have been intelligent; not "intelligent" like a dog or some other animal has enough intelligence to learn rudimentary tasks. But INTELLIGENT, with customs, society, and language. And manners that would make an English Lord happy. And they are lizards. Bipedal lizards. And they have telepathy, which makes communicating with modern humans easy. I am not making this up. At just a few chapters into the book, there is a flashback 65 million years to just prior to the extinction event that we all presume wiped out the dinosaurs, known as the K-T Event. We are introduced to the characters and learn of the lizards culture, and watch their machinations to survive the destructive event, which their astronomers have predicted. At this point I said "you gotta be kidding me" and looked to see if I had erroneously purchased a Disney book. I was tempted to quit and almost did. I must admit, the author did a credible job of finishing the improbable story. I was truly surprised at  the ending (no spoiler here), and admit that a sense of irony overcame me at the plight of the 65 million year old survivors. The authors explanation by way of the heroine for this storyline is that "intelligence" is a hard thing to develop, and must surely need more than 65 million years (since the K-T Event) to do so. 65 million years seems like plenty of time to me. I have written before that for science fiction to work,there is some premise that must be accepted by the reader for it all to work (like matter/energy transformation in Star Trek). I had trouble with this one, and thus for me the book had limited appeal. Others may be a bit more forgiving. You will have to choose.