Dinosaur Tales

First edition published in 1983 by Bantam Books (ISBN 0553014846).
First ibooks edition February 2003 (ISBN 0-7434-5897-4).
Paperback, approx. 6" x 9" x 1/2"
144 pages, B&W illustrations.

Foreword by Ray Harryhausen
Introduction by Ray Bradbury
Illustrations by David Wiesner, William Stout, Overton Loyd, Steranko, Gahan Wilson, Moebius, and Kenneth Smith
Includes illustrator bios in back of book.

Dinosaurs are Ray Bradbury's Most Favorite Subject in All the History of the World. He makes this statement in the introduction to Dinosaur Tales, and he makes no apologies for his boyish enthusiasm for the subject. Who was the bonehead that dismissed dinosaurs as a childish fascination? Bradbury's dinosaurs come from The Deeps with stories that show us that human values are as ancient as the dinosaur, but not yet extinct.

Bradbury offers no explanation for why he has written so little about his favorite subject. Three of these stories ("A Sound of Thunder," "The Fog Horn," and "Tyrannosaurus Rex") are reprints, leaving only one new story and two poems. The new tale ("Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?") is not noteworthy, and the only thing noteworthy about the poems is that they are not reprints and not available in The Complete Poems of Ray Bradbury.

The foreword by Harryhausen is only one page long, and the illustrations (all black and white) are mostly forgettable. The introduction includes a brief memoir of Bradbury's adolescence in Tucson, Arizona, where he got a gig reading comics on the radio in exchange for movie tickets.

This book is only recommended for Bradbury fans who have already read everything else the man has written, or for dinosaur fanatics looking to sink their teeth into something they can devour in a few short hours.

Summary: Grandpa helps 12-year-old Ben Spaulding overcome his obsession with dinosaurs.

Comments: Reviewers have said this story is "sentimental", "mushy and cornball", and smelled of dandelion wine [SF & F Book Review, Oct. 1983; SF Review, Feb. 1984]. This is all true, except for the implication that Dandelion Wine itself is a stinker. But this story stinks, and the illustrations by David Wiesner are nothing special either. Wiesner won the 2002 Caldecott Medal, but these pictures were done twenty years earlier.

Summary: A man named Eckels takes a time travel safari into the past to hunt the ultimate big game--Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Comments: Another one of Bradbury's best. I'm surprised this wasn't included in The Vintage Bradbury. This tale is so well known that I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say that Eckels steps on a butterfly and changes all of history.

The version in Dinosaur Tales is illustrated by William Stout. Stout's work is more imaginative than Wiesner's, more creepy and comic-bookish in style. One of these illustrations appears in slightly altered form in The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel, but "A Sound of Thunder" is actually adapted by Richard Corben in that book.

Ray Bradbury Theater #24 is one of the best episodes.

Movie: It's always a bad sign when a "major" movie misses its projected release date(s), never arrives in theaters, and makes a perfect dive (no splash at all) into video stores. This much-delayed, much-maligned Peter Hyams' film went into heavy rotation on the Cinemax channels in October 2006. It's hard to say why Cinemax is so afraid of the letterbox format at this point, but it's safe to say nothing was lost when formatting A Sound of Thunder (2005) to fit your screen. By the time it reached your screen, it was too late to save this disaster.

It would be easy to rip this movie to shreds, but it's not as painful to watch as the All Movie Guide reviewer claims. The major drawbacks here are bad special effects and plot holes you could throw an allosaurus through. Once the past is altered by the safari hunters, the movie takes a unique view on how the future is affected by the change. Viewers will either find this "ripple effect" to be an original spin on an old idea, or they will be insulted by its lack of logic and its deviation from time-travel rules laid down by generations of writers. Either way, most viewers will want to slap Catherine McCormack's fast-talking, oh-so-very British computer scientist as she literally fills the air with a steady stream of theoretical time-warp bullshit.

The screenwriters may have taken a unique spin on time-alteration, but they lack originality elsewhere. The first victim of the newly-evolved dinosaurs is a black man, and audiences are expected to cheer when the next victim is the asshole government agent. Note to Mr. Hyams: When borrowing from Jurassic Park, don't borrow its stock characters and Spielbergian predictibilities. Stick to the suspense and high production values.

Dedicated Bradbury fans will want to see this anyway, but catch it quick before it becomes extinct.

Radio: Bradbury 13 has a great sound mix to it, but the acting leaves something to be desired. It takes talent to portray a convincing loser like Eckels, and what looks good on the printed page can sound very corny out loud. Rather than being whiny and ignorant Eckels should be careless and arrogant--a He-man Hemingway type.

Summary: A poem about dancing dinosaurs.

Comments: Bradbury cites Disney's Fantasia as inspiration for this. I feel embarrassed for Overton Loyd who had to illustrate this. Dinosaurs in pointe shoes--every artist's dream job.

Summary: An ancient sea monster surfaces near a lighthouse, lured in by the lonely call of the fog horn.

Comments: One of Bradbury's best and most famous stories. "The Foghorn" is included in many school readers, though some have censored the references to God.

Movie: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms featured a stop-motion dinosaur by special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. The two Rays shared a love of dinosaurs and became lifelong friends. Both men discuss their friendship and working relationship in the AMC documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles."

Dinosaur Tales, an illustrated collection of stories and poems, also includes comments by Bradbury and Harryhausen. "The Fog Horn" is illustrated by Steranko--the best artwork in that book.

"The Foghorn" also appears in The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel, this time with artwork by Wayne Barlowe.

Summary: Poem about a dinosaur who gets a parking ticket.

Comments: One drawing by Gahan Wilson.

Summary: Terwilliger is having trouble with his stop-motion dinosaur movie until he takes inspiration from his tyrannical producer.

Comments: Inspired by Bradbury's friendship with special effects man Ray Harryhausen. In the novel A Graveyard For Lunatics, Harryhausen is depicted as Roy Holdstrom who takes inspiration from a mad movie producer.

Also see comment to "The Foghorn."

The illustrations in Dinosaur Tales are by Moebius; they look generic and inappropriate.

Ray Bradbury Theater #16