A truly engrossing addition to the Ring of Fire series. Obviously the start of another offshoot series within a series based in the Cretaceous period with modern prison guards and convicts mixed with Cherokee Indians from the time of Herndando De Soto as well as his Spanish Conquistadores. Don't let the cover picture fool you - the dinosaurs themselves are barely in the book and the conquistadores are there but only as a vague group of murderous thugs going around doing what conquistadores did best... raping, murdering, enslaving..
That being said, the story centers around a maximum security prison with about 2,000 hardened convicts and a few hundred guards. The entire prison finds itself suddenly thrown into the age of dinosaurs where they have to figure out how to survive in a situation where the guards must worry not only about watching over 2,000 murderous felons, but also how to survive in the age of giant reptiles with no ready food supplies, a lack of weaponry, and all the other problems that have been inherent in this series. The character development is complete and in depth and you come to know and care for the guards who wrestle with some severe moral dilemmas as well as some convicts who are not as hardened in the criminal dept as they seem as well as some who are. The idea of morality and honor amongst thieves is explored as is the fact that not all of the worst criminals are those convicted of violent crimes - or of any at all.
All in all, even without much todo about dino's I give the book four stars.
That being said, the story centers around a maximum security prison with about 2,000 hardened convicts and a few hundred guards. The entire prison finds itself suddenly thrown into the age of dinosaurs where they have to figure out how to survive in a situation where the guards must worry not only about watching over 2,000 murderous felons, but also how to survive in the age of giant reptiles with no ready food supplies, a lack of weaponry, and all the other problems that have been inherent in this series. The character development is complete and in depth and you come to know and care for the guards who wrestle with some severe moral dilemmas as well as some convicts who are not as hardened in the criminal dept as they seem as well as some who are. The idea of morality and honor amongst thieves is explored as is the fact that not all of the worst criminals are those convicted of violent crimes - or of any at all.
All in all, even without much todo about dino's I give the book four stars.
I only recently got into Flint's 'Ring of Fire' books, and have enjoyed them.
This alternate time/ historic fiction /whatever you want to call it epic was very fun, engaging and not hard to follow (cough harry turtledove, cough!). It also contained a very satisfying amount of dinosaurs. :)
