Review: Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time

Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time by James Gurney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It must've been when I was maybe 10. Back in those days when globalization was still in its infancy, copyright regulations were, not really a thing. So, you would often find content creators for regional publications outright lifting popular books, titles and media from western publications. Then using them to pad their pages and subscription count.

In one such local children's publication, I came across excerpts from this story about a world where humans and dinosaurs coexisted. A more poignant version of the Flintstones.

The concept was intriguing, and the art was stellar, breathtaking. Unfortunately, outside of the brief synopsis of the story, there was nothing much to go on. And very few avenues for a 10 year old to go about purchasing the book.

How time flows, close to 20 years had passed before I came across the title again. This time, thanks to the beauty of the internet and online shopping there was very little constraints to me ticking off an entry from a decade old to do list.

It's always fascinating to explore the intricate fictional worlds which is conjured from the mind of an author. In Dinotopia, James Gurney has spared no expense, in crafting this engaging, intricate world where the behemoths of lore coexist in a somewhat symbotic, somewhat assertive relationship with the motley population of humans; survivers and descendants to shipwrecks.

Of course there is the everyday tasks, chores and aspects of ritual, which is altered to be intertwined with the reptilian partners. But even aspects in relation to culture, religion, science and literature which are invariably linked.

Because, unlike one would initially imagine, this was not merely a world where the two species coexist. Rather, it's a place where reality and time are fluid and ineffable. Entire eons have passed and civilizations have risen and fallen, their slowly decaying ruins littering this megaisland, that is for all intents and purposes much larger than should be logically possible.

The lives and lifespan of those who reside here also do not follow standard limitations of biology. Even time behaves differently. Perhaps that's why, instead of clocks or other mechanical time keeping devices, Dinotopians turn to the ebb and flow of natural phenomenon to ascertain its passage.

But by far a detail whichis the most innocous, but also one which seems to hold much importance to this world and its past, is the script followed by Dinosaurs. Theirs is a script formed entirely by the impressions of feet formed on sand or other malleable slates. Formed initially by the wandering pioneers of the species, as they engaged in migratory journeys across the soft sands of the beaches. Something which was then codified and immortalized in instribed scripts, eons old, eroded by the sands of time.

These give hints of the time before, and the secrets that the world holds. That something mentioned in passing, holds such mystique and intrigue is one of the reasons that keeps you hooked on the narrative which is, in all honesty, catered to the sensibilities of a child.

All this detailed worldbuilding, along with the grand, panoramic, photorealistic art, which invokes a feeling of grandeur and nostalgia of some lost times.

Looking forwards to reading the subsequent titles in the series.

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