Cover blurb
Dinosaurs. Everyone’s favourite prehistoric monsters.
Explore thirteen terrifying tales of tyrannosaurs, pterosaurs, and everything in between, supporting the protection of the dinosaurs that remain.
All proceeds go to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the last living descendants of these remarkable creatures.
Journeys through time? Lost worlds? Bloodthirsty predators? They’re all right here.
Featuring the talents of A. W. Mason, Wesley Winters, Derek Hutchins, Andrew Jackson, Nicole Neill, Jamie Stewart, Ethan J. Pollard, Samuel M. Hallam, Kay Hanifen, MG Mason, C. D. Kester, Loki DeWitt, and Megan Kiekel Anderson.
My thoughts
I was hesitant about reading the new dinosaur story anthology Terrible Lizards for two reasons. First, it is a small press/self-published effort, and while self-published authors have a lot of passion for what they do, they rarely work with an editor to clean up their writing. I infrequently review self-published works as a result, but in this case, the anthology did have an editor to review the stories. Second, I’ve complained about recent dinosaur anthologies filled with stories that depict the animals as little more than B-movie monsters. However, Terrible Lizards is upfront that this is a horror anthology, so it appropriately sets expectations. Also, given this is a charity effort, with revenue from sales donated to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, I thought the book was worth a look.
I would love to say Terrible Lizards has changed my mind about self-published works. Sadly, in many cases, the anthology reinforced my views, with several stories being very amateur efforts. Still, there are some diamonds in the rough. Easily the best of the bunch is “Please Don’t Feed the Plesiosaur” by Kay Hanifen. More dark satire than horror, the story concerns a hair-brained scheme by the U.K. to boost tourism by introducing a genetically engineered plesiosaur into Loch Ness to give the lake an actual monster. It is amusing, has a likable narrator, and delivers a genuinely clever twist at the end. “Burning Dawn” by Wesley Winters, about a mercenary tasked with retrieving T. rex eggs, is a decent romp with a funny punchline. Other notable efforts include “The Beast from Before” by Andrew Jackson, a weird western about a T. rex terrorizing a mining town, and “Danielle and the Diplodocus” by Megan Kiekel Anderson, in which a bullied teen is befriended by a dinosaur fossil during a museum visit, with tragic results for the other museum visitors.
A few entries seemingly end mid-story, as if the authors didn’t know how to wrap up their tales in the space allocated. The best of these is “Livestream” by Jamie Stewart, concerning a Logan Paul-type influencer who livestreams his visit to a mysterious island in the Bermuda Triangle. I would have rated it higher if it had a proper ending. Most other stories are just not well written, with clunky dialogue and prose, and often introducing a large cast of indistinguishable characters that exist only to raise the body count. And that is too bad because some scenarios would have been fun in more capable hands, such as a zombie apocalypse during the mid-Cretaceous, or an underground lost world filled with blind dinosaurs.
Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good in Terrible Lizards. I can’t recommend it, but there are a few nuggets of fun in its pages and the proceeds go to charity, so your money won’t be wasted if you decide to give it a try.
List of stories
- “Terror on Central Park West” by A.W. Mason
- “Burning Dawn” by Wesley Winters
- “The Hidden Grotto” by Derek Hutchins
- “The Beast from Before” by Andrew Jackson
- “A Primitive Party” by Nicole Neill
- “Livestream” by Jamie Stewart
- “As Gods Upon the Land” by Ethan J. Pollard
- “Safety Protocols” by Samuel M. Hallam
- “Please Don’t Feed the Plesiosaur” by Kay Hanifen
- “Age of the DinosaurZ” by MG Mason
- “Lost in Time” by C.D. Kester
- “Terror Dawn” by Loki DeWitt
- “Danielle and the Diplodocus” by Megan Kiekel Anderson
Trivia
- Terrible Lizards contains a list of content warnings at the back of the book for readers sensitive to certain subjects, such as child death or animal cruelty. I would like to see other works of fiction embrace this practice.
Prehistoric Pulp 