Subject: Review: Bone Wars by Brett Davis

From: [email-masked] (P.D. TILLMAN)
Date: 25 Oct 2000 15:18:31 -0400

Bone Wars, Brett Davis		
	Review Copyright 2000 Peter D. Tillman

Rating: "A-".  Aliens stole our fossils! A fine and funny alt-hist tall
tale.

There's not a great deal of geological science-fiction extant, so I'm
pleased to report that Bone Wars is worthy of your attention.

Montana Territory, 1876: Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope are
both digging in the Judith River fossil beds, with no great success, and
spying on each other's camps. They learn of another bone-digger, who
shields his camp behind a "ghost wall," and has found some truly
magnificent dinosaur specimens. A *fourth* paleontologist appears, an
odd-looking fellow who claims to be from Iceland, and wants help to save
the prize bones from being shipped off to "Sweden"....

Stir in a cowboy who's really a girl, a Sioux who's a Yale graduate, a
deserter from the Little Big Horn, and a wild ride on a ceratopsian -- all
done in impeccable late-19th century prose -- and you have a most
entertaining confection. Recommended, with the usual caveat that others'
reaction to (alleged) humor is notoriously unpredictable.

Brett Davis, whose writing I haven't previously encountered, has clearly
done his historical homework. He writes in a spritely mock-Victorian style
that's just right for the tale. This is a very amusing book. Fluff, but
*good* fluff.

There's a sequel, Two Tiny Claws (1999), which I'll have to look for.  I
picked this one up on a whim, having heard of neither author nor
title. I'm glad I did.

%T Bone Wars
%A Brett Davis
%D 1998
%I Baen
%O US$6
%P 312pp
%G ISBN: 0-671-87880-8
%O In print.

Links: 

Another, less-complimentary review:
http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/davis.html

Publisher:
http://www.baen.com/catalog/author_catalog.asp?author=bdavis

Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Prescott, AZ (USA)
Read more of my reviews:
http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
http://www.sfsite.com/revwho.htm