Victor Milán’s latest novel, The Dinosaur Knights, is the second installment of a lush, exotic tale about knights—knights riding dinosaurs. As George R.R. Martin describes it: “It’s like a cross between Jurassic Park and A Game of Thrones.” Milán had us at Dinosaur Knights, but maybe you’re worried that the DinoHype isn’t real, or you’re disappointed that the books center around knights riding dinosaurs rather than dinosaurs who are knights (which, okay, would be amazing)… So let this recent Reddit AMA convert you to the DinoTruth, as Milán drops the DinoMic!
It seems fans and book press alike have bombarded Milán with all manner of dinosaur-related humor, but he takes it all in stride. After all, when you’ve written two bloodsoaked installments of a book series about 14th-century knights doing battle on the backs of saurians, you have to possess a superhuman tolerance for dino-puns.
So about that hype—where did it all begin? With the first book cover, of course. Richard Anderson’s fabulous style is a lot to live up to, but Milán doesn’t let it intimidate him:
DeleriumTrigger: Hi Victor—My question is related to hype. Your book cover dropped well before the book itself came out, and generated a lot of buzz and excitement in fantasy circles. Does this kind of thing add a higher level of pressure on your side? Anxiety? Or is it just an exciting thing to see your book garnering excitement long before it releases?
Thanks!
VM: Oh, heck, no! When I first laid eyes on Richard Anderson’s eye-popping cover for The Dinosaur Lords, my breath stuck in my throat, my eyes stood out of my head on cartoon stalks, and the first coherent thought I was able to form was, roughly, “Holy crap, I’ve won the lottery!”
Walter Jon Williams calls it “The greatest cover in the history of the Universe.” I’m not sure even I would go that far, but … I also can’t say he’s wrong.
Although some people disagree, and say that it’s really Anderson’s cover for The Dinosaur Knights.
As of this Fall I’ve been a full-time professional writer for almost all of the last 42 years. This is the first time I’ve experienced anything within an order of magnitude of the hype first DinoLords, and now DinoKnights are getting. I relished it last year, candidly. And this year, I find—I still do.
And, oh, yeah—Anderson’s doing the third book cover too! I hope we can acquire a similar symbiosis to that GRRM and John Picacio have.
If you can believe it, not everyone loved Milán’s use of dinosaurs… but he’s got more tricks up his sleeve.
xxfirebatxx: It’s great that you’re doing one of these (this is my first time participating on reddit).
What criticism did you get from the first book that affected you the most while writing the 2nd?
VM: This is my first time on Reddit too. Thanks for turning up!
Mostly the useful criticism came during the drafting process from the awe-inspiring writers group I belong to, Critical Mass, since I tend not to read the Comments and the published reviews I saw were pretty positive. They helped me get my sentence length, which had ballooned inexplicably in the early Oughts, under control, and helped me tighten up my characters and structure.
I did ask the writer of a review in a Brazilian blog, who was overall quite favorable, why she was dissatisfied with my use of dinosaurs. She said she hoped to see more wild dinosaurs play in the battle scenes. Which is of course a fair take—hey, you like what you like—but I wasn’t able to do much about because wild animals seldom play much role on actual battlefields.
Which is not to say they can’t. And that I didn’t already have plans in those directions. So if she keeps reading, she may find what she’s looking for….
The Dinosaur Lords IV: Dinosaur Wilds?!
Whether or not that comes to pass, he’s already got ideas for basically the entire Dinoverse:
Jorah_Explorah: I believe you may have answered this before in response to me on twitter or facebook group over a year ago (you are awesome with communicating with readers/fans, by the way): Is the current plan for 3 or 6 books in the Dinosaur Lords series (or the “The Ballad of Karyl’s Last Ride” series), or is it dependent on how well the first 3 books sell?
Also, do you have any ideas about other novellas and short stories in the universe, in the vein of the Tales of Dunk n Egg books within the ASOIAF series? It would also be incredible if the Dinosaur Lords series gets popular enough for someone to do a graphic novel. I’ve seen other fantasy series get these, and Paradise is such a beautiful world with dinosaurs, knights and incredible structures.
VM: Why, thanks! And thank you for coming here and asking questions.
What’s sold is a trilogy. And yes, to get the rest of the overall story arc will take 3 more novels. And, yes, whether you get to read those or not depends on how the first 3 sell. So, uh, if you like what you’re seeing and want to see more, please spread the word!
And yes, I’ve ideas for other DinoLords tales, both connected to the main storyline and characters and not. One has already appeared, in the April issue of Grimdark Magazine, and another is with an anthology, both of which involve prominent characters. I also have other novel and novel cycle ideas set on Paradise, including prequels and a direct spinoff to the current trilogy/hexalogy.
Glad you like Paradise! I love it. I wanted it to be a big, sprawling, beautiful world. And I’ve tried to bring it to life visually as much as I could. I think either the books or side stories would make crackin’ graphic novels.
Or movies/TV miniseries, for that matter.
You ride those DinoDreams all the way to TV, Victor Milán!
However, we do draw a line:
jktrololololol: So what about Cybernetic samurai riding dinosaurs? Or better yet, cybernetic dinosaurs riding samurai? :)
VM: Actually, a Cybernetic Samurai riding a dinosaur is something you might yet see! One uses a virtual fighting mecha in SHOGUN, after all.
A cybernetic dinosaur riding a samurai would probably require a virtual world to accomplish. Unless it was a very light dinosaur and a very husky samurai.
Dinosaurs riding humans? MADNESS.
Pick up The Dinosaur Knights, available now from Tor Books. Milán is currently working on the third installment, The Dinosaur Princess—and you know you want to find out what that’s about.
Thanks for the lively discussion of your newest book Dinosaur Princess at Page One bookstore 9/10/2016 Mr. Milan ! It sounds like a good read . I read Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster back in 1999 and I may give your book a try . I never knew you were so knowledgeable in paleontology . You probably are pleased knowing that New Mexico has a rich dinosaur history and is where a large bed of Rioarribasaur coelophysis were found in the 1940’s .
Hi, I’m on page 398, start of chapter 42 and I just had this brain storm of an idea.
Are the books, the things in the books, the places in books, and all of the characters in the books…taking place on Venus?
See, I was just reading along when I just decided to think about their world again. I do this every now and then, I love it when an author creates a whole new world to explore, but this time I couldn’t help but dwell a little longer into thinking about it…and BOOM, it hit me like tyrant. What’s more, when I gave it further thought, I found evidence in the little readings at the beginning of each chapter that would support this theory:
Everything in the books is happening on planet Venus.
Exhibit A: Old Home
This was the first thing that enlightened me on the location of Nuevaropa during the first book. And though I wouldn’t figure it out until now, it did open the gate to this theory. Old Home is the origin of all humans, dinosaurs, and the five animal friends. Just to jump to the point, it’s pretty obvious that Old Home is earth. Victor could have just left the story to being on an alternate earth in an alternate universe, or some other made up planet, but specifically leads us to thinking that earth exist. This brings up whole bunch of factors that describes the universe of the Dinosaur Lords. For starters, if earth exist in this universe then it stands to reason that the other planets in our solar system does as well.
Exhibit B: Comparison and Contrast of Old Home and Paradise.
Going off on what I was saying earlier, the time has come to find out what kind of planet we’re on in the first place. Remember, earth is real in this universe, and thanks to the ‘A Primer To Paradies For The Improvement Of Young Minds’ we can start describing what distinguishes Paradies from it. Number one is that Paradies had shorter years than earth, having less then 200 hundred days in one revolution of the sun. Number two is that ‘Old Home’ is reported to have been colder than Paradies. Finally, number 3 is that people weighed heavier on Old Home than Paradise. All three factors point to a planet that is both smaller and closer to its sun than earth. Now I know what you’re thinking: “There are literally billions upon billions of planets that could fit this description. Why would Victor bother making Paradies secretly Venus?” To which I reply the same reason he doesn’t just have one of the character, or even a completely new character, wake up and reveal that all that we’ve seen so far is nothing more than a dream with little to no consequence; it would be boring and stupid, and Mr. Milán has been giving it his best to make everything interesting and detailed. From a story point of view alone, it makes more sense to make a mystery with a twist of something familar than completely random.
Exhibit C: The creation of Paradise.
Last and final thoughts, there are some obvious differences between Paradise and Venus. Number one is that while Paradise has 198 days in a year, Venus has 224. Paradise has a moon, Venus does not. Not to mention Venus takes 243 days to rotate on its axis, very different to the fact Paradise has a natural 24 hour cycle. So with these things standing out and saying “Venus=/=Paradise”, you would think that this is the time to pack up and give up…not necessarily. While there are some significant differences between Venus and Paradise, let’s not forget that Paradise wasn’t always the way that it is. The Eight, gods and creators of Paradise made it what it is to this day. They turned it from an inhospitable world into a new home for humans, dinosaur, and the five animal friends. In other words, they terraformed a whole planet and changed it into something new. That ‘new’ is Paradise, which begs the question of what was the old. Well let’s think about this for a bit, imagine if a powerful-yet controlled-force tore material from Venus to form a moon. Now you have a Venus with a moon, and lesser mass to haul around the sun. But what about Venus’ extremely long day. Well imagine if that powerful-yet controlled-force was being handled by sentient beings that are purposely trying to create a home for human kind, speeding up the day cycle doesn’t look to difficult now. And while it’s possible that The Eight could’ve transformed another planet, and that there’s no clear limitation to their ability, let consider one uniqueness that both Venus and Paradise share-drum role please:
Both planets have an opposite rotation of earth’s. On Paradise, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east; just like on Venus.
Paradise?
More like Post-Terraformed-Venus!