Breathe Deep, Seek Peace, Dinotopia: The World Beneath
Written: Jan 12 '05 (Updated Jan 19 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The Illustrations are fantastic. The world James Gurney creates is captivates your imagination.
Cons: The move to third person narrative.
The Bottom Line: Not quite as grand as the first, but still an excellent book.
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Dinotopia: The World Beneath continues the adventures of Arthur and Will Denison in their new life on the magical island of Dinotopia. On Dinotopia, there lives a civilization of people and dinosaurs living as equals. The Dinosaurs all survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago by living in the vast underground caverns of the island. The Humans are all castaways whose ships have crashed on the coral reefs that completely surround the island, making escape impossible.
On this island the humans and dinosaurs live together in harmony with nature. A Stegasaurus is as likely to be a philosopher as a heavy lifter; and quite possibly could be both!
Arthur's part of the story revolves around a second trip to the World Beneath, where the dinosaurs survived the extinction, and later an advance civilization of humans lived. In order to make the journey, he enlists the help of Bix, the Protoceratops ambassador/translator; Lee Crabb, a treasure hunter discontent with his new life in Dinotopia; and Oriana Nascava, who holds the second half a mysterious key that Arthur found on his first journey underground.
Will's part of the story revolves around his and his girl/friend, Sylvia's, job as a Skybax rider, flying the skies on the back of the giant Quetzalcoatlus skybax. Their stories meet up near the end.
Once again, James Gurney illustrates the book amazingly with his paintings. Like the first book, they really bring it to life. One of my favorite examples is when he shows how three different people see the same rock formation. Arthur, the objective scientist simply sees the formation as what it is; Lee Crabb, the greedy pirate-like person sees a skull; and Oriana the sensitive life long Dinotopian sees a mother holding a child. It is a cool piece of work. The map of Waterfall City is also quite interesting to study.
The writing this time around takes a slight hit. It is written in the third person, instead of being from the personal journals of the Denisons, like in the first book. I don't think it was the best choice, but it is somewhat necessitated by the ending. The story loses a little bit of its charm, being told by Gurney, rather than from the perspective of Arthur and Will. The writing is also a bit more, shall we say, amateurish this time as well. At two or three points in the book, Gurney almost descends to patronizing his young readers, but thankfully never quite goes far enough to make it annoying to older readers.
In the end, the minor quibbles I have with this book are not very important. It is a magical book full of the best kind of imagination, as a child I got lost in Dinotopia's wonder. It is a joy to read and look at. I really can't see why the first two Dinotopia books didn't become instant classics, they are truly worthy of that distinction.
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My review of the first book, Dinotopia, can be found here. It is written in a... different style than normal.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
decayconstant
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Member: Seth Bicknell
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Push my nose, I might be changing you..?
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