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Searching... Dallas Public Library | SF FANTASY Foster, A. Dinotopia | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.
Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.
Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000. He is the recipient of the Faust, the IAMTW Lifetime achievement award.
Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was a 2015 New York Times bestseller.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With a film version of their adventures in development from Columbia Pictures, it's no surprise that the supremely intelligent and civilized dinos of James Gurney's slight but immensely popular illustrated fantasy yarns Dinotopia and The World Underneath are again tromping between book covers. What is an unexpected pleasure is Foster's storytelling this time out, so much more resourceful than in The Dig, the most recent of his many spinoffs and sequels. A band of pirates, lost at sea and led by the crafty and blustering Captain Brognar Blackstrap, invade the kingdom where dinos and humans live peaceably side by side. The brigands capture a family of dinosaurs, aiming to bring them back to England or the U.S., dead or alive. Their plans are foiled, however, by 18-year-old Will Denison, hero of Gurney's tales. In Foster's Swiftian take, the dinosaurs are moral, civilized beings, whereas humans can be brutish and dangerous. The pace is sometimes as slow as a stegosaurus, but this endearing tale should captivate readers with its imaginative storytelling and ecotopian message. 100,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Unlike the original Dinotopia books, in which the text was secondary to detailed color illustrations, this story about the mysterious island where dinosaurs and humans co-exist is written as a novel. The narrative, which contains frequent shifts in perspective, concerns a gang of pirates who have invaded the island. Readers may find themselves wishing for some of the familiar artwork to break up the small print of this lengthy novel. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Born with the wonderfully illustrated children's-book-for-all-ages that gave it its name, the Dinotopia phenomenon has produced two best-selling books, is incubating a feature film, and now hatches a novel by prolific and popular fantasist Foster. Lacking the added dimension of artwork that made the first two Dinotopia books so dazzling, the book is still a well-told tale. It continues the sentimental environmental utopianism and dinosaur-hugging of its predecessors and reasonable amounts of their wit and ingenuity, too. The plot revolves around a band of pirates whose ship miraculously survives the reefs around Dinotopia and who set out to turn what they find there to profit. Will Denison, the nineteenth-century discoverer of the symbiotic human-saurian society, is dragged into taking a leading part in defeating the pirates, most of whom are converted to the Dinotopian way of life (the rest are converted into dino munchies, especially on account of their less-than-brilliant kidnapping of a baby T. Rex). Although the saurian characters are better limned than the human ones, Foster's addition to Dinotopiana will agreeably reward the fantastic place's many fans. (Reviewed Feb. 1, 1996)1570362793Roland Green
Library Journal Review
Although previous friendly dinosaur works (e.g., Dinotopia, Turner Pub.) were more popular among children than adults, this installment by a best-selling sf writer (e.g., The Spoils of War, LJ 4/15/93) should have wide appeal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.