Ginn Hale has been on my radar for a while. I hear a lot of praise for her Rifter series, and her new book (The Price of a Thousand Blessings) looks really interesting. However, when a wild west + dinosaurs book was pitched during an r/fantasy Pride Month post, I knew I had to give it a shot. I wasn’t blown away, but I see a lot of promise in Hale’s writing, and am interested to read some of her newer stuff.
Read if You Like: ranger archetypes, westerns, creepy twins, dinosaurs attacking airships, long-lost-loves
Avoid if Looking For: quick pacing, action-packed stories, deeply realized homophobic historical settings
Elevator Pitch:
Grover has done well for himself after the rifts opened up, flooding much of the United States and releasing dinosaurs into the world. He’s made a name (and a living) by taming an ostrich dinosaur mount, hunting and gathering valuable materials from the new wildlands, and generally staying as far away from the town’s racist priest and sheriff as he can. When an airship arrives with a contingent of mages (including the ex-boyfriend he thought was dead to the war) ready to look into mining the valuable materials from the rift, Grover is forced to take sides and reconnect with his beloved Lawrence.
What Worked For Me
I’m not super familiar with westerns, other than some of the really old ones my brother and I read as a kid. I’m sure the genre has come a long ways, and I’m extremely glad to see a western talk about racism. The majority of this comes from having a black protagonist in a deeply racist society (the villains of the story openly embrace slavery), but it also acknowledges that the US stole land from indigenous people, committed genocide, and would likely do so gladly again when given the opportunity by a magical catastrophe. I don’t think this thematic work was particularly subtle or nuanced, but I liked to see it.
Our lead characters (Grover, Lawrence, and Grover’s mount) are a wonderful representation of the worldbuilding in this story. You’ve got a rugged outlander clad in dinosaur leathers in love with a wizard with a clockwork prosthetic arm from the war. They have a good rapport with each other, and I enjoyed seeing a historical queer couple enjoy time together. The book is really imaginative, and it’s the type of setting that makes me want to break out my book and start planning a campaign for my tabletop group. And the dinosaurs we did see (even if I wish there were more) were all interesting parts of the world that really contributed to the vibes of the book.
What Didn’t Work for Me
I don’t think anything about this novella was bad. However, I think I found the premise of this idea better than the story itself. As a cohesive piece of writing, I think the book failed to find a niche. It could have been a really cool travel story, featuring Grover and his long lost love exploring the wilderness and encountering a vast array of the new flora, fauna, and landmarks brought by the rifts. It could have been an action-packed story filled with tense chases between the evil mages and the good, with lots of dramatic fight scenes. Or it could have been a love story with a backdrop of western vibes.
Ultimately, this story ended up with a foot in all three ideas, but didn’t really succeed in pulling out the best parts of any of the genres. The bits of the world we saw were cool, but it never really pushed into the awe-inspiring joy or fear I’d hope for from dionsaur stories. There wasn’t enough tension or propulsive pacing to be an action or thriller, and (as much as I like Grover and Lawrence as a couple) their relationship arc is pretty one dimensional once the reconnect.
Ultimately, I think the solution would be to cut out a lot of the first third of the story. There’s a lot of descriptive prep work done before any of the storylines begin to pick up, and I think that many of these elements could have been cut entirely or worked into a more streamlined introduction.
I’m glad I read this story, but I wasn’t impressed enough to continue the book and read the attached short fiction from the same universe. I want to give Hale another try, but I was left feeling a little underwhelmed by this one.
In Conclusion: a dinosaur western with big ideas, but ended up being enjoyable, rather than riveting.
- Characters: 4
- Worldbuilding: 4
- Craft: 3
- Themes: 2
- Enjoyment: 3
Marked for Plot 