Friday, January 3, 2014

After a seven-year hiatus, Prehistoric Pulp is back

"Where have you been?!"

Well, there was that trip to the Cretaceous, and that encounter with the T. rex with indigestion. Then I had that year-long stopover in the Devonian where the only thing to eat was foul-tasting trilobites. Finally I landed in Ice Age Europe and raised a family with my Neanderthal wife, until she left me for a strapping Cro-Magnon. Still bitter about that, although I admit he was a damn good mammoth hunter.

"Get serious: Where have you been?!"

OK, calm down. I started Prehistoric Pulp seven years ago partly as a way to alleviate my boredom, and partly as a way to share my love of fiction about paleontology. I was living in Bozeman, Montana, at the time -- home of the Museum of the Rockies, which is world famous for its dinosaur collection. I blogged furiously for a few months then, to be honest, life got in the way. I had a bit of financial crisis, which was soon resolved, and afterward I found myself busy with both work and a new group of friends. There also was the fact that I soon ran out of things to write about, given there isn't much fiction published about dinosaurs and the prehistoric world, except the many books that come out every year aimed at children. Just look at the seven years that have passed since my last post: There are probably fewer than two dozen novels that have been published in that time that deal with paleontology.

I always promised myself I would return to Prehistoric Pulp because my love for the subject matter never went away. I was hesitant because of my long silence, and I had a couple career changes that necessitated big life adjustments on my part. Now here I am, living in Washington, D.C., and I feel I have the time and stability to return to writing about paleontological fiction.

That said, this is not going to be a blog that updates frequently, only because of the scarcity of the subject matter. But I am currently working on new reviews and new essays, with the hope of blogging at least once a week.

I'm also working to clean up the site. The comments sections are littered with spam, and some of the links need to be removed or fixed. Please bear with me as I make these changes.

Now, enough of all this boring personal crap. Let's get back to the fiction.

5 comments:

  1. Well I, for one, am ecstatic to see you back. I was dismayed when I found your blog a few years ago, only to see that the last post was from 2007.

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  2. "There also was the fact that I soon ran out of things to write about, given there isn't much fiction published about dinosaurs and the prehistoric world, except the many books that come out every year aimed at children."

    I think there are 2 easy solutions to the above problem: 1) Spread your blog posts out; 2) Read more "day in the life"-type stories about prehistoric animals. I'm a sucker for the latter & there are a lot of them (Off the top of my head, the "Colossal Book of Dinosaurs" series, the "Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures" series, the "Dinosaurs Of The Land, Sea And Air" series, the "Graphic Dinosaurs" series, the "Mammoth Book of Dinosaurs" series, the "Smithsonian Prehistoric Zone" series, the "Tales of Prehistoric Life" series, Abbeville's "Dinosaurs" series, Berenstain's "I Love Dinosaurs" series, Halstead's "Complete Book of Dinosaurs" series, etc). Yes, most of them are for kids of varying ages, but last I checked, that doesn't matter to dino fans (See "Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs"), especially given the textual/visual quality of some & nostalgic value of others.

    -Hadiaz

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  3. Thanks for the comments. As for spreading my posts out, my current schedule is to upload a new review every Saturday, with an occasional essay in between. And thanks for the suggestions for what to read - I honestly haven't heard of any of them. I'm not opposed to reviewing children's books - I reviewed the Dinotopia series, for example - I just want to make sure they can be enjoyed by adult audiences.

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