Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly

Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories Reviews

• 
  Stephen

  4.0 stars. I have not read all of the stories in this collection so my rating will only apply to the stories listed below (I will update my rating from time to time as a read more stories):
  
  Think Like A Dinosaur - My first JPK short story. Great story about an alien form of instantaneous travel that causes a human technician to suffer a crisis of conscience. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
• 
  David (דוד)

  Average of 3.5 stars
  
  Contains 14 stories of mixed genres, of which two I could not really understand, hence lie unrated. Stories range from science-fiction and contemporary fantasy, to satire, horror, and comedy. Most of them are set in an SF scenario.
  5-stars to The First Law of Thermodynamics, 4-stars to Think Like a Dinosaur; Faith; Rat; Monsters; and Mr. Boy, while 3-stars to the remaining five stories and 2 to one of 'em.
  
  The writing was not easy to understand a few times, and became confusing. Hence the non-rating of two stories. Also, it seems, many parts of the sequences in the stories are kept less described for the sake of stretching the reader's imagination, by not using minor explanations, as would have been generally used. This is what I feel, and it may be due to this that my ratings may be lower than should have been. Well, in that case, there lies scope for improvement in a future re-read. :)
  
  Otherwise, some have interesting scenarios, really bizarre ideas and characters. Liked it. Not boring at all.
• 
  John H

  Lafferty. New Wave. James Tiptree Jr. A couple of things that immediately come to mind after reading, so far, six stories of this already excellent collection by acclaimed short story writer James Patrick Kelly.
  
  I've seen and heard of this collection for several years now, recommended on sites like Goodreads and Reddit from time to time, as well as my local library. The cover being what it is - a goofy-looking dinosaur in a space suit - gives an accurate but fairly narrow impression of what I have run into so far.
  
  Lafferty comes to mind because I was a bit caught off guard by the underlying, and often outright, dark tones some stories have which verge on the horrorific. Kelly also have a simple but very effective style of prose that I find refreshing and readable.
  
  I'm struck with how varied these stories have been in style, genre, story, theme etc., the same reaction I had with Lafferty and Tiptree. Tiptree comes to mind partly because some of the humor sprinkled throughout stories such as Faith, though mainly because of the state of melancholy evoked after reading each story.
  
  As much as I love horror, and short stories, few writers leave me having to sit down and process what I read before compelling a reread of a story that can change my mood for the entire right, or wrong, day. A couple of these writers are Ligotti, King with his stories like "The Reach", "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away", and "The Woman in the Room", and pretty much everything I've so far read by Tiptree. I'd bow consider James Patrick Kelly among them. Not to give the wrong impression that this collection is anywhere near as soul-crushingly depressing as the previously mentioned writers, but, this collection does remind me of them, albeit tenuously in regard to Ligotti. Enough said for now, I doubt I'll have much else to add to this review other than a couple more paragraphs of reworded praise. Highlights so far are probably the s/t novelette and Faith. I can't wait for the eventual release of Centipede Press' collection of his works in the upcoming Masters of Science Fiction line.
• 
  MB Taylor

  I finished Reading Think Like a Dinosaur this afternoon. What an amazing collection of short stories! Given the title and the fact that Kelly won a Hugo award for the title story I was expected a collection of science fiction stories and I suppose most (though not all) of them are. Maybe I’ve been reading too much 50s and 60s SF recently, but these stories were nothing like what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.
  
  The title story (really a novelette) was very good. It starts out a little slow, seemingly in the middle of the story, but gathers speed as Kelly reveals what’s going on. And before we know it, the story makes an unexpected turn (unexpected by me at least, but not without precedent) and ends.
  
  The second story, “Heroics” was interesting, and had me wondering the whole time where it was going. Not a genre story; completely mainstream.
  
  This was followed by “Pogrom”, and back to SF. An interesting story of the generation/class gap in the near future. Not an uncommon theme, but nicely told with a good POV character. I could feel her distress, but the ending was still a bit of a surprise.
  
  The next three stories, “Faith” (a novelette), “Big Guy” and “Dancing with the Chairs” are all love stories of various sorts. ”Big Guy” was the only SF story of the bunch.
  
  “Rat” was a strange SF story about drug smuggling.
  
  “The First Law of Thermodynamics” was a trippy story about drugged out students in the 60s, trying to find meaning in their lives. I think.
  
  “Breakaway, Backdown”, “Standing in Line with Mister Jimmy” and “Crow” are all SF stories with fairly common SF future themes, all with interesting twists.
  
  “Monsters” is a horror/fantasy/love story, novelette really. It wasn’t quite clear to me which until the end.
  
  “Itsy Bitsy Spider” is the story of a daughter meeting her father after years of separation. SF with a slight feeling of Bradbury.
  
  “Mr. Boy” the final novella in the collection, had a lot in common with “Standing in Line with Mister Jimmy”. Both were love stories and both could be from the same dystopian future. But where “Standing in Line with Mister Jimmy” is about the have nots, “Mr. Boy” is about the haves.
  
  It’s hard to pick out a single favorite. “Think Like a Dinosaur”, “Dancing with the Chairs”, and “Standing in Line with `Mister Jimmy” were all quite good. But so were “Crow”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Mr. Boy”. “Rat” may have been my least favorite, but even it was interesting.
  
  All in all, it’s a very good collection. A very enjoyable read.
  
• 
  Tim Hicks

  A very good collection of stories that are an easy read but also make you think both during and after.
• 
  Barrita

  Creo que eran solo historias de ciencia ficción, pero la selección es variada, lo que hace al libro mucho más entretenido.
  
  Think like a dinosaur es particularmente memorable, pero honestamente siento que no todas las historias se adaptan a los tiempos. Si se siente un estilo y enfoque que ya no cuadra tanto con una audiencia del siglo XXI. Hombres en ácido no es un tema que me atrape en estos días.
• 
  M.Ars

  Цікава теорія про квантові скани, так звані двійники, що утворюються під час подорожей на великі відстані. Піднімаються питання, чи можна скан вважати людиною? У динозаврів відповідь однозначна. Та люди... Люди думають інакше.
  
  Дилема міжпланетних подорожей та її транспортної системи.
  Не більше.
• 
  Matthew Gatheringwater

  What does it take to lose your humanity? It is a common enough theme in fiction, but science fiction makes the question concrete. Are you human if you never age? What if you no longer have a body, or your body has been transformed into a living replica of the Statue of Liberty, or you have a body but most of your existence is mediated through virtual reality? What if you choose to look like a bright yellow dinosaur or give up decades of your life to become a cancer-ridden attenuated being with thumbs where her big toes should be? Still human? Can alien peer pressure make you lose your humanity? What about mental illness or age or just plan greed? James Patrick Kelly's stories ask these questions; what I particularly like about his book is how, after I've read the stories and closed the book thinking I know the answer, a new and insidious question makes me shiver: Having lost my humanity, would I want it back?
  
  Two stories, "Pogrom" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" were of particular interest because they feature aging and technology. Some of the ideas in these two stories (written in the nineties) have since come to seem to have been written with a Clarke-like prescience.
  
  
• 
  Geoff

  This is the first collection released by Golden Gryphon Press, back in 1997. It is mostly a collection of sci-fi stories, but it bounces around every genre, including one story that is just a weird tale about an acid trip by a group of friends in the 1960's. It's a very good mix of styles contained herein.
  
  This wasn't a great collection, but it was very interesting, as I found myself reading through this collection rather effortlessly and quickly. The title story was memorable, as it tells how a race of dinosaurs came back to earth and helped them learn how to travel through space. Standing in Line with Mr. Jimmy was a fantastic tale of waiting in line for a new tomorrow. And the final story Mr. Boy was a novella sized story of a coming-of-age story in a weird future where rich people altered their bodies, and Mr. Boy kept on stunting himself to keep him the size and appearance of a 12-year old. All-in-all this was a worthwhile read, with some very good stuff within this collection.
• 
  Wile

  An excellent book of short fiction from James Patrick Kelly, including the Hugo winning title story, Think Like a Dinosaur, which richly deserves the award.
  
  James plays with genre bending a lot - a hallmark of the shift in fiction, and of this years 2008 Clarion instructors. It's a direction in fiction that shows great promise.
• 
  Jose

  Actually just read only "Think Like A Dinosaur" - short story, by James Patrick Kelly.
  
  Great story about teleportation technology given to us by an alien form and
  the consequences of that technology on the conscience of a human technician.
  
  Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
• 
  Mitch

  the title short story was especialy good
• 
  George

  Good lunchtime read.
  Science Fiction.
• 
  Scott Dailey

  Great short stories
• 
  Devin Poore

  The short story "Think Like a Dinosaur" completely flipped my mind around and turned it inside-out, in a good way. Several friends and I were just discussing it this past weekend.
• 
  Gwen

  A boring attempt to re-write the themes of the story The Cold Equation.
• 
  ems

  well this one'll stick with me
• 
  Craig

  About 4 of the 15 stories first rate. 'Think like a Dinosaur' and 'Monsters' really held my attention.
• 
  Andy

  4.5 stars - Wonderful science fiction short stories. Kelly is a tremendous writer. If you haven't read him, you should.
• 
  Gordon

  I was expecting this to be all sci fi; in fact, it was a mix of sci fi, "speculative fiction" and conventional fiction. And the sci fi bits (with the exception of the title story) were not necessarily the best. The druggie scene that lay behind some of the stories was a real put off for me, otherwise this book might have rated a 4: on the whole it was well done, thoughtful and believable even when it was implausible.