2026/022: Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur — Ian McDonald

Under a high blue heaven, under the zealous sun, the kid and his dinosaur travel a hot, empty highway. [first line]

Tif (short for Latif) is an orphan of Arab descent, whose ambition is to become a buckaroo at one of the dino rodeos. The novella's opening presents him, with his dinosaur, on a journey: only gradually are we shown where he's going, and why -- and where he's come from.

This is the post-apocalyptic future of the country formerly known as the United States of America, now a dangerous wilderness of miliciano gangs, religious states, and aggressive Dominion raiders. Tif's parents were killed in the South Dakota purification. He's recently been sacked from Dino! Dino! after a Timursaur escaped and wreaked havoc. Subsequently he's undertaken to return an old, maimed Carnosaur to the B2T2 time portal in the mountains of Colorado, and let it live out its remaining years 'under its own sun'. En route, he joins Memphis Red’s Tatterdemalion Circus; falls in love (or lust) with its star, the enigmatic Prince; and, perhaps, finds family.

That's the novella in a nutshell, but there's a novel's-worth of worldbuilding and characterisation here. McDonald doesn't waste time explaining the post-Chaos future, or the cyberpunk-flavoured Silver Clowns, or the Dust Tarot with which a Clown reads Tif's future. The B2T2 portal is a natural phenomenon, 'a place where two times lay up against each other, close as kittens, separated only by the finest layer of space-time fur, that could be stroked, and parted' [loc. 515]. That's where the dinosaurs are captured, and where they must be returned: 'leave no dangling timelines'. Naturally, the approach to the B2T2 is festooned with various flavours of protest camp.

There is danger, chaos and glamour; there is a strong sense of the cruelty involved in parading living creatures for entertainment. And there is so much emotional honesty and truth, in the backstories of the characters Tif encounters as well as his own journey. I would have loved this even more at novel length: but kudos to the author for keeping it tightly focussed and leaving the reader wondering about the wider world, the stories that happen outside the scope of Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur.

Something wild and magnificent and innocent is trapped and caged. Betrayed. For stardust, for floodlights, for the ronda and the roar of the crowd. For beer and nuts and nachos. [loc. 958]