"I can't believe how much has changed in only ten years. So very many things are going to happen in the next decade!"
"Anything important?"
"Compared to this? Compared to time travel? Nothing. Nothing at all." [loc. 290]
The exchange above is from a conversation between a time-traveller from 2022 and a man in 2012. The Bones of the Earth was published in 2002. I read it in 2009. Now that future is the past.
My original review stands -- I still think this is one of the best 'modern humans and dinosaurs' novels -- except that this time around I'm more, rather than less, confused by Gertrude Salley's motives. The Bones of the Earth is still a delightful read. I was amused and saddened by Swanwick's depiction of the first couple of decades of the 21st century; somewhat vexed by his characters referring to dinosaurs as 'brutes', which seems a word from an earlier Boys Own era; enthralled, still, by the evocation of the Mesozoic, and pleasantly perplexed by the twistiness and looping of the plot.
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