Saving Pachyrhinosaurus Published!

Observing wildlife in Yellowstone Park can be dangerous, especially when the animals you’re observing are dinosaurs brought back to earth after 65 million years! When Kit Daniels and her mentor Dr. David Ogilvey set out to study a herd of pachyrhinosaurs living on the snowy landscape of Yellowstone in winter, trouble stalks their path. The elephant sized horned dinosaurs may be plant eaters, but they are as temperamental as bull elephants. Kit and Dr. O soon find themselves in a life-threatening predicament with danger on all sides. This time, even Kit’s bravery and wits may not be enough to save them.

That’s the basic plot behind my new short story, “Saving Pachyrhinosaurus” just released last week in the usual assortment of ebook formats. I’m particularly fond of this one because not only does it offer an action packed adventure for its human heroes, but it brings into perspective an incredible creature from the earth’s distant past.

You see, the scientific view of dinosaurs has been evolving with each new fossil discovery and in the case of “pachy,” as Kit and Dr. O call this creature, our scientific understanding seems to evolve on an almost daily basis. Click the image to take a good look at the book cover. Notice anything unexpected about that dinosaur? Yep, that’s right, it’s covered in wooly fur.

Now, scientific opinions may vary quite a bit from mine but I couldn’t help myself. I had to present the animal in something other than the usual boring reptilian scaly covering that so often clothes dinosaurs in what is becoming a cliche of skin coverings. Scales on dinosaurs, in my opinion, are going the way of the dinosaur.

I’m sure that many dinosaurologists would beg to differ with me, but one of my major purposes in writing my “Dinosaur Tales,” of which this is one, is to present very advanced views of these amazing creatures based on the most recent fossil evidence. In this case I told a story and made a painting that present pachyrhinosaurus as an animal every bit as prepared for the cold of winter as an American bison or wooly rhinoceros ever thought of being. In fact, the painting was created by taking a photo of a Yellowstone Park buffalo in winter and altering its shape and size until a stupendously huge, equally foul-tempered, dinosaurian equivalent of the buffalo was achieved. Then I plunked in a picture of the relatively diminutive heroine, Kit Daniels, in rather precarious proximity and voila! a snapshot of one of the great moments of the story.

If you’d like to find out how it all turns out for Kit, grab a copy of “Saving Pachyrhinosaurus” at your favorite ebook sellers’ store. You can find Kindle and Nook and Sony and Kobo and iTunes and Diesel versions, or go directly to my publisher Smashwords for even more choices. Happy reading. I guarantee you’ll never look upon dinosaurs as big sluggish stomping lizards again!

Note added June 12, 2015: The short story version of “Saving Pachyrhinosaurus” has been incorporated into the new full length book, Dinosaur Tales.