Prehistoric Pulp – West of Eden

There’s a nice review of West of Eden on Walter Williams’ Prehistoric Pulp blog.

“West of Eden is essentially a more literary take on One Million Years B.C., although Harrison would probably loathe hearing it described it as such,” Williams writes. I’ve spoken to Harry Harrison a number of times about West of Eden, and I know there were a couple of things which inspired it – one was a museum exbibit of a humanoid dinosaur which was created to show what an intelligent dinosaur might have looked like. And the other was the fact that because of bad Hollywood movies (like One Million Years B.C.) many people believe that dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus Rex were on the Earth at the same time as Man. The alternate history which HH created for West of Eden was – in part – designed to make this possible.

After the Stainless Steel Rat books, West of Eden is probably may favourite of Harry Harrison’s creations, and one I’d really like to see turned into a big budget Hollywood movie.

Walter Williams’ blog contains reviews of dozens of other novels, collections, comic books and boardgames with a prehistoric them – worth a look if, like he and I, you think dinosaurs aren’t just for (little) kids…