7.2 /10 1 Votes7.2
Country United Kingdom Series Ireta Media type Print (Paperback) Originally published 1978 Followed by Dinosaur Planet Survivors | 3.6/5 Goodreads Language English Publication date 1978 Pages 189 pp (first) Genre Children's literature | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar Anne McCaffrey books, Ireta books, Science Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dinosaur Planet is a science fiction novel by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It was a paperback original published in 1978, by Orbit Books (UK) and then by Del Rey Books (US), the fantasy & science fiction imprints of Futura Publications and Ballantine Books respectively.
Contents
A sequel followed in 1984, titled The Survivors (Dinosaur Planet II), or Dinosaur Planet Survivors in the US. Jointly they are sometimes called the "Dinosaur Planet series" or sub-series. They are set on a fictional planet named "Ireta" that some characters call the "dinosaur planet". They became the first two books of the "Ireta series" in 1990, when McCaffrey collaborated with Elizabeth Moon and Jody Lynn Nye to write three "Planet Pirates" novels with the same setting.
Origins
McCaffrey had emigrated to Ireland in 1970, with the second Dragonriders of Pern book near completion and a contract for the third. That work stalled after she finished Dragonquest (the second) but the market for children and young adults eventually provided crucial opportunities. Futura Publications (London) signed her to write books about dinosaurs for children, published by its imprint Orbit Books.
Plot summary
A team visits fictional planet Ireta to survey its mineral wealth. Several anomalies are discovered, including some decidedly large animals that resemble prehistoric beings from Earth's history and legend. Before all can be explained, the Heavyworlder "muscle people" mutiny after gaining a taste for flesh and blood.
Ireta series
There have been omnibus editions of the two Dinosaur Planet novels as early as 1985 and of three Planet Pirates novels as early as 1993.