Originally published June 1987 | ||
Walter Jon Williams books Aristoi, The Green Leopard Plague, Daddy's World, Metropolitan, Hardwired | ||
"Dinosaurs" is a science fiction story by Walter Jon Williams. It was first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in June 1987 and subsequently republished in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection (1988), The 1988 Annual World's Best SF (1988), Best New SF 2 (1988), Facets (1991), Isaac Asimov's Aliens (1991), ZomerSFeer (Dutch language, 1996), Future on Ice (1998), The Furthest Horizon: SF Adventures to the Far Future (2000), and Exploring the Horizons: Explorers, and The Furthest Horizon (2000).
Contents
Publishers Weekly has called it "bio-punk".
Williams has stated that the story is essentially about a fear of senility and senescence, applied to humanity as a whole rather than to an individual. He originally wrote the story in 1985, for a science fiction magazine which was to have been published by L. Ron Hubbard; however, Hubbard died shortly after having accepted the story, and the magazine was cancelled.
Synopsis
Millions of years in the future, after humanity has taken on multiple specialized forms, Ambassador Drill attempts to defuse an incipient conflict between humanity and the Shar.
Reception
"Dinosaurs" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, the Locus Award for Best Novelette, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award.