 Hello there, so I finally finished reading the dinosaur lords the whole series and I mean the name kind of says it all This is a book about nights that ride dinosaurs in battle and live in a world full of dinosaurs and stuff and I Think it's great However, you know from that description whether or not you're gonna like it I think like if you hear that and you think that sounds stupid You're not going to like these books if you hear it and thinks that it sounds amazing Then you probably will like them if you're a little more on the fence though Then maybe keep watching and I might change your mind. This is the introduction song It's not very good, but it's not too long So this is basically just an epic fantasy, but it also has dinosaurs in it You know it starts off with a big battle that ends off a war One of the losers from that battle who is thought to be dead winds up getting roped in to this place called Providence because the people there are considered heretics by most of the rest of this Empire and So he his name is Corill by the way He's probably the closest thing to a protagonist this series has and they just asked Corill Hey, you're a very good military strategist and tactician We need you to help us train up an army so that we can defend ourselves from all these marauding bandits and Armies and such that are coming in to kill us and Corill agrees to do it and meanwhile while all this is going on there is some supernatural stuff happening in the background and a Lot of people are worried about something called a gray angel crusade going on where angels Gray angels specifically will come down and start a war which kills a Many many people now overall. I want to reiterate. This is a great series. Okay. It's a fun. It has fun premise It's a really good story the character cast is great The world is very well realized the villains are terrifying like it's just it's a very good story That's been put together the only thing that I wish I knew before going into this is that there is no ending because you see I read three books and There were supposed to be three more. However, the author unfortunately died before he could finish it And so I didn't know that until I was near the end of the final book. So The ending is a bit unsatisfying because it's not really meant to be an ending So while I did overall enjoy my time that I spent here If you're gonna read it, you should know that there will be some unanswered questions by the end of it I'd still say it's worth the the journey going through there But we're never really gonna find out what happens to all these characters We're not gonna find out the fate of this world And there's still some questions about like the nature of this world, which we're just we're just not gonna get the answers to So like I said, this opens on a big battle Which I normally would not be a fan of because you're basically taking a bunch of Characters that we don't know and having them fight over stuff. We don't necessarily understand So I would normally not suggest starting off with that But in this case it works pretty well because it does a good job of Introducing us to these characters It does a good job of introducing us to the the divisions that exist in this world and this empire New Eva rope new Eva ropa where most of the story takes place It does a good job of introducing us to that place and how its politics works And it does a good job of introducing rivalries between characters and showing off dinosaurs because they are very well Integrated into human society here both in like just regular times and in times of war But there's also wild ones out there and it's just things like that You know, it does a very good job of introducing us to this story So I didn't mind too much and it was a fun battle that said after the opener It slows down quite a bit because Carille like I said he gets brought into Providence But he gets brought in by another character named Rob Who and the two of them are just traveling for a while and I wasn't super into that And then once they first get to Providence and start training up their army That's also a little slow and meanwhile We also are following the emperor's daughter Melodia princess Melodia While she is at the Imperial Palace and she's following like a lot of internal politics and stuff Which I just didn't care about that much. So While this section of the book isn't bad It does slow down quite a bit and it just didn't grab me as much but then around Two thirds to three quarters of the way through the first book it picks up again And it stays that way throughout the entire rest of the series So I was not too upset and even when the story is slow I really didn't mind because Carille and Rob are both good characters and watching them get to know each other and develop a Friendship is really really nice See they seem almost like they should hate each other because they were actually on opposite sides of the ward where this book starts off But they don't like they both realize that they are both good people and they both have a mutual love of dinosaurs and a Mutual dislike of a lot of the new ever open nobility and so They just respect each other and they get along really well and you know again They're just they're both decent people in a world largely filled with bastards So it's just nice to watch them get to know each other and get to like each other and even when there are some Conflicts between the two of them things Work out okay, and they are good characters individually to or great characters individually. I would say because Carille is Very very interesting. He's a noble who many years ago was thrown off thrown out of his position He's a count specifically and so he spent years and years just traveling around learning how to fight Gathering up followers and stuff and during this time He became that as the book describes it a master of all levels of combat like from Individual fighting to small unit tactics to leading armies and having grand campaigns and stuff like he's just a master at all of it Which is very satisfying to watch because you know, he's clearly very smart and knows what he's doing But he also just in this backstory He gained all of that on his own and then he eventually went back and took his throne back But along the way a whole bunch of people died and once he got into power He just stopped and wondered well. What was even the point of all that? Why did I do it and that just kind of broke him? Mentally and so now he's just searching for a purpose in life because he's thinking well there there has to have been a reason why all those people died for me and That makes him just a very interesting character. You know, he's not like a young chosen one like in most fantasy series He's like in his 40s, but He has this whole long backstory which contributes to his character while still His story is still being told basically like he's in the middle of all the cool stuff He gets to do and I really liked that and as for Rob Corrigan He is also pretty interesting. He's a lot simpler than Carill. I will say that but he's just a very fun character You know, he's a bard. He's a rogue scoundrel. Have you want to call him? He and he's a dinosaur master, so he knows how to do all this stuff, but he's not as perfect as Carill He's just really good at a couple of things and I don't know. He's just fun to watch I liked him and as for most of the other characters in these books They start off a little weaker like I wasn't into them But over time most of them do grow and develop and change and become more interesting yet Not necessarily better people but more interesting like Princess Melodia Starts off as you know, just kind of a princess who thinks she's smarter than she really is and I just wasn't into her But over the course of the story she learned some lessons some very painful lessons she grows smarter she gets a little bit harder and tougher as a person and Without going into detail there is a sequence or not sequence, but there is a subplot about how she has to Gain the respect of this group of people and as she's doing it She is gaining their respect not because she's a princess, but on her own merits and as they are gaining as she's gaining Their respect she was also kind of gaining mine as a reader or listener technically because I listen to these as audiobooks so it worked really well as Parallel meta meta narrative without be turned for I don't know whatever But then there's also the Emperor Felipe who at first seems like kind of an idiot, but as time goes on you realize Okay, he's not stupid. He just has one or two blind spots, but outside of those. He's actually a competent leader So, you know, he he grows a little bit as a character and then there's Duke Falk who is actually one of the people that betrays Kareel at the very beginning of the first book and tries to kill him and At first Falk seems like, you know a greedy power-hungry trader But at the same time he seems pretty cool because he is one of the greatest knights in Nueva Ropa And he rides into battle on the back of an albino T-Rex, which is just cool on the surface But it's even cooler when you remember that Riding meat-eating dinosaurs is extraordinarily rare in this world and T-Rex is especially because they just don't live in Nueva Ropa But as the story goes on you learn that he's not just treacherous He's straight-up evil like this dude's an actual rapist and like he's an awful person But at the same time He does do some good You know, he does help save the Emperor and it's pretty clear that the good guys would not have been able to win in an important battle in one of the other books if it weren't for Duke Falk so What I'm saying is he rapes But he saves and so on and so forth basically every character that gets even a little bit of screen time in this book or in the series Grows and develops and changes a little bit from what they were when you first find them And that's very impressive and difficult to do so kudos to that the setting for the series I did overall like but it is kind of weird So the main Empire is Nueva Ropa and that's basically just the Holy Roman Empire But it's more multi-ethnic, you know, like the Holy Roman Empire in real life was primarily German but this has like other ethnic groups in there and You know, it's like a decentralized feudal monarchy where the Emperor is actually elected to their position but they always are elected from the same family and Then there's also dinosaurs mixed in there. However, the author got really lazy with the cultures here Both inside of Nueva Ropa and outside of it Like he just took real-world cultures Tweaked the names slightly and then left it at that like the main Kingdom that makes up the Nueva Ropa Empire is Spana, which is very obviously Spain, you know, the people there speak Spanish and Their names are Spanish and so on and so forth but then the other kingdoms are like Catalonia and Francia and Alamanya and Slavia and it's just like Man, come on. I don't like that, you know, and then you go outside of Nueva Ropa and they do the same thing like they have Turco peoples and Talianos which are Italians and Airland-ish and Oh crap. I forget what they're called. I think I want to say room, but they're just Roma, you know It's just it's um It's lazy. I don't like when fantasy series do that. It's just it when you're as copy-pasting real world cultures I would rather if they're going to do that just have Nueva Ropa be just Spana, you know And just basically be Spain that way. I'm just annoyed by it once rather than repeatedly There's very little magic in this setting like it is low fantasy But it doesn't really feel like low fantasy because what one we do see magic at a couple of points like Caril gets his hand bitten off right at the beginning and then very early on he gets it grown back with magic and he's like, whoa this is crazy and then Also, there's dinosaurs around so, you know, it feels like a fantastical world like I've been planning a video on low fantasy for a little while I don't know when that'll ever come about but Basically, I just don't see the point of it a lot of the time because like the whole point of fantasy is to Be transported to a weird fantastical world where there's like magic and elves and shit And so if you're going to have a world with None of that well, what's what's even the point but in this case it avoids that because there are dinosaurs and there is a weird kind of sci-fi twist about this world I don't know if twist is the right word because None of the characters in the books ever actually acknowledge this and as far as I can tell none of them know about it It's actually just something that I've put together based on some Very heavy clues earlier on the story But uh, so this isn't a spoiler. I I will have a spoiler corner where I bring up some like theories about this but Basically, this isn't a spoiler. So it's very heavily implied that this planet they're on paradise is actually a planet that was colonized by humans Many thousands of years in the future or hundreds of years, whatever in the future at some point and That raises some questions like I figured this out because there are notes and stuff about this where it says that um The people here believe that they were originally from another world called home And then they were brought to paradise by the creators Along with a couple of animals like horses and goats and stuff But all the animals that already lived there were you know dinosaurs and It's mentioned that home would have felt like a strange world to them because they would feel heavier there And the years were 1.6 times as long and the air was thinner and it's colder and when I heard that I realized like oh Okay, it's just another planet and at first I was nervous about that because I've seen perfectly good fantasy stories kind of wreck themselves at the end by putting in big sci-fi twists like a There's a couple of anime that have done it like a scrapped princess is one and uh Uchawari Rumono is another one where Like they're perfectly good fantasy stories, but then they just decide near the end. Hey, let's Tell everyone it was sci-fi the whole time You know all this magic was actually technology the whole time and I don't know it didn't work well, but in this case um I thought about for a bit and I was like well at least here it's like foreshadowed It's very heavily foreshadowed So when it happens it won't take me by surprise and take me out of the story. So that's good Really, it would depend on How this is uh brought up later in the story like When the characters in the last book or whatever finally come to terms with the the nature of their world like How does that that how is that revealed and what does that lead to? That would really be the term determining factor and whether or not I think this is a good idea or not and like I said, we never got a proper ending so Uh, I guess it's kind of a moot point That said it brings up a lot of questions about the nature of this world like okay, obviously the magic they're seeing is just very advanced technology, but How exactly is that technology working? What is the point of the gray angels? Why were they created? What are the fey precisely? Why does no one here know about the fact that they come from another planet exactly? Why is their technology level so low? You know all that sort of thing And unfortunately we'll never get answers to those questions, but it is raised when you Give a setup like this I do want to point out that the battles and climaxes in these books are just fucking phenomenal Like all three books end on a big battle and all of them are fantastic Like I just don't have a lot else to add there I think the smaller scale fights like between individuals and stuff are kind of weird because the author just gets a little Mechanical when he writes about him, you know, it's like he twisted his hips counterclockwise and threw half of his weight Into the other man, which caused him to lose his balance and then hit the floor and it's I don't know. It's it's a little two play by play Uh, but the actual battles where it's just describing it on a grander scale works fantastic and The battle at the end of the second book the dinosaur knights is One of the best I've read in epic fantasy like this is a genre that is full of big epic battles And that is one of the greatest it is fantastic Like I I wouldn't call it exactly on par with the last battle because that's just the best ever Uh, but it is easily on par with like the battle of the tower from the way of kings or the battle of garrison from the end of the black prism just A phenomenal battle with like some back and forth and the heroes are Fighting against enemies who are magical and they don't totally understand them But they have to try otherwise very bad things will happen to all of them. It's just it's just great And I don't have a lot else to add there. Uh, the only One last complaint I will throw in about the series is that the pros itself Is not always good. I mean I mentioned that it's not good in the battles sometimes, but there's sometimes just weird lines, which um I don't I don't like them, you know, you know, just a not a good way of describing things either because they have weird run-on sentences or just Ones that describe things in a weird way, which Maybe was intended to be funny, but it just comes across as either Confusing or cringy. So I don't know. It didn't it wasn't a deal breaker for me But overall, uh, before I go into the spoilers. I just want to say again The dinosaur lords was a very fun series. I would recommend it to most people, but again, you do have to keep in mind that That there is no proper ending here Like I still think it was worth the time because I loved reading it and I think if you are any sort of right of yourself this should inspire you but Uh, just you should know that going in and know that You're just not going to get answers to all the questions that you have But that's up to you to decide and uh, that's about it. So spoiler corner time. Let's go So first real quick theory about uh, how this world is the way it is My theory is that Earth for whatever reason just became uninhabitable, you know Some combination of overpopulation and pollution possibly nuclear war or something just made it so that human life there was no longer sustainable So the few survivors left had to go to paradise and maybe it was already terraformed or in the process of being terraformed maybe they had to fix it themselves, but whatever the case they had to go there and They started living there But because habitable planets are just so rare in the universe They had to try and come up with a way to make sure that they didn't destroy this one the way they did earth and eventually what they decided on was that okay, we should Get rid of most of our technology so that no one is able to destroy things too badly again And we should also make sure that no one knows about that technology So they don't try to use it or create it again And in order to prevent us from progressing or growing too popular or something they decided to create the gray angels which Just uh, occasionally they will go in and kill a bunch of humans and humans think it's for like religious purposes But in actuality it's for to keep the balance of paradise as they call it and there's two different factions of angels there's the ones that just want to kill most of humanity and the ones that want to completely purge all of them and um I feel like the ones who Decided to purge all of humanity are like malfunctioning ai's or something But i'm not totally sure it is a little confusing And I also don't know exactly how the fey would fit into this theory I think they might just straight up be aliens who live there beforehand because they mentioned they live there before humans, but Uh, that raises other questions. So I I just don't know for certain, but I wanted to get that out there And as for like actual criticisms of uh, the books that go into spoilers They're pretty much all about duke folk. So first of all, I have to talk about him sexually assaulting melodia at the end of the first book and uh I think at first that's handled really well like at first it is Obviously a very terrible traumatizing thing that he does and as you're reading it you just feel kind of gross and helpless And uh, you see as time goes on how badly it affects melodia and how it doesn't completely break her as a person Uh, but it does traumatize her quite a bit and give her a lot to deal with as the story goes on. So I think in that sense it is handled very well But then there's other times where it's really really not like for instance There's just points where it seems like the author's trying to make it almost comedic and like Okay, I'm not saying you can't do that like you can't have dark comedy or something but With something like this you either have to treat it as one or the other You know, you you have to treat it basically as okay. It's a really horrible thing Let's deal with that or just Try and make it funny Which I think you can joke about pretty much anything if you do it right Like you may think it's in bad taste or something, but it's possible to do But then at the same time It's just constantly mentioning how he Are in the ass specifically which like Why what difference does that make? I maybe it's a little more painful, but I just I I don't know okay And then there's one specific line where it was saying how she remembered it and how it felt like a flaming hot turd going in and out of her bowels Like just dude. What the fuck? Like the the editor should have gotten to that and and just crossed that line out and written no on the manuscript, but I don't know. It just It does not work when you try to be both comedic and dark and I'm not even certain he was trying to be comedic here but it just I There's multiple lines here that just let me sit in there wondering. What the fuck are you doing, man? And then of course, uh Again, Duke Falk. He should have died at the end of the third book Because long story short Kareel and Rob Have to flee the imperial palace while they're there uh because That some people try to kill them and then it seems like maybe they were trying to kill the emperor And so the two of them along with uh Kareel's pet allosaurus named shirah who shirah is a good girl By the way, like she she was just she's like a big puppy and it made me so happy whenever Good things happen to her because she she was just so sad and lonely for most of the first two books before she got to Find kareel again, and I was just I was just so happy when she found him. But uh anyways Remember Duke Falk and his albino t-rex snowflakes snowflake Uh were the ones who betrayed them and nearly killed both of them at the beginning of the book So kareel and shirah both have reason to hate them And when they get into a fight, uh at the end of the final book Which I know was not intended to be the final book, but uh, they win the fight like kareel stabs Falk through the mouth and He it specifically mentions that he could have just punched a sword through the back of his head and instantly killed him But he just pulls back because I don't know why not and then shirah manages to get uh death bite on snowflake and It's clear that she would have been able to kill him if uh, they had kept going With it, but instead they get surrounded and kareel just tells her hey come on, let's run so that one at least makes a little more sense, but just from a narrative standpoint falk and snowflake should have died there because Even if this is not intended to be a climax It just renders them less effective as villains if the heroes defeat them and then they come back You know because I mentioned in a video a few months ago That fundamentally villains have to operate as obstacles for the heroes to overcome You know they have to be a threat to them reaching their goals And for most of the series falk and snowflake work really well for that because it's made very clear that There are very few people in this world who pose a physical threat to kareel like he's just too good at what he does But duke falk is one of those people and You know again, we see at the beginning even if it was a surprise attack. He did defeat him And so when it's more of a closer to a straight-up fight here and kareel and charal win Then that's when we know like okay falk and snowflake can beat them. And so they're just They're just not as threatening after that Like if you do that too much then they just become like team rocket where they come back in every episode And the heroes defeat them in a slightly different way every time and it just it just doesn't work And again, I know this wasn't supposed to be a climax But it would have made for a more satisfying conclusion here if those two were dead But now it's just one more thread that's left hanging. Uh, so Yeah, that was just very disappointing and the ending while again, it wouldn't have been very good to begin with It ends on a cliffhanger That just made it even worse to me. So I felt the need to bring it up, but I don't know again. The dynastal lords is Very very good. I think it's worth checking out. So if you came this far, give it a shot But whatever you decide, I'll see you later. Goodbye Hello, and thank you for watching this far if you did you have my thanks And if you see all these names here, those are my patrons my ten dollar and up patrons are oppa savillainan olivia rayon brother santotes buffy valentine Carolina clay dan and seljevich dark king echo flax great grebo karkat katsune Liza rudakova lord tiebreaker madison lewis benet maryland roxy matthew bodro microphone peep the toad return of car to mom sad martigan sillier the vixen tesla shark they vixens and Wesley all of you are great if you want to get your name up here Then consider becoming a patron if you can't do that Then you could also become a youtube channel member or just like the video comment and subscribe to share it around and help me Eat food this month Yeah, thanks. Goodbye