Footprints of Thunder

You know that guy—you're talking about some great Indian place, and he interrupts with some spiel about how awful it is, it's inauthentic, it's some crap Westernized version of Indian food, and you must have awfully low standards if you can stomach it? Well, I'm that guy, and this book is that restaurant.

I've seen other reviews where readers referred to the characters as thin, or not particularly fleshed-out. People, c'mon. There's thin, and then there's "behaving like no adult human every did or would." The book really reminded me of some of my fiction in my teens, when (despite writing well for a teenager) I was fairly certain I didn't have a clue how grown-ups really acted around each other, and I was probably safest not exploring show more topics like "The White House," or "marriage," or "Business meeting." Mr. David had some fine descriptive passages, a few moments of interesting activity, but the moment he had characters speak, think, or decide to do something, I cringed. (I'm calling him Mr. David to be polite, but I suspect he's about 13, especially since he seems to think it's marvelous to not get woken up by Mommy--sorry, I meant "by his Chief of Staff," unless it's really really really really important).

I made it a third of the way through, but eventually (after checking other reviews) I realised this collection of unbelievable named-people weren't going to coalesce into interesting, believable people. I like dinosaurs as much as the next guy, but this isn't worth it. I am flabbergasted this got onto anyone's list of best sf.

I don't have time to list all the many things that irked me, beginning with the "Dramatis Personae" at the beginning (beginning with the ridiculous description of Kenny Randall as "student at Oregon Institute of Technology, and a member of the group," but that's a great place to start, if you're wondering about reading this. By the time you get to "Rita Watkins, stranded motorist" you will know if this is the book for you.

P.S. As a Canadian, sometimes the attitude that America is the only important place in the world particularly grates. And I get it, you write about what you know (hopefully). But when you are writing about a world-changing event, it seems particularly parochial to only write about Americans in America.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! show less

Another review for this book can be found at my blog:
The Real World According To Sam

A couple years ago, my parents picked up the sequel to this and bought it for me. Little did we know that a book came before. When I realized there was a prequel to my sequel, I went on a immediate quest which lasted about a year and a few months. Finally I found this book while on an out-of-town trip. Imagine my delight? I got dinosaurs, I got science, I got action, I got time rips.....somebody read my mind!

I love dinosaurs and this book, while it took quite a while to get set up and bring me any good dino action, did deliver and give me plenty of dinosaurs later on. The only thing that was mildly troublesome, was the switching between so many show more characters and what was happening to them. Perhaps this was done on purpose to make me keep reading, and if so it worked. One minute I'm going nuts over whether Colter and Petra are gonna get to stay together then it goes over to Ellen and Angie and the meanie biker dudes.....and it takes me sometime to get to "Coltra" and I have to keep flipping ahead to see how far I am from certain characters that I wanna read about. Interrupted form one bit and riipped to another scene. It half-drove me crazy, but it strategically kept me in suspense so I can't complain too much about that. Just a author-reader ploy to make sure you keep the reader I'd bet. I'll keep that little trick in mind.

Overall this book was pretty awesome, but I can only give it a 3 because it didn't go above and beyond and it left plenty of questions unanswered which leaves us to Thunder of Time to see what in the heck is going on. This one left too many unresolveds..... show less

This is, apparently, David's first book an in that sense it's quite good. The build up to the action is fairly slow as we get to meet various protagonists of events further into the action.

One of these is Kenny Randall, a college student who had developed an interest in the strange thing that had fallen from the skies (rains of frogs, fish, and other even less likely things) and things found in strata they shouldn't have been - each headlining one of the chapters and initially its Kenny we follow until THE EVENT occurs and the planet quilts with areas of Earth being replaced by sections from dinosaur times. The book then splits into two rather distinct strands of narrative with one following those directly affected by the events whilst show more the other takes us to Washington and how those in power attempt to deal with the problem show less

Footprints of Thunder (Paperback) by James F. David is a long but good sci fi about time waves that that were caused by things like large explosions. These time waves caused places, people, things to appear and disappear. When the big event happens, there are large cities gone replaced by forest, swamps, and things that live in them...prehistoric things. The story follows several people during the book and how they deal with it all. Very interesting!

What would happen if patches of our world were suddenly replaced with prehistoric terrain? Not much evidently. Dinos roaming the streets on New York should make for high adventure and yet David's novel is as dull as dishwater.

Too long, too many cardboard stereotypical characters I don't like, and reviews I read when I got to page 82 mentioned thrilling, and sexual assault, and, well, ... just, no.  I prefer SF to Adventure, even Adventure set in an SF context.

eh okay it didn;t really get good until halfway thorugh but i love the idea of it and will sureley read the sequel!