Reviews for Dinosaurs: Teaching Kit (Super Science Readers Series)

The average rating for Dinosaurs: Teaching Kit (Super Science Readers Series) based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-05-29 00:00:00 Hosein Jeims A magnificent collection of short stories from the 1960s by a superb Czech writer. Imagine Kafka writing science fiction and you'll have some idea of the flavour of these pieces. Brian Aldiss contributes a perceptive Introduction to the book, and he's an appropriate choice because Nesvadba also resembles Aldiss in many ways. These stories are marked out by complex plots and a grim absurdist humour. There's a nightmarish quality too, sometimes hidden, sometimes overt. 'Doctor Moreau's Other Island' features a secret research laboratory where volunteers have their limbs and non-essential organs surgically removed to reduce their mass, making them more suitable for budget spaceflight... 'The Lost Face' is also about surgey and how human identity might not be merely a product of the brain but could partly reside in other organs -- with shocking consequences for the transplantation industry... 'Death of an Apeman' is an examination of evolution, Tarzan-style; while the title story utilises the same theme to criticise our civilisation's obsession with 'reason' and 'sense'. The titles of these stories are brilliant... 'Expedition in the Opposite Direction' (about time travel)... 'Inventor of his Own Undoing' (about a cybernetic cure for happiness that goes wrong)... 'The Chemical Formula of Destiny' (about eugenics)... Nesvadba was an exceptional writer, and this is one of the best collections of short stories I've read for years. A shame it's currently out of print!

Review # 2 was written on 2011-05-11 00:00:00 larrt easterling Full review: 3.5/5 (Good) "I had high expectations for Josef Nesvadba’s collection of 1950s and 60s science fiction and fantasy stories redolent with the Czech experience under Nazism and the post-war political shift towards the Soviets (who had helped liberate them). As a unit, the often allegorical stories occur within an emotional landscape of amorality and petty desires. They are action-packed and manic, ideas whirl and twist with flying bullets, as characters voyage through jungles and hideout in slums. Nesvedba deploys the whole [..]"