#anyone trying to justify the Washita Massacre makes my blood boil though so that's a particularly sensitive thing for me

[beauzos]

started reading Dragon Teeth by Crichton since my coworker is lending me Lost World in a few days and i had a couple days to kill till then since i finished Jurassic Park, and after a hundred pages i set the book down and went, "what is the point of this book?" so idk if it's going great KRKF

i think it's a great concept for a book. it's about the Bone Wars and people going out West to dig up dino bones in the 19th century, and it's told like the main character was a real guy and Crichton found, like, his unpublished writings and is writing a history book about him and . the Bones Wars guys. but really, the mc is not real, though Cope and Marsh are and it's draped in a lot of other historical figures. there's even an extensive Custer mention.

but it's just like. every scene is written like a summary, you understand what i mean? as a mock-history book, it's bad. as a fiction book, it's bad.

i like Crichton's writing, though, and i don't dislike the book, i just can recognize that it's not very good in execution at all. and what a shame! i love the Bone Wars era and i love the idea of digging up dinos in the American West and having this mc interacting with the real Cope and Marsh. it's brilliant. but i just feel like everything is being summarized to me, and i'm not really seeing like, a real book.

and that disappoints me!

also i feel uneasy about the way Crichton talks about Native peoples. cause, like, if this is to be read as a faux history book, then he's being racist. a lot of "savage" talk, and him like. oh man, the way he said Black Kettle was often argued as being an innocent and a scapegoat to justify US atrocities towards Native peoples and then going "this isn't true". i almost set the book down then and there and had to talk myself back into reading it bcs it's fiction but like. Crichton what are you saying KRKF this is like Steinbeck-level "author insert is being racist" shit and i don't like that.

the book was written in 1974, so i guess i should expect it. it just caught me off guard.