Today, we have an excerpt from the recently-published new novella by Ian McDonald: Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur. The book has a pretty intriguing pitch, which, having read the book, is rather accurate: “How to Train Your Dragon meets Mad Max”. Huge thanks to the publisher for letting CR share this short excerpt from the start of the book. First, though, here’s the synopsis:
The story of an orphan in a fractured Southwest who just wants to ride a dinosaur under the lights.
Come one, come all to the dinosaur rodeo!
Tif Tamim wants nothing more than to be a dinosaur buckaroo. An orphan in search of a place to rest his head and a job to weigh down his pockets, Tif has bounced from circus to circus, yearning for a chance to ride a prehistoric beauty under the sparkling lights of a big-top.
To become a buckaroo, Tif needs to learn the tools of the trade, yet few dino maestros want to take a scrawny nobody from nowhere under their wing. But when Tif frees a dino from an abusive owner and braves the roving gangs of the formerly-American west to bring the dino to safety, he catches someone’s eye. And boy, how those eyes dazzle Tif from the back of a bucking carnotaur.
Fans of McDonald’s other novellas and novels will find plenty to like in this latest book. Recommended.
And now, on with the excerpt…
*
Under a high blue heaven, under the zealous sun, the kid and his dinosaur travel a hot, empty highway. The kid is small and skinny as a lost dog. Eighteen, nineteen, you might guess. A dust mask covers the bottom part of his face, outsize shades the top. They conceal wide, long-lashed, animal eyes. He rides a big-tyred bike heavy with packs and bags and sloshing water bottles.
The dinosaur is a Carnotaurus sastrei. Imagine a classic T. rex. King of the killers. Draw it badly: a heavy, dumb-looking head. Ludicrous wiggling arms, like maggots. Too-long legs, a whippy tail. You’ve drawn a Carnotaur. He walks the cracked, dusty verge between the crumbling blacktop and the sage in two-metre strides but his feet are cracked and scabbed, his claws worn to nubs of flaking keratin. His hips move stiffly, his tail drags a furrow in the dust. His eyes are crusted with dried rheum.
A yellow plastic tag is stapled through the loose skin of his armpit.
The old country road melts into mercury heat-haze. What travellers used to call a blue highway. It is an hour since a vehicle passed, longer still anything with a human in it.
The kid stops, shakes off the aches from long kilometres hunched over handlebars. The Carnotaur sags on its haunches and turns its blunt head toward the kid. Teeth as long and sharp as stilettos fill those jaws but its breath is laboured and wheezing. The kid fishes in a bike bag and produces a clay bulb, shaped like a fat contented bird. A shot bird: its body is pocked with holes. He slots smaller clay pipes into the holes. A plumed bird. He lifts the ocarina to his lips and plays a tune. Its melody is angular, it lilts without rhythm or beat.
The Carnotaur weaves his head toward the song, fixes the kid with one eye, then the other. He coos, scrapes, shakes his tail and spine, settles to the dust.
The kid lifts a sloshing plastic carboy of sun-warm water from the bike.
‘Come on, güey,’ he says.
The Carnotaur lowers his head and opens his mouth. The kid slips the top of the carboy between the palisades of teeth. He strokes the silken, beautifully mottled skin of the beast’s throat. The Carnotaur tips back his head. The water spurts from between the many many teeth.
‘Come on,’ the kid says again and taps the Carnotaur alongside his jaw. He shakes his head and flings the water carboy far across the sun-pocked blacktop. ‘I’ll get you there. I promise.’
To the kid’s desert-eyes the carno’s hide looks glossier, his eyes brighter, his colours richer, as if shining through fresh rain.
The kid takes a chill-flask from his handlebar bag, pulls down his bandanna and drinks. The water is bliss. His body wants to swig it all down. He sips. Tiny, frugal sips. Save water for what needs it.
He slings his leg over the crossbar of his bike, clicks up the power and pushes off. The laden bike wobbles but he finds his balance. Another song from the ocarina. The Carnotaur falls in beside him.
Kid and dinosaur head up the long straight highway, toward the heat shiver, and beyond, the dark line of the mountains.
*
Ian McDonald’s Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur is out now, published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK.
Also on CR: Excerpt from King of Morning, Queen of Day
Civilian Reader 