A thoroughly enjoyable read. The use of dinosaurs as the characters is interesting and really held my attention. The short stories had good plots and kept me wanting more. A must read book.


Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was granted complimentary access to an eARC of Apex by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Apex is a collection of short science fiction stories involving dinosaurs, be they about the dinosaurs themselves or about humans living alongside them. Fans of the genre and of dinosaurs, in general, will surely find something to latch onto and love in this anthology!

I was drawn to this listing on NetGalley because of one particular name: Robert J. Sawyer. He is by far my favourite author, I own all his novels and anthologies, and I've even had the pleasure of meeting him. I know from following his work and his social media presence that he no longer puts effort into publishing short fiction, so I was curious. Would this be a new piece or something I've read before? Would it be something unpublished from the early stages or cut worldbuilding from the Quintaglio Ascention trilogy or End of an Era? (That would not have been unusual. His full-length novel Red Planet Blues begins with his previously published novella Identity Theft.) Alas, it was a repeat read for me. "Forever" was previously published in his 2002 anthology Iterations. Since it has been nearly two decades it did feel fresh reading it, but then I went and checked the older anthologies to confirm, and there it is starting on page 191. So that was a bit of a disappointment. Granted this book's synopsis doesn't claim that any of the work within is new, but now I wonder how many of the other works have been republished, and how many other fans of these other authors might have the same experience.

That is not to say I didn't enjoy my re-read of Forever. I'd forgotten how good it is, and I wonder if it was originally written before the Quintaglio books, as the main character Cholo reminds me of Afsan. Forever is the story of an intelligent society of dinosaurs on Earth. They have science and art, agriculture, and farming (and they've domesticated some of the other dino species which apparently aren't intelligent.) Cholo is an astronomer who, while hoping to find an undiscovered planet to name after himself and "live forever," discovers an asteroid that will surely impact Earth and quite possibly wipe out their island home. What makes me form the connection to the Quintaglio novels and the character Afsan is that Afsan is his dinosaur society's Gallileo (astronomer ahead of his time) who discovers that the moon they live on is in a degrading orbit and will crash into their host planet within the next couple generations, and they need to get off the moon before that happens.

I could go on and write reviews for each of the other short stories in this volume, but I fear by the time I'm done my review would be longer than some of the stories themselves. Instead, I'll simply say that this book offers a variety of fantastic dinosaur-related science fiction stories by a talented collection of authors, some of whom I recognize and others I have just now discovered. If you love dinosaurs or if you're an avid short fiction reader with a taste for sci-fi, then something in here will be your next favourite short.

I"m not sure dinosaurs are as in vogue as they used to be, but stories about them will probably always be popular to a segment of the population. This is a pretty good collection by some well-known authors and some very talented authors (sometimes they're both). I won't review each one, but recommend this for sci-fi, science, and of course dinosaur fans.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

this was a fun anthology series, I love stories with dinosaurs. The stories flowed well together and I didn't feel like it was too much. I really enjoyed reading this book.