I apprecitate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I found this a really interesting read and the characters are quite engaging. it kept me reading until the end. I highly recommend.

I tried to like this book. I'd heard a great deal about the author, and I have loved dinosaurs since I was a small child. Therein lay the problem that kicked me out of the narrative flow. Despite the light-hearted tone, I took the author's portrayal of a tyrannosaur on the brink of sapience seriously. I was disappointed that none of the recent discoveries had been incorporated, such as dinosaurs being feathered. But the breaking point came when T. rex attempted to pick shreds of meat from between its teeth...with its forearm claws. Anyone who has seen a skeleton or reconstruction of T. rex knows those bitty forearms could never reach its mouth, let alone get between its teeth. I had visions of the ants-that-will-become-sapient cleaning the T. rex's teeth, much as present-day birds clean the teeth of crocodiles.

I will happily read stories that involve dinosaurs, but I'd like them to be scientifically accurate.

5/5 stars. Beginning with an act of cooperation and trust and ending in competition and deceit, The Cretaceous Past is a fascinating and plausible imagining of the rise and fall of the symbiotic dinosaur and ant cultures.

i love the use of dinosaurs, the writing was really well done and the characters were great. It was what I was looking for in a dinosaur novel.

I was really hoping to enjoy this. Its different and Im still trying to figure out how much I like it. Definitely different for this author as Im a fan of his Scifi.

This was my first time reading Cixin Liu and I am impressed by their skill in writing science fiction. This novella asks the question: What would happen if dinosaurs were intelligent and teamed up with ants to change the course of history? I really enjoyed where this question takes the story and the answers it provides. Subterranean Press has a reputation for publishing excellent stories, and this is a great addition to their line. Recommended!

Thank you Netgalley and Subterranean Press for access to this arc.

I’m not sure if it’s been altered any from “When Dinosaurs Meet Ants” was published almost twenty years ago. The premise is amusing – a relationship developing between the world’s biggest creatures and some of the smallest that allows the spark of intelligence to flourish, leading to scientific developments. The allegorical comparison to mankind and our own recent antagonistic world relationships is obvious and frightening.

There is a degree of absurdity in believing that dinosaurs might have been capable of creative flights of fancy and intellectual inspirations which, backed by the ants’ tendency to methodical tribal hard work, could lead to a somewhat similar world to what we have now but okay, I’ll go with that. It’s also logical to believe that tensions between them could eventually lead to war on such a scale as to almost wipe out their civilizations. Hubris comes in all sizes. Watching all sides inevitably slide towards global destruction is obviously meant to be a warning to us all. The means by which this is accomplished is, perhaps, a step too far but then we’re discussing talking dinosaurs and ant surgeons so what am I complaining about?

I enjoyed the story and the translation even if there’s a touch of repetition that makes parts drag a bit. B-

In translation, this short novel of prehistoric alternate history [or, Alternate Prehistory] by Hugo winner Chinese Science Fiction author Cixin Liu postulates Evolution into civilization and collapse--not of Humanity, but of the divergent species of Ants and Dinosaurs. In keeping with Mr. Liu's background, there's a lot of Science, and a lot of Speculation. Readers of Stephen Baxter's EVOLUTION and Adrian Tchaikovsky 's THE DOORS OF EDEN will surely benefit from THE CRETACEOUS PAST.

Thank you NetGalley, Subterranean Press, and Cixin Liu for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

I've been wanting to try the author's 3 Bodies Problem series but never got the opportunity to start. Side note, my kid is super into dinosaurs right now, so I have correspondingly been reading a lot about (and hearing a lot about) dinosaurs, too. I thought, great, I will try out this author, and maybe come away with a cool dinosaur story to talk to my kid about.

I didn't realize this was a novella. It was definitely a quick read; I finished the whole thing in one hour during an evening run on the treadmill. It read like a cross between a classroom writing exercise (suppose the following, and write how it would work) and a very detailed description of a particularly lengthy and lurid dream. There was little plot, just a detailed description of a sequence of events, and then the end. It could be viewed as sort of a parable or fable, I suppose, as there were some certain, not very coincidental I'm sure, similarities to the world today.

It was interesting to be sure, but not what I expected, and not really for me. Your mileage may vary.

This was absolutely ridiculous.

I thought the story was silly. It's a joke that goes on far too long. I wasn't a fan of the writing style, it was very simplisitic. There is no sense of scenery, or what the characters look like.

It was preposterous and so much fun.

What a novel concept, an ant & dinosaur co-dependent civilization with the sort of technological advances we assume only exist in our current modern time. Hard to relate to the characters, but that's not an issue.

I read through this pretty quickly and it was worth the time and effort.

I went into the first third of this thinking “oh, we’re going to get a neat thought experiment about what if ants and dinosaurs had created a mutually dependent society!” This quickly became “....why is it mimicking human society and why did the ants immediately go capitalistic?” and “oh this is kind of a response to the ants in TS Eliot’s The Once and Future King isn’t it...”. This ended up becoming “oh this is a bad East vs West metaphor isn’t it and it’s about climate change and the East is positioned as the good guys against the dumb and evil West. Oh.” But hey, female translator (Elizabeth Hanlon)! Just ended up being very not my thing. There’s occasionally times it goes very interestingly sci fi but then it veers back to “oh we’re all doomed”.

Really enjoyed this story. It was an introduction to Cixin Liu for me, and I'm not sure what I have been waiting for. Will definitely track down more by Cixin Liu. #TheCretaceousPast #NetGalley

English language readers of Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin will be interested to know about his “new” short novel, entitled The Cretaceous Past. After searching numerous internet resources, I believe that the one-and-only original novella was published in China in 2004 under the title “当恐龙遇上蚂蚁”, which according to google-translate means “When Dinosaurs Meet Ants.” The first English translation was significantly abridged for inclusion in the 2013 collection The Wandering Earth, with a title of “Of Ants and Dinosaurs”. Next, a full-length translation was published in the UK in 2020, also with a book title of “Of Ants and Dinosaurs”. This new US publication with a title of “The Cretaceous Past” is identical to the 2020 UK publication.

Whatever title you know it by, this is a short novel of alternate paleontology, in which there are no human characters. In the Cretaceous Era (60 million years ago), an evolutionary relationship developed between ants and dinosaurs, leading to an advanced civilization comprised of both. However, rather than a true symbiosis, the species have a conflicted and competitive relationship, even while mutually interdependent. Liu’s conceptualization deals in style I found reminiscent of Isaac Asimov – in other words, it sounds logical, but don’t look too far beyond the basic statements themselves. The scenario is unlikely, and not without profound unmentioned consequences.

Rather, Liu intends this as a moral lesson about human society. The arrogant and short-sighted dinosaurs get their come-uppance from the far more numerous and wise ants. Note that Liu postulates a dinosaur population of 7 billion; it’s not a coincidence that this is approximately the number of humans on Earth today. However, even the ants can be undermined by their own proud and self-centered assumptions. Two wars between the species are described, and there is some reader satisfaction in seeing how they play out. The dinosaurs need the ants for their dexterity and skill. The ants need the dinosaurs for their imagination and creativity.

The publisher labels this as a fable, and I believe the story would be accessible to younger teens as well as adults. I enjoyed it, although not as much as Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and its two sequels.

I read an Advance Reader Copy of The Cretaceous Past, by Liu Cixin in ebook, which I received from Subterranean Press through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 31 May 2021.

This is a fable for children. Most adult readers will not get that much out of it, I think. That was my experience, anyway.

The Cretaceous Past by Cixin Liu- This short novel is more an examination of what could have possibly happened if the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous past became reliant on the ants from the same period and vice versa. Starting with a Tyrannosaurus tooth ache, which the ants take care of, the two species build a civilization working together. It's kind of a whimsy, with explanations and conjectures that describe how it could be possible. Just an amusing "what if" tale, probably not for everyone.