Kronos Rising (book)

Galvasean

An upcoming sci fi/horror type novel starring Kronosaurus run a muck in the modern times. Was talking to the writer about it. He seems really enthusiastic about the whole thing. Here's hoping it's good!

http://www.krank.ie/category/cul/kronos-rising/

Galvasean

I interviewed the author. He seems really cool and is super enthusiastic about palaeontology in general.
http://www.krank.ie/category/cul/max-hawthorne-interview-kronos-rising/

Manach

Interesting plot for a movie; but I'll still lay money on the Russian militarised dolphins in a fight. CNN link.

Kess73

Sounds like it will be somewhat similar to the Jeremy Robinson book called Kronos. But as I am a sucker for all things creature feature, I shall no doubt be picking up Kronos Rising.

Rubecula

Hmmm I wuld like the book nevermind the film lol

Adam Khor

Not fair... I too was working on a story called Kronos.

Rubecula

Adam Khor wrote: »

Not fair... I too was working on a story called Kronos.

Change the title slightly. Chronos relates to time you know as opposed to Kronos. AND as the beastie is a long time extinct, if you are going to utilise one in the modern setting, well stands to reason you need to shift it through time.

Galvasean

My copy arrived in the post today. It's a beast of a book (pun intended) - around 600 pages long, with small print.

If you're a fan of the Kronos Rising Facebook page you can geta $7 discount when buying the book.

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

Change the title slightly. Chronos relates to time you know as opposed to Kronos. AND as the beastie is a long time extinct, if you are going to utilise one in the modern setting, well stands to reason you need to shift it through time.

Well, mine isn´t about Kronosaurus, really :pac:

Kess73

Arrived from Amazon this morning.


Better be good, Galv.:pac:

Bought it on the grounds of you liking very similar creature feature novels and films to myself. Then again you love the genius that is Frankenfish, so I should have faith in ya.

Galvasean

Frankenfish is one of those rare 'exceptions to the rule' - should be awful but manages to b surprisingly entertaining.

Kess73

Galvasean wrote: »

Frankenfish is one of those rare 'exceptions to the rule' - should be awful but manages to b surprisingly entertaining.

Frankenfish is not only entertaining, it stands up to repeat viewings. Must say that those that made it used their budget pretty well.

Rubecula

Kess73 wrote: »

Frankenfish is not only entertaining, it stands up to repeat viewings. Must say that those that made it used their budget pretty well.

I must be one of the few in here who has never seen the film nor read the book.

Grey legion

This book is good and entertaining from a literary viewpoint.

But just REALLY poor from a scientific viewpoint. Seriously, Hawthorne is really not honest when he argues that he based his novel on scientific datas. He just used again the fake, overexagerrated, mythological BBC-like pliosaur, something absolutely not supported by any paleontological record.

The worst is that he's not the first to do this, Steve Alten already used a giant oversized pliosaur in Hell's Aquarium, but at least, he assumed to have exagerrated the size of the creature.

Also, the way Hawthorne explains their survival is just a copy of Alten's theories for megalodons, applied to pliosaurs.
Not even mentionning the erroneous scientific names, fantasist behaviors of marine creatures...

If you want to read some fiction based on science, even Alten series are better than this.

However, the characters in Hawthorne's book are really excellent and the novel itself is surprisingly long, with unexpected evolutions. That's undoubtably the real good point of Hawthorne's work.

So, don't expect good science related facts used for fiction in it, rather a well made basical monster story. Think more about Godzilla than Jurassic Park regarding the creatures credibility.

But not a bad read for sure !

Galvasean

Grey legion wrote: »

So, don't expect good science related facts used for fiction in it, rather a well made basical monster story. Think more about Godzilla than Jurassic Park regarding the creatures credibility.

I just accept that science will take the back seat in any stories about prehistoric monsters run amuck in the modern times whether they be films, comics or books. Even the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park weren't all that scientifically accurate, nor was the explanation for them existing all that scientific (granted it did sound plausible to me when I first heard it).

I'm about half way through Kronos Rising and enjoying the story (read: carnage) and trying not to get bogged down on the scientific accuracy or lack therof.

Grey legion

The point is that despite their artistic liberties, the depictions of the dinosaurs in JP are still way better than the sea monsters in KR. The problem being that Hawthorne presents his novel as based on real data and few artistic license. At least in JP there was no T. rex being twice larger than the real counterpart, unlike the pliosaur in KR.

Kess73

Grey legion wrote: »

This book is good and entertaining from a literary viewpoint.

But just REALLY poor from a scientific viewpoint. Seriously, Hawthorne is really not honest when he argues that he based his novel on scientific datas. He just used again the fake, overexagerrated, mythological BBC-like pliosaur, something absolutely not supported by any paleontological record.

The worst is that he's not the first to do this, Steve Alten already used a giant oversized pliosaur in Hell's Aquarium, but at least, he assumed to have exagerrated the size of the creature.

Also, the way Hawthorne explains their survival is just a copy of Alten's theories for megalodons, applied to pliosaurs.
Not even mentionning the erroneous scientific names, fantasist behaviors of marine creatures...

If you want to read some fiction based on science, even Alten series are better than this.

However, the characters in Hawthorne's book are really excellent and the novel itself is surprisingly long, with unexpected evolutions. That's undoubtably the real good point of Hawthorne's work.

So, don't expect good science related facts used for fiction in it, rather a well made basical monster story. Think more about Godzilla than Jurassic Park regarding the creatures credibility.

But not a bad read for sure !

The author seems to have read Jeremy Robinson's Kronos and at least two books in Steve Alten's Meg series because there are a hell of a lot of set pieces that are very similar.

Even some of the interactions between aquatic creatures are similar ( and in many cases the same species are used)

Not a bad book by any stretch and I did enjoy reading it, but every now and then when reading I went "wonder if the same thing will happen as did in Kronos/The Trench/Hell's Aquarium" and a few pages later a very similar scene would unfold.

Even some of the characters and their backstories were very similar to the lead characters in Jeremy Robinson's Kronos.

Galvasean

Grey legion wrote: »

The point is that despite their artistic liberties, the depictions of the dinosaurs in JP are still way better than the sea monsters in KR. The problem being that Hawthorne presents his novel as based on real data and few artistic license. At least in JP there was no T. rex being twice larger than the real counterpart, unlike the pliosaur in KR.

I don't buy that argument to be honest. From what I've read so far the scientific liberties taken in Kronos Rising are no better or worse than those in Jurassic Park.

The Jurassic Park films do claim to be based on real scientific data. That's why you have Jack Horner, one of the world's most famous palaeontologists, telling people in Jurassic Park featurettes that if you ant to see scientifically accurate dinosaurs then you should check out the Jurassic Park films.

I see no difference between Crichton, Spielberg etc. doubling the size of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park and Max Hawthorne exaggerating the size of his pliosaur in Kronos Rising.

Kess73

Galvasean wrote: »

I don't buy that argument to be honest. From what I've read so far the scientific liberties taken in Kronos Rising are no better or worse than those in Jurassic Park.

The Jurassic Park films do claim to be based on real scientific data. That's why you have Jack Horner, one of the world's most famous palaeontologists, telling people in Jurassic Park featurettes that if you ant to see scientifically accurate dinosaurs then you should check out the Jurassic Park films.

I see no difference between Crichton, Spielberg etc. doubling the size of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park and Max Hawthorne exaggerating the size of his pliosaur in Kronos Rising.

Would agree with this*. I like my creature feature books or films to have bigger/badder/faster/stronger versions of the real thing.

I love the fact that the Great White shark in Jaws is a 25 foot powerhouse. I love the fact that the Saltie in Rogue is bigger and more aggressive that a regular saltie. I like bigger Velociraptors. I loved the giant Sharks/marine repties/eels in various Alten novels.

Fiction is where the imagination should run riot, and where what ifs should be indulged.





* Almost went against the post due to the mention of Hack Horner. He is the Kripke to my Cooper

Adam Khor

Kess73 wrote: »

Fiction is where the imagination should run riot, and where what ifs should be indulged.

Thank you!!

Grey legion

Galvasean wrote: »

I don't buy that argument to be honest. From what I've read so far the scientific liberties taken in Kronos Rising are no better or worse than those in Jurassic Park.

The Jurassic Park films do claim to be based on real scientific data. That's why you have Jack Horner, one of the world's most famous palaeontologists, telling people in Jurassic Park featurettes that if you ant to see scientifically accurate dinosaurs then you should check out the Jurassic Park films.

I see no difference between Crichton, Spielberg etc. doubling the size of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park and Max Hawthorne exaggerating the size of his pliosaur in Kronos Rising.

That's not true. The raptors in JP are not oversized because they ARE NOT based on Velociraptor mongoliensis but based on Velociraptor anthirropus in 1987 which is actually Deinonychus anthirropus.

JP raptors are not oversized, they just don't have the proper genus name.

The 25 foot GWS in Jaws is not exagerrated, in 1975 it was believable to think a 25 foot Great White existed, at that time the maximum size of it was belived to be up to 35 feet.

Same thing for the salty in Rogue. It is 26 feet, which is not confirmed but still possible because of multiple hints.

In anycase, never as exagerrated as this pliosaur crap in Kronos Rising with a 100 feet monster, just a copy of Alten's 100 feet Liopleurodon which was just a copy of the BBC 80 feet Liopleurodon, whereas the largest pliosaurs reached just about 40 feet (still huge enough).

Also, JP is 20 years old, and science has updated a number of points. Whereas Kronos Rising is modern novel. It has no excuse of passing time for its factual errors. That's just a novel hyping and exagerating prehistoric creatures much more than any other. JP did not put a T. rex twice too large, KR did it for pliosaurs.

Worst than this, this novel is going to make more readers still believe that blue whale-sized pliosaurs are fact. What a crap seriously...


There's a difference between a creature slightly bigger than its real-life counterpart and a creature just twice larger like Hawthorne's main monster.

Not even mentionning the bad genus use. It's been a long that Carcharodon for megalodon is totally obsolete and not anymore appropriate for the species, still that so-called paleo-interested of Hawthorne claims to use it in the book and his FB page. Proof that he just knows nothing to the fossil sharks research, no more than the pliosaur research. His sources are obviously no more than CGI documentaries with tons of flaws.

JP and even Jaws are more respectful to the scientific research and datas, respectively to their time, than is Kronos Rising.

I wouldn't be so rude with Hawthorne if he did not present his work as based on real science.
Even the sources he uses on his page are just no better than the average fanboy made up information you can find anywhere on the internet. Just crap.

But as a fiction, no problem, the book is good enough.

But from a science point, I'm just as disappointed than the Discorey mockumentary last year.

Rubecula

Kess73 wrote: »

Fiction is where the imagination should run riot, and where what ifs should be indulged.

I was just telling that to my Sauropodial wife (who was busy stamping rottweilers to death whilst munching through her sausage and chips salad .... it had peas on it) She is keeping fit for her upcoming televised wrestling match with a slightly exaggerated in size (150 feet from nose to tail) slow worm. The prize being a bowl of fried mealworms. (The word mealworms enticed the slow worm to sign the contract ... the word fried was as far as the good woman got)

Anyway, she told me to try to use my imagination a bit more. I agreed and told her I should turn the lights out ...... I have been told the doctors expect me to make a full recovery.

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

I was just telling that to my Sauropodial wife (who was busy stamping rottweilers to death whilst munching through her sausage and chips salad .... it had peas on it) She is keeping fit for her upcoming televised wrestling match with a slightly exaggerated in size (150 feet from nose to tail) slow worm. The prize being a bowl of fried mealworms. (The word mealworms enticed the slow worm to sign the contract ... the word fried was as far as the good woman got)

Anyway, she told me to try to use my imagination a bit more. I agreed and told her I should turn the lights out ...... I have been told the doctors expect me to make a full recovery.

Gold.