It’s been a summer of dinosaurs following the publication of two new books by Steve Cole.
The Castle of Frankensaur is the twenty-third title in Steve Cole’s ever-popular Astrosaurs series for readers aged 7+. Set in the Jurassic Quadrant, our heroes Captain Teggs Stegosaur and his faithful crew on the DSS Sauropod fight the dastardly deeds of the meat-eaters. The Castle of Frankensaur is classic Cole, plundering the horror genre to write a humorous adventure, whilst leaving just enough clues for his readers to work out the mystery before revealing all.
Z.Apocalypse is the third and final book in Steve Cole’s Z.Rex trilogy. It is this release I was most anticipating. The story began in Z.Rex with Adam’s first encounter with a living, breathing T-Rex with the capability to disarm a bomb. Together they team up to rescue Adam’s Dad held captive by Geneflow. In the second book, Z.Raptor, Adam is marooned on a pacific island and part of a Geneflow game: hyper-evolved dinosaurs with the minds of killers versus Adam and a handful of survivors. In Z.Apocalypse nuclear war threatens and once again Adam with the help of Zed needs to stop Geneflow for once and for all.
On a philosophical level the Z.Rex series pits human spirit against soulless science. It is Adam’s humanity and something of Adam’s spirit that has been passed onto the augmented dinosaurs who yearn for freedom and friendship that must defeat Geneflow’s desire for control and command. Who can you trust? When you have successfully achieved the ultimate scientific experiment creating the perfect killing machine immune to all conventional modern weaponry, do scientists, soldiers and politicians really want to destroy this technology or do they want to exclusively own this knowledge?
It has been a strange summer of dinosaurs from the hilarious capers of another Astrosaurs adventure to the action-packed, international conspiracy of Geneflow, demonstrating the incredible story-telling skills of Steve Cole and his continuing fascination with those large lizards.
