Dinosaurs: Stories by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov Andmany Others

Dinosaur fans should enjoy this all-reprint anthology of 14 SF yarns that feature or at least include the prehistoric beasts. Greenberg tosses in some old chestnuts, like Isaac Asimov's ``Day of the Hunters'' and Arthur C. Clarke's ``Time's Arrow,'' both dating from 1950, but he also adds a couple of very recent tales, which employ dinos only tangentially. These are Kristine Kathryn Rusch's 1993 ``Chameleon,'' concerning a young witch who learns how to live while being different from others, and Pat Cadigan's 1994 ``Dino Trend,'' which dwells on the compromises that make and break relationships. Many of the stories deal with time travel and its paradoxes, and the collection as a whole offers an informative look at how our understanding of dinos has changed over the decades. Ranging from the poetic (Howard Waldrop's 1982 ``Green Brother'') to the action-packed (L. Sprague de Camp's 1956 classic, ``A Gun for Dinosaur''), these stories show quite well that dinosaurs romped through a lot of fiction long before Crichton began dreaming of that notorious park. (Jan.)