Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen

“Yabba Dabba Do Me?”

At a very young age, I learned that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted. I learned this, as most of us did, by watching the Flintstones. “Where are the dinosaurs now?” I asked my parents. They looked at each other and silently cursed Hanna Barbera. And then I learned the awful truth: dinosaur bones were buried by Satan as a massive prank and psyop to get people to doubt the Bible. As elaborate of a ruse as this might seem, there are no bounds to the Prince of Darkness’ chicanery. All of this aside, we can put aside our dogma and have some fun.

So let’s pretend dinosaurs existed. Let’s also pretend that in the late 21st century, time-travel is possible. In Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen, an envoy of paleontologists are escorted back to the Cretaceous by Andrea Herrera, a supple Aeon-Flux veteran turned mercenary. She’s experiencing adrenaline withdrawal. Careful what you wish for, Andrea.

What unfolds is a mashup of Crichton’s Timeline, Jurassic Park, and a Heinlein action story. It seems another team of travelers from the future arrived on scene 5,000 years prior. Mormon missionaries, I am guessing. Is

Daniel M. Bensen

making an opaque, exquisite mockery of my creationist conspiracy theory? Doesn’t it stand to reason that future Mormons would plant the seeds of Biblical civilization in the Americas as far back as possible, so as to validate the narrative of the Golden Tablets? Anyway, somebody seeded this Bronze-Age-plus-Dinosaur civilization with a long-lost understanding of English and a book they call the Bible.

The team of scientists and their surly protector are equipped with power-suits, an impervious smart-fabric combination of Venom’s symbiote and Iron Man’s HUD. The suits grant superhuman strength and augmented athleticism. They erupt with spines and shoot a plasma cannon out of the palm. The time travelers should be invincible, but the armor has a weakness: United Nations A.I. programmed to identify and spare non-combatants. The cunning natives quickly learn that the angels/ demons in the black suits are rendered immobile by the “hands up” gesture of surrender. And the hardy people of the Cretaceous aren’t wielding nerf guns.

Andrea’s party is quickly sundered. She is captured by Trals Scarback, sociopathic barbarian, and his coalition of triceratops-riding nomads. Andrea’s male admirer, dork paleontologist Chris, is captured by slightly more civilized Slavers: Trals’ sworn enemies and the object of his vendetta.

A blood and loincloth adventure unfolds. Andrea’s arc flirts with Taming of the Shrew, then swerves into some earned girlboss redemption. Her journey balances Stockholm syndrome, tribal assimilation, and violent catharsis.

It would be easy to paint her captor Trals as “Conan the Caveman” as many other reviewers have. But Trals’ depthless rage, arrogance, and combat prowess make him more of a dino of a feather with Achilles from Homer’s Iliad. Pair these qualities together with his war-criminal philosopher king's predilection for canny calculus, manipulation, and the eerie calm of command - you’ll see shades of Odysseus as well.

Since this book is advertised as a “time-travel romance” readers are treated to some great “will-they/ won’t they” tension and some real stakes in the budding relationships of the characters. “Yabba Dabba Do Me?” Read on to find out!

Even Chris the nerd gets laid, but like

Walt Bismarck

, this leads him down a treacherous path of megalomania (j/k Walt, you’re the man). In a twist of literary mercy, even the chief villain earns your sympathy via real pathos and real stakes. This is further advanced by the audio version of the book.

The only quibble I have with the audiobook is the rhythm was a tad slower than I cared for. I had to turn it up to 1.4x speed. I never do this.¹ The narrator, Eric Michael Stachura, does yeoman work with the large cast, the big dino science words, and Bensen’s made-up prehistoric languages. The author is not just a lover of English, he’s a pulp philologist. Trals’ voicing truly rings of a cerebral barbarian philosopher, Chris sounds like a real dork (and later a dork with a smashed nose), and Andrea’s rendering is as tough and tender as smoked triceratops tri-tip. There’s even a character who sounds a bit like Jimmy Stewart. Tragically, he didn’t survive long enough to savor.

The epilogue alone is worth the journey. You’ll “grin like a Creationist in a Missouri school board meeting.” Groom is rife with cool lines like this: snappy action, hilarious dialogue, anachronisms, and weird asides.

This work is a riot, so the call to action is this: buy it, read it, listen to it.

Then buy some of Bensen’s other books.

Also, stay tuned for Wealthgiver!

1. By contrast, Michael Malice’s “The White Pill” (read by the author) was the only book I’ve ever had to slow down.