★★★☆☆ This what it feels like to do science

The Bone Wars

Erin Evan

Erin Evan is a gifted story-teller, but an inexperienced novelist. In The Bone Wars she has written a good book. It could be better, and I am confident that her future books will be.

The Bone Wars is principally about four paleontologists, grad student Sarah Connell, her PhD advisor Sean Oliphant, her mentor Derek Farnsworth, and teenage intern Molly Wilder. The story is told in the first person by these four characters, but Molly is the central character.

The first thing I loved about The Bone Wars was its feeling of authenticity. Evan is herself a fossil-hunter. Even if no one told you this, you would recognize it. I was captivated by Molly's account of a long day spent lying on her side, working patiently to free a fossil femur from the rock in which it is embedded. If you have ever done research, you will recognize the peculiar combination of tedium and excitement that accompanies most research. I would have called it indescribable, had not Evan described it.

The second thing I loved about The Bone Wars was Molly. I recognized her. Molly is the kind of student every scientist wants to have on the team: intelligent, curious, full of fire and passion, eager to plunge ahead to whatever it takes to reveal truth. Molly will listen to you if you have something valuable to say, but she has no time for your BS.

The Bone Wars suffers from a couple minor faults. 1. Exposition. Readers of The Bone Wars can't help but feel that they are frequently on the receiving end of an infodump. 2. Dr Sean Oliphant. It feels like I have met Oliphant in dozens of other fictionalized descriptions of scientists. He feels like he was taken directly from the Catalog of Stock Fictional Scientist Stereotypes and plugged in here, and he is tiresome. Sean is not a person I would, given virtually any alternative, choose to spend time with. In fact, I think Evan more or less agrees, because toward the end of the book Oliphant's character develops some fire and heart. Unfortunately, the reader has had to endure Tiresome Sean for 80% of the book before he begins to become interesting.

I thank Inkshares and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy. This review expresses my honest opinions.

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AnonymousApril 11, 2023 at 5:13 PM
The critique has made we eager to read this book.
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