A Gun for Dinosaur

"A Gun for Dinosaur" is a classic science fiction story written by L. Sprague de Camp as part of his Rivers of Time series. It was first published in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction for March, 1956, and first appeared in book form in the anthology The World That Couldn't Be and 8 Other SF Novelets (Doubleday, 1959). It has since been reprinted in numerous other anthologies, notably The Time Curve (1968), 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1972), Dawn of Time (1979), Science Fiction A to Z (1982), and Dinosaurs! (1990), as well as such collections of de Camp's work as A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales (1963), The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (1978), Rivers of Time (1993), and Years in the Making: the Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp (2005). It has also been translated into German.

Plot summary

The story takes the form of a first-person narrative by the protagonist, time-traveling hunter Reginald Rivers, told to Mr. Seligman, a prospective client of his time safari business; Seligman's contributions to the conversation are omitted, and must be inferred from those of Rivers. Rivers informs the client he is not big enough to hunt the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period, illustrating his point with an extended anecdote from a previous expedition, which forms the main portion of the tale. On the occasion in question, Rivers and his partner Chandra Aiyar conducted two other clients to the past. One, Courtney James, was a vain, arrogant and spoiled playboy; the other, August Holtzinger, was a small, timid man recently come into wealth (time safaris are not cheap). James proves unmanageable, shooting at every creature in sight and spoiling Holtzinger's shots. Ultimately James' foolishness gets him in real trouble, when he inadvertently empties his rifle over a slumbering Tyrannosaurus, which consequently wakes and makes for him. Holtzinger defends James by shooting the dinosaur, but his gun is not of a heavy enough caliber to kill it, and it is only distracted -- towards Holtzinger! Despite the best efforts of Rivers and Aiyar to save Holtzinger, the Tyrannosaurus snaps him up and makes off with him. A furious quarrel with James ensues, he and the guides each blaming the other for their companion's death. James tries to kill Rivers, but is knocked out by Aiyar. Afterwards he swears revenge, and back in the present bribes the scientist operating the time chamber to send him back to the Cretaceous again, but at a point just prior to the emergence of the safari's earlier visit. His plan is to shoot Rivers the moment the latter comes out of the time machine. Since that obviously had not happened, however, the space-time continuum avoids the paradox by spontaneously snapping James back to the present, the forces involved instantly killing him. Rivers then concludes his story, emphasizing Holtzinger's fate to make his point with Seligman.

Continuations

Many years after writing the story, de Camp penned eight more tales of its protagonist, time-traveling hunter Reginald Rivers; all nine stories were then collected as Rivers of Time (1993). A tenth story, "Gun, Not for Dinosaur", authored by Chris Bunch, later appeared in Harry Turtledove's 2005 tribute anthology honoring L. Sprague de Camp, The Enchanter Completed.

Listen to

• A Gun for Dinosaur on X Minus One, NBC radio, 1956

References

• Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller.