The Shores of Kansas
Reviewed date: 2026 Feb 20
Rating: 2
220 pages
Time travel
Grant Ryals has a natural ability to travel back in time to the age of dinosaurs. He uses this ability to film and produce a dinosaur documentary called The Shores of Kansas which makes him famous and wealthy besides. It's a fantastic story conceit: Grant can only travel by himself, and he can only take along whatever he can carry. To the past he takes only camera equipment, a bow and arrows, and an axe. From the past he brings back photos and videos, specimens, and occasionally dinosaur eggs or even a few living dinosaurs. Small ones, of course.
Author Robert Chilson gives us some fantastic sequences of Grant tracking a herd of sauropods, filming an attack by carnosaurs, and then watching the sauropods lay eggs on a sandbar, and, later, Grant digging up some eggs to take back with him. We also get a fantastic battle with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The T. Rex is large and stupid, and Grant uses the creature's bulk against it, tiring it out over the course of several days until it expires from exhaustion. But the best sequence is when Grant gets in too close with a gorgosaur and barely escapes with his life.
Management woes
You'd think that the story would be a thrilling tale of survival in the savage age of dinosaurs, but no. It's a gripping tale of corporate governance woes. With the money from his first film, Grant has set up an Institute to disseminate the research data he brings back from the Mesozoic. Grant's real battles are with corporate politics in the Institute. The director, Dr. Adrian, is continually making decisions behind Grant's back: firing critical staff, hiring too many pretty secretaries, increasing the budget for public relations and book publishing while cutting science funding and restricting access to research data. Grant instructs Dr. Adrian to prioritize scientific research, but the changes Dr. Adrian promises never seem to materialize. (I think Grant should have fired Dr. Adrian.) Then there is Mrs. Cane, who is angling to get Dr. Adrian's position and may be actively sabotaging the Institute to make Adrian look bad. Things get so out of control that Grant has—*gasp*—to resort to legal threats to stop a secret Board meeting.
Thrilling stuff, this.
Woman troubles
As if that's not enough, Grant has woman problems. Specifically, his horde of adoring fans. Grant, with his trim physique and his shiny axe and his being-the-only-man-who-has-walked-with-the-dinosaurs is irresistible to women. This seems…unlikely. We're told that Grant is reclusive. His first and most famous film about dinosaurs, The Shores of Kansas, never shows him. It's his footage and he narrates the documentary, which makes him more like Ken Burns than Steve the Crocodile Hunter Irwin, but sure, we're supposed to take it on faith that Grant is the world's most famous and most desirable man.
Fortunately he turns most of these women down. Unfortunately, he only turns most of them down. There's a rich young heiress who invites Grant out on her boat and things progress as one might expect. That's distasteful but not exactly surprising. More concerning is an incident involving Grant with a farmhouse wife and her seventeen-year-old daughter that made me have to look up the age of consent laws in Kansas in the 1970s. As it turns out, that wouldn't have been illegal in 1976 when Robert Chilson published this book. As it turns out, it isn't illegal today. Kansas needs to fix its laws.
Marian Gilmore
Given his problems with women, Grant is not particularly happy that Dr. Adrian has employed another time traveler, Marian Gilmore. Marian is unable to travel as far back as Grant, but Dr. Adrian hopes that with enough training she will be able to join Grant in his trips to the Mesozoic. (This seems to be part of Dr. Adrian's attempts to bring in new revenue streams for the Institute. He has not been happy with Grant's focus on scientific research, and would like to diversify.) Marian asks for Grant's help to develop her time travel abilities, but Grant can't stand her presence, and refuses.
Emotional health
So we've established that this is not the thrilling story of survival, a man alone among the dinosaurs. But at its heart it's not the story of a man fighting corporate politics, either. It's not even really the story of a man fighting off his admirers. It's the story of a man facing his emotional trauma and coming to terms with why he has problems with women: it's the pain from a failed relationship.
Grant had been in love with a young woman named Nona Schiereck, who treated him poorly, and Grant let her go—but emotionally he was still hurt. Now, every time he sees a woman he's reminded of Nona and the painful memories. When Grant finally faces and deals with his emotional pain, he is able to move past it. The book ends with Grant realizing that he is in love with Marian Gilmore. (Fortunately Marian Gilmore loves him too, what with him being irresistible to women and all.) The two of them time-travel back to the Mesozoic together.
My verdict
Oof. No.