I came to this expecting adventure. Dinosaurs, cliffs, something loud and urgent.

And it is that, of course. But what I hadn’t remembered — or perhaps never noticed — is how controlled it all is.

Doyle never lets the story become chaotic, even when it should. The world he builds is impossible, but the way he moves through it is methodical, almost restrained. Every discovery is placed, every escalation measured. It’s less a plunge into the unknown than a guided tour through it.

That control is what makes it work. Without it, the whole thing would collapse into spectacle. With it, the unbelievable becomes something you can follow, step by step, until you almost accept it.

I’ve always thought of imagination as something wild — something that needs to be let loose. But there’s a discipline here I recognise. The sense that you can take something completely unreal and make it convincing, not by pushing harder, but by holding it steady.

That’s harder than it looks.

— G. H. Schreiber

06/04/2026